Adventures in Photography!

This morning, we were surfing the Facebook on our phones, as we do every morning before getting out of bed, and Stina saw a friend of ours from New York say a thing about Los Angeles. Being the people we are, we were all like "OMG LOL R U N LA? US 2!". Being the sober adult our friend is, he responded with a phone call. Sooooo last century.
As it happens, he needed someone to take pictures of some cargoes he was thinking of purchasing (he works for a company that does that; he's not an eccentric millionaire, but if anyone was going to be one, I can imagine him as one very well). He hadn't found a photographer via his usual routes yet, and was I interested in doing the work? I was. And this is my story.

I headed out at quarter to noon, because he said everyone was on lunch breaks from 11AM until 1PM. I bought some batteries up the street from Unicorn Jesus.



I caught the Red Line to the Blue Line (and went past the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Shopping Center "I have a dream... of convenient shopping at affordable prices!" (credit to Adam Sauer)) and got out at Del Amo Station, where I saw this sign:


I was At Del Amo and Santa Fe. Remember that. It makes later funny/sad. I ran to the 192 bus, which had just arrived. Showing her my $6.00 Day Pass, I asked if she went to my stop. She did, but my Day Pass was no good to her. I need a $0.35 transfer from the subway. Could I pay her $0.35? No. I could pay her $1.25. I ran back to the subway, helped a possibly blind man buy his ticket to Los Angeles, bought my $0.35 transfer, and ran back to the bus. She took the transfer from me. (Sidenote: my friend and employer paid for all my transportation expenses, so yay!)
I rode that bus for 5 blocks. Then my stop arrived. Los Angeles seriously needs a new Metro trip planner.
Los Angeles (the city of Long Beach, really, but come on, it's Los Angeles) also seriously needs useful sidewalks. I crossed the road to my destination and walked on the vine-age they had in lieu of a sidewalk. Entering where the trucks would because I saw no other place to enter, a security guard directed me to the office where I found my contact on her lunch break. I waited. "I'm looking for the peanut brittle," (peanut brittle is code for what I was really looking for. It's all very spy movie.) I told her when she came to me. "He'll show you where it is," she responded. And he did. He showed me to 50 barrels. They had markings on them, which I took pictures of. They were...barrels. They could have had kittens inside them or the archangel Michael and his cronies. But I assume they had peanut brittle in them. Then I called my friend/employer to ascertain if I had what he wanted. He asked me to ask for paperwork explaining why the barrels said they came from one place when the ad he had said they came from another place. She went to find out. She came back to tell me these were not the barrels I was looking for. They had multiple shipments of peanut brittle. She told me where I could find this other peanut brittle, at a different warehouse. "I'm walking," I said. "Is it far?" She looked taken aback. I swear, there are plenty of people in L.A. who don't have cars and get around using public transit, but the ones who don't can't comprehend it. "I'll see if I can find someone to drive you."
She found the man who had shown me the earlier boxes. I felt like I was on the road again. An adventure and I was hitching a ride! This ride lived in long beach and liked it in the summer and had an ear infection. I answered all his personal questions, but was evasive when he asked about my employer... according to him (and I may be exaggerating for emphasis) evil supervillains win if they can guess who is buying what. We arrived at what were presumably the correct barrels. I took more pictures of kitten-containing barrels, and I bid adieu to my ride. I stepped out the gate of this new place. I had directions from my old place to my next place, not from this place. So I asked the man putting dirt in a hole with a shovel. He didn't know, but his buddy might. They yelled across the street in Spanish. I thought the word that was supposed to be my street sounded like a different word, but chalked it up to my Sesame Street Spanish. I walked the direction the man told me...past the Del Amo Subway Station. The distance she thought was too far for me to walk? 5 blocks. But I'm not complaining, there's plenty of walking ahead. I walked that way for half a block. Why half a block? Because the sidewalk ended in the middle of the block. I shrugged off the impression that I was part of an absurdist theatre piece, and walked jay. I walked past that sign again, the one about the kiss and ride, to Del Amo and Susana. I doubted the directions I'd been given, and went on the Kindle in my backpack to double check. Indeed, I was walking towards not my street. I retraced my steps and found the correct street. No problem, still an hour and a half until the warehouses close. I reach my destination. "I'm looking for a lot of toenail clippers." I say to the receptionist (again, not really toenail clippers). "Are you looking for Awesome Delivery Service?" (also not real) "Yes, yes, I believe I am." "They moved." Oh. "Are they far? Can I walk there?" "You should take a car." "I don't have a car, can I walk there?" "Yes" I follow her directions to...Del Amo and Susana. 3 miles round trip from point A to point B and back.
So get this, I'm walking up Susana, and suddenly: No sidewalk! Okay. I clamber over some bushes and get this: A crosswalk! If I were coming from the other direction, I would have crossed the crosswalk, and come to a terminal point. No sidewalk leading away from the crosswalk in any direction. Who designed this thing? What do people think pedestrians want? Pedestrians want sidewalks! Not just anywhere, we want USEFUL sidewalks.
Seriously.
I go to the warehouse. They send me to the office. They send me to the warehouse. I take pictures of toenail clippers. There are no customs officials present. I come home.