BLOG BELLA

Cooped Up Kids in Los Angeles

// December 3rd, 2009 // 26 Comments » // I Love LA., LA Done Me Wrong

In my apartment in Koreatown, the kids who live above us make a ton of racket leaping from their beds onto our ceiling like Kangaroos.  That’s what it sounds like, anyway.  Actually it sounds more like hippos or elephants.  There’s running, jumping, leaping, skipping.  The noise bothers the crap out of my other housemates.  Not me.  I say run, jump and leap free!  There is no yard whatsoever for those unfortunate Los Angeles children.

Last night, coming home from work, I saw an adorable little Korean-American girl rollerblading around our parking lot.  I was unloading bag after bag of groceries, carrying them up the flights of stairs.  The girl rollerbladed up to me in her cute little skirt and leggings and asked if I needed help.  Heartbreaking it is that she and many other Los Angeles kids don’t have land to run around in.  Even the outdoor areas of the schools I’ve seen in Los Angeles are paved or have a rather tiny area of greenery.  I suppose that’s the price the kids pay to have parents who want to live in Los Angeles.

In Brazil, my dad always made sure we had a huge yard where we could play in, dig in, climb trees in, splash around in the rain in, play with our animals, and plant in.  Later on as a grownup in Florida before I left to move out here I was living in an apartment complex with tons of rolling greenery, lawns to walk in, with a huge lake across the street.  Even the lower income residences in Florida have yards and lawns.

So I say leap away, kids, leap onto all the ceilings of all the Los Angeles apartments.  I’ll just play music or put in my earphones.  Or maybe your parents will wisen up and we can all go to one of the local hiking parks and run around like elephants.

No-Bel Laureate (my only blog NOT really about LA)

// November 22nd, 2009 // 10 Comments » // LA Done Me Wrong

I’ve never won a Nobel Prize.  Or received an honorary degree.  I find honorary degrees to be insulting, quite frankly.  “Ok, we know you’d never bother to get a degree from our school so how about we just print you up a piece of paper that says you have a degree! 

Obama:  “What are you implying that I’m too stupid to earn the degree myself?”

College:  “Of course not.”

Obama:  “Well I should hope not because I’ll have you know that I’ve already got a degree from Columbia University and Harvard Law School where I was in fact the first African American President of the Harvard Law Review.  I’ve been the Senator of Illinois and as I‘m sure you’re aware that I am now President of your country.  I don’t think I need your piddly little honorary degree to validate myself.  Give it to someone who could get some use from it.” 

College:  “Then we can brag about the fact that you, Mr. First Black President of the United States have a degree from our college and then YOU can brag about how you have a degree from our college.  Think about it!!”

It’s just plain old retarded.  I myself actually got the student loans, and am making good use of my bachelor’s degree, sitting here writing a brilliant blog even as I type.

Actually, I’ve gotta go write an honorary rent check to my landlady!  I’m sure she’ll put it on the wall next to her honorary marriage license.

Parking Sucks

// November 22nd, 2009 // 3 Comments » // LA Done Me Wrong

“Parking sucks in LA!!!!” is an understatement.  I recently got my car towed in Los Angeles and what a delight that was!  No sucking there.  Thursday night I drove around my friend’s block three times to finally find a space on Sunset Boulevard that read “Anti-Gridlock Zone, No parking 4am-7am, 4pm-7pm Monday through Friday.”  It also had another sign that read “2 hour parking 9am-8pm daily.”  Now, for some reason in my tired of driving around exhausted head I thought it was Friday and hence tomorrow would be Saturday and I could then park till 9am the next morning. 

Well, was I tragically wrong.  The next day I walked out of my friend’s apartment at 8:45am and approached Sunset Boulevard right where the library is near La Brea.  Sadly, my car had vanished.  I called 311, the number on the sign and was on hold then talked to two different people, one who actually gave me the number to the towing place.  So I called them and found out I could pay $240 to retrieve my car.  I wanted to cry.  So I did.  I sat on the sidewalk near the library and cried like a baby.  I called my friend Nova in Colorado to tell her the tragic story.  Some old Armenian man stopped by the library to drop off his books, staring at my tear-wet face.  I don’t blame him.

So I then, delightfully I went to pickup my car.  I walked the mile or so to Highland and Santa Monica.  I asked the lady if there was any way I could pay less.  Looking at my smudged face she had some compassion on me and dropped the $33 per day fee which was really awesome of her.  My car had only been there for less than two hours anyway.  So I paid $207 on my debit card, my heart sinking into my feet. 

I was led upstairs to retrieve my motor-vehicle and I had a ticket on my windshield for $148!  For Christ’s sake, they already got the towing fee which is $100 that goes to the City of Los Angeles!  Obviously it’s not enough for the City of Los Angeles to knock you down.  They wanna kick you while you’re lying on the ground.  I cried all the way down La Brea Blvd.  Anyway, I’ll never make that $355 mistake again.  Hopefully you’ll never make it.  Boo on LA.

Traffic Smaffic Tickets!

// November 22nd, 2009 // 2 Comments » // LA Done Me Wrong

In my infinite wisdom I didn’t take care of my traffic ticket within 45 days.  It was $25 which balLOONED into EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS, twenty days late.  Yep, it went up 3,244% which taught me a two part-lesson I’m about to share with you.  One in procrastination and naivete and another in government retardation. 

At 2:15pm on a random Tuesday afternoon in LA I happened to be headed south on La Cienega, idling at a red light.  I heard a voice as if from the heavens saying “Please pull over to your right.”  I turned my head right to see a police officer on a bicycle poking his helmeted head into my rolled down passenger window.  Knowing I hadn’t broken traffic any laws I wasn’t too concerned.  I was absolutely positively sure I hadn’t broken any traffic laws because I had recently begun driving like a safe old grandmother since, upon evaluating my finances realized I didn’t want to pay for the addditional insurance that would cover my vehicle if I happened to be the driver at fault.  It was an extra $60 per month for my car which is OLD anyway (1998 VW Beetle).  A friend of mine in the same insurance predicament had just totalled her car and now had no money and no car not to mention future astronomical insurance rates.  Taking a cue from her precautionary tale, I’d become a safe, safe driver. 

I pulled over to the side of the road.  Unbeknownst to myself my brake lights were not working.  “Broken brake lights are a hazard to other drivers who won’t know when you’re braking.  They could cause an accident.”  The officer wrote me a Traffic Notice to Appear whereby I had 45 days to have the lights repaired and take the repair receipt to the California Highway Patrol to have it verified.  At that time I would pay a $25 Proof of Correction fee.  As you may surmise, I did NOT do that.

Here comes the lesson in procrastination and naivete.  I naively procrastinated in getting the repair thinking “Oh, if it’s a few days late, it’ll go up to about $80.  I‘ll just wait till I have time to get the repair.”  Paying $80 to Uncle Sam because of dysfunctional brake lights of course would suck but would be my punishment for procrastinating.  It took 65 days after the ticket date (that’s 20 days late) for me to get around to calling, credit card in hand.  WELL, I found out via the automated system its was now up to EIGHT HUNDRED and ELEVEN dollars!  I figured that had to be a mistake until I checked my mailbox later that day and opened a letter confirming that it was no mistake.

Forced to waste my day taking care of this retarded issue I took a bus to the courthouse, since, get THIS:  I also had a HOLD on my driver’s license.  I finally got to the courthouse, spent an hour in line to be given a court date to request the judge to knock down the $811, paid $10 to get the hold off my driver’s license and walked a mile down the road to the California Highway Patrol to have them verify the repair receipt and stamp the ticket.  “We have to see your vehicle!”  What!  “You mean you can’t just do it with the repair receipt?”  Apparently not.  SO, I went all the way home, drove my car back to the CHP and guess what?  I happened to get a different guy who took my repair receipt, took a second to look at it and stamped it, never once asking to inspect my car.  I drove my car all the way there for nothing!  HOW RETARDED. 

So the first part of the lesson I learned is to not naively procrastinate on tickets or a $25 fee can turn into an $811 fine, blistered feet, a hold on my Driver’s License, two trips to the CHP, a court date, and an abundance of inner turmoil.

The second part of the lesson is that absurdly RETARDED government policies and broken tail light cases clog the courts and waste our tax dollars while simultaneously stealing money from citizens.  That one’s more of a statement then a lesson.

I can’t end this blog on a downer, though and there is indeed a light at the end of the tunnel.  In four months if I want a free place to live, free stale food to eat while I make small talk with Seraphina, the Melrose and Highland hooker, laugh with druggies or maybe even fellow traffic citation evaders in County jail, all I have to do is not show up to my court date: “If you fail to appear in court as you have promised you may be arrested and punished by up to 6 months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.” 

LA is land of the free to go to jail, home of the brave enough to fight to stay out of it.