I made a mistake on Tuesday.

I went to OSH for supplies – a rosemary bush, some stripper (for the cabinets, you perv), a tube of epoxy, and a pitchfork.

I walked out with a tulip, some stripper (still for the cabinets – what is wrong with some people?), a tube of epoxy and, yes, a pitchfork.

Going to OSH was not the mistake.

Going to OSH at 4:30 on a weekday – that was the mistake.

The drive there was fine, but coming home? Yeesh.

I got so fed up with the traffic on Bundy that I turned off, planning to take Pico to 23rd and come home past Santa Monica Airport.

Never, ever take 23rd past the airport during rush hour.

A couple of miles north of the airport, I posted this to Twitter.

(Before you chastise me for tweeting while driving – I wasn’t driving. I was sitting through two light changes, in the middle of a blocks-long tailback, waiting for the cars in front of me to move. They finally did – after the light turned red for the third time.)

Some time later, I made it home with my pitchfork. (And my tulip, and my epoxy, and my stripper. Which is still for the cabinets.)

And NovySan said that we just don’t use pitchforks often enough in this modern world.

He had an idea for how we could change that, though.

Not by pitchforking people in traffic, but by escorting trick-or-treating groups armed with pitchforks and torches.

Imagine it – a cluster of princesses, mutants and monsters, flanked by a sizeable group of (possibly tipsy) adults waving the implements of B-movie riots proudly aloft.

Halloween may never be the same.

Tags: In Which I Am Stuck in Traffic and NovySan Has a Marvelous Idea, NovySan

When I drove up the 405 this morning, the clouds had parted and patterns of light and shade danced across the asphalt and the hills. I merged onto the freeway, fought my way clear of the 405-10 interchange, and looked up to see the Getty, gleaming white in a pool of sunlight.

This, I realized, is one of the reasons that I love the rain. When it passes, the air is clean, and the light shines from the towering clouds and the wet streets. It leaves the sky a rare and special shade of blue. And here, in a desert that’s suffered years of drought, the earth drinks so deep that the cacti look out of place against the brilliant green that surrounds them.

There are a lot of pictures of the destruction these storms have brought – the beach erosion and mudslides – but the image I’ll cherish is that white citadel basking in the sun, set off like a jewel against emerald velvet. I passed under a bridge, and when I emerged, the clouds had shifted and the vision was gone. I’m writing it down so I never forget.

Tags: In Which I Wax a Bit Poetical, Rain, The Getty

Today, I saw a woman with a banana in her ear.

If you’re at familiar with the Westside, you’d be excused for thinking I saw her at the corner of 22nd and Pico (where, sadly, a young man was shot and killed a few days ago).

But no, this was another Westside nexus of odd – the Whole Foods at the corner of Lincoln and Rose.

Flanked by a laundromat and a 99 Cent Store, Whole Foods Venice is protected from the bustle and roar of Lincoln Boulevard by the gasoline and stale grease fumes of Thoma’s and the Arco station. In between these establishments lurks one of the few working payphones left in LA.

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And that, of course, is where I saw her. Young and blonde, with the glossy black phone held against one ear, and a half-eaten banana pressed to the other.

I wonder who she was talking to?

Tags: Banana Phone, I Had a Camera This Time But I Couldn't Get the Picture Fast Enough, Photos and the Lack Thereof, Venice