we drove down to LA last night and are housesitting twiddle thumbs's parents house, including the lovable dog pongo. this place is ghetto. let me demonstrate with visuals. it's not that ghetto as there are no bars on the window, but you'll see what i mean.

first of all, you know it's a bad neighborhood if they haven't outlawed fireworks--they don't care if the poor burn

the neighborhood also has programs to help curb graffiti, such as decorating walls with trees

the front yard has water bottles to deter cats (suburb thing? or LA thing?) AND the railing is held in by a screwdriver pounded to the ground

2 doors to keep out the boogeyman, 1 regular and 1 barred

bizarre beyond kitsch artwork decorating both inside and outside the home

keys belong next to the door so you can unlock yourself out of the house

there's not much to watch--no cable tv, just antenna

only 1 phone jack works in the house, so you re-route it to every room in the house

the electrical outlets are 2-prong, not 3-prong, and you have to cover up some outlets so as not to blow a fuse

the light switch's knob is lost and you couldn't be bothered to buy a replacement

who needs a closet door when you could just tarp it?

jesus watches over the cupboard

jesus watches over the kitchen appliances, such as phone and radio

jesus watches over the marionette

you used to keep holy water in the house, but now the container holds a fake flower?

the oven is used for storage

the bathroom has a built-in kleenex holder like a motel, but no kleenex

the bathtub doesn't drain

the dog sleeps in a cat bed

what's not in the photo is that there is a washer, but no dryer, so the clothes are hung in the garage.

alright, enough photos! now about my day. first, we went to twiddle thumbs's uncle's auto shop and he worked on my brakes--it's very important to have good brakes in LA or else you will end up in a horrid 64-car freeway pileup. the shop is also in the ghetto, as it is built on top of old unused train tracks, but the working train tracks are just a few feet away.

my car on the rack

while at the shop, the train passed by

then we wandered about LA by street, not freeway, so we wasted a lot of time. if you drive a little bit past the mexican ghetto, you end up in the chinese/vietnamese ghetto. we did some shopping at a huge chinese grocery store called hawaii supermarket. then we ate at a vegetarian chinese food place called vegetarian wok. it was super cheap and the service was lousy, probably because we were the only non-chinese in the place. the waitress blatantly ignored us. then we drove to pasadena to try on clothes at ross 'cos we had gift certificates. we were also going to shop at a health food store but the car was ready so we had to get going. after getting the car, we decided we really need to go back to pasadena for some food or else we'd be fucked for the weekend. after that, we went back to azusa to costco for gas and shampoo/conditioner. we also went to the wal-mart close by to shop for presents for a party we had to attend later on.

trying to make dinner later on that night, i discovered that the stove doesn't work. now, it's been years since i lived with a gas stove, but not years since i've used one. i think the pilot light was out but i couldn't find it and by then the kitchen was so full of gas i decided to use the microwave lest we blow up. then we wrapped the presents and showered. by the time we finally left for the party, it was pretty late, around 9pm. i was really out of place there. almost everyone was speaking spanish and it was so full of relatives from all over the place that even twiddle thumbs's cousin who lives there in that house said he didn't know half of the people. we couldn't eat anything there, which is why we made sure to eat before we got there. the dj was way too loud. we hung out for awhile but we were tired and went home at about 11pm.