Shopping Carts Change Lives

The other night I was heading to Trader Joe's to pick up a few things.  Parked out in front of the store was the shopping cart repo man truck.  This guy has the unenviable task of driving around and corralling wayward carts from all over and then returning them to their rightful homes.  That there is a person (actually lots of well organized people) who make this job their livelihood speaks to the cart culture that exists in LA.  There are a LOT of homeless folks and shopping carts are a useful way to store and move stuff, so they're in demand.  Trouble is, stealing them from the stores is illegal of course.  So periodically, the carts are rounded up and the belongings dumped out.  This is actually pretty shitty for the homeless who just need a way to contain and mobilize their stuff.  There've been lots of press about this over the years.

When I was working for Friends, I learned about the availability of legal shopping carts from Catholic Worker.  The article here is old, but the practice still continues.  I learned about this from my co-worker who was the prevention case manager.  He was telling me that he had succeeded in getting one of these carts for a client.  I teared up a little thinking about the impact that something as simple as this would make on this guy's life, particularly with respect to helping him manage his HIV.  It was really something.  My co-worker shared this really awesome quiet moment, each of us appreciating how huge this was and acknowledging that it might not seem like it to most folks.  It was a sweet, shared, wordless couple of seconds of just being together, but it was so huge.

Valet of the Dolls

This is a real company, and a great play on words although a bit of a non-sequitor since there's really no connection to the film, just hot girls parking your car. I learned about them one night; they'd been hired to valet for an event that was happening at the Jim Henson studios, which is right across the street from work. The other night my co-worker was certain he'd seen Jennifer Hudson go in for a party or something.

Incidentally, I got a brief tour of the place last year when my new work computer was accidentally delivered to their address. The cute receptionist, Matt, was kind enough to show me around a little. I saw lots of Emmy statues and a life-size Skeksi, among other things.


We were really hitting it off, Matt and I, and I started to imagine myself hobnobbing with the Henson family, maybe getting a part time job, moving my way up the ladder, etc. when I mentioned that I grew up watching the Muppet Show and really loved the muppets. There was a silence. Matt said, icily, "We sold that property to Disney." More silence. Flirting: fail. Foot in the door: fail. Fail. I grabbed my computer, lugged it across the street, and never looked back. "That property", like it couldn't be spoken of. I guess I'd be bitter too.

Anyway, whether it's hot ladies doing it or not, after a while of living in LA, you willingly valet your car practically anywhere (movie theater, mall, etc.) and don't think twice about paying for parking. It's just the norm, and in the city, for as huge and sprawling as it is, it can be tough to find parking (justification alert). Admittedly, we Angelinos, after a while, just start to accept less walking. Walking, rather than being integrated into daily life (as in DC after I sold my car, and particularly after Jason's car was stolen), becomes an event. You go hiking in Runyan Canyon or you go to the gym to walk. But walking more than a block from the car to the restaurant? Screw that nuisance! There's a valet. (and the blocks here are pretty big [justification alert #2]). Now I try to walk only for its own sake, never as a means to an end, and only at designated times.

I remember in DC thinking that places where you could valet were really fancy and that only the elites did that. Here, I recently noticed in Pasadena, you can valet at the Container Store. No shit. The Container Store.

Celebrity sightings

Just a quick post to recall some of our celebrity sightings and where they happened. I mention where because I find the context interesting. Like, I live here and so do they (mostly in the valley, right?) and we're all just going about our business. Sometimes a celebrity is in context (think, "sceney" restaurant or on Robertson Blvd. (trendy shopping), other times, more out of context, just doing their thing, just like me. There's something about that I find intriguing, though clearly not enough to be very eloquent about it. Anyway...

In no particular order, well except the first.

• Fabio. Hands down my favorite sighting ever. My cousin and a friend were visiting and we were all doing some obligatory sightseeing of fancy houses in Beverly Hills (which largely means looking at super tall bushes and fancy gates), four of us in the car. We pulled up to a stop sign in the residential area and a red convertible sports car of some kind (I won't even hazard a guess what model, it's such a cliche) pulled up beside us, stopped for just a second and then sped off, like pedal to the metal sped off, needlessly so. Very showy. All at once, but after a pause, all four of us in the car chimed, "that was Fabio!" It was awesome. He was kind of leathery and orange.
• Tony Hale (Buster from Arrested Development) at the Trader Joe's down the street. Twice.
  
• Michael Cera walking down Hyperion (with stereotypical backpack) while I was enjoying Huevos Rancheros at the Burrito King.
• Jessica Alba at Loteria Grill in Hollywood. She was essentially sitting right next to us and we didn't realize it until she left and flash bulbs were going off outside the window. The waiter told us.
• Darryl Stephens, that guy from Noah's Arc, at AOC on 3rd. Not shocking since it's kind of a scene. But the food is amazing.
  
• The other Hilton sister on Robertson Blvd. (which was a block from our WeHo apartment) at some retail clothing store opening. Remembered: Nikki.
  
• Tori Spelling on Robertson Blvd., obviously shopping. It was clearly staged, for her show or something.
• Jack Nicholson, also on Robertson. Had a small entourage.
  
• Victor Garber at the ArcLight Cinema in Hollywood. I forget what we were seeing.
  
• Calpernia Addams at the "Whatever Happened to Busty Jane" show at the Celebration Theatre at Casita del Campo in Silver Lake. She sat right in front of us. I bought her a margarita.
• Scott Bakula at the Donut Prince on Olive in Burbank. Amazing donuts, btw.
• Mary Lynn Rajskub at Travel Town (which was featured on an episode [season 4, episode 8] of Six Feet Under, remember? Nate and Brenda take Maya there). She was riding on the kiddie train a few cars back with her kids.
• Adam Goldberg, walking down the street mid-city.
• Bruce Vilanch, drove behind me in his cherry red PT Cruiser on Fountain all the way from Silver Lake to Hollywood. Wasn't it Bette Davis who famously said, of navigating LA traffic, "Just take Fountain." She's right.
  
• This shouldn't count, because the celebs were arriving to re-record "We Are the World" but I work right across from the Jim Henson Company (former site of A&M Studios, and Chaplain Studios [hence Kermit dressed as the Tramp in the statue on the roof]) and thus saw a ton of different folks arriving: Brandy, Celine, Snoop Dog (drove himself), and others who slip my mind at present.
• There are others I'm forgetting. I assume I see more celebrities than I recognize if that makes sense. The mind plays tricks. Sometimes it's hard to know. Some days everyone's a celebrity; other days, a famous person probably bags your groceries. Confusing.