I see an Amtrak bus headed south and board it. I hand the driver my ticket which I already have but still need to pay for and ask how much it would be. Could I pay her and if not where was the ticket window? The driver speaks to me Spanish I can’t understand. “¿Qué?” I ask. And she motions me on without paying. The bus is crowded with people and the aisle is narrow. Only one person can get through at a time and that is walking sideways. The chairs are wide and roomy though, so I decide that must be the reason. A little boy pushes my belly in and squeezes by. At first I sit next to an academic with a stack of old hardcover books next to him. I have to move the books over a bit. Then I get up and go to the very back of the bus to a history exhibit of two seats from a space capsule. They have the names of the astronauts John and Adam in uppercase block letters on them. I try to take some pictures with my phone, but I’m checking now and they’re not there.
It's been so windy here the last few days. We haven't had a beach day since July. We leave the umbrella at home and go to Sandy Beach. The waves are choppy and constant and filled with seaweed that covers us. We pick it off and and another foamy wave hits and covers us again. The sky is tagged with the silhouettes of birds seemingly sitting in place as the air and summer and tide below drift away.
How effortlessly we forget the Spanish word for moth.
The bed was comfortable. The service was friendly. The room was clean. There were no unpleasant smells. We enjoyed being in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. We walked and drove and drove some more and then walked some more. But never very far. At night we unwound while sipping pinot noir in the poolside garden. Accompanied by lounge music and locals talking about their bands and auditions, and Germans smoking fat cigars and talking about who knows what, we dipped our tired feet into the warm waters of the jacuzzi and confided in one another the details of endured medical procedures requiring catheters.
Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers in Los Angeles is closed to the public on Wednesdays.
Where did I get the idea that we’d be the only people at Griffith Observatory? I thought we’d practically have the place to ourselves save maybe for some teenagers with switchblades and pompadours. And if we got there early enough in the day and there was still sunlight, we could take pictures of each other in front of a telescope dome with the Los Angeles skyline in the background before hurrying to get another shot with the Hollywood sign before we lost the light entirely.
Sometime before we left, we’d sit on a bench and on our phones find scenes from movies and television shows the observatory has appeared in.
It turns out that in addition to the sweeping views and swell WPA architecture, Griffith Observatory is a very popular tourist destination. It reminded me of the crowds at the Louvre if everyone at the Louvre arrived in a sedan and got angry and started honking because they couldn’t find parking near the Mona Lisa.
Saturday night on the way home from dinner, I asked Hiram to pull over and park under the tree where on New Year’s Day, 2007 we first kissed. I offered Hiram a mango I had hidden in the glove compartment. Neither one of us cares much for jewelry, certainly not enough to keep in the glove compartment, which is to say: Rings weren’t ever a consideration. We took each others’ hands and I asked him to marry me. He said yes. The next day we went west. Along the way our mango was confiscated at the Arizona-California border. Nonetheless, on Monday we were married in a civil ceremony on the lawn of the San Diego County Administration building.
It was a fine day for body surfing and fending off capitalist ruffians who mistake us for the sort of people who buy crap with sports team logos.
How effortlessly we forget the Spanish word for mud flaps.
That really long German word describing the overwhelming angst one feels when it’s way past time to trim the toenails.
(Thanks, PK)
Did Mexico win or did Mexico just not lose? I’m confused.
In Mexico, supermarket grocery baggers are usually elementary school age kids or senior citizens—all working for just tips. Unless you buy a lot of groceries, you hand them whatever coins are in your change. It takes some getting used to at first and when you forget or pay with a card and find yourself with no change it’s awkward. Yesterday at a Whole Foods in Tucson I instinctively started to give the twenty-something man who bagged my greens and almond milk a tip of thirty-seven cents.
So I suppose I’m getting used to it.
