Putting Out the Fire with Gasoline?

Last night, I ventured out in the biblical rain that has lasted fourteen, now fifteen, days to go to a book signing by columnist Robert Scheer which was at the local Unitarian Church, three miles away.

Granted, I've scrupulously avoided Ygnacio Valley Blvd., a thoroughfare that makes Madison Avenue, and any major one-way street in downtown Los Angeles, look like a day in the park, but there was no choice. If one wants to go to that church, one must take Ygnacio Blvd.

So, here I go in the pouring rain, the kind of rain that gets one's socks soaked, and everything is running smoothly until I get up Walnut Blvd. which sounds like a quaint little street, but is about as quaint as any major sidestreet in Manhattan. And, appropriately, David Bowie's "I've been putting out the fire with gasoline" on the radio.

At every stop sign, there was a cougar in the car behind me waiting to pounce---here on a dark, rainy street, no less, and when I finally found my way back to the intersection, after deciding to give it up and go home, the car behind me blew his horn several times, and with such dedication, that he forced me into Ygnacio Blvd. oncoming traffic. I'm sure he jerked off several times, when he got home, thinking about that.

Being evil seems to be everybody's favorite pasttime around here. It looks like writing for the Walnut Creek visitor's bureau isn't in the cards for me, either.

To say I got lost is a profound understatement.

One doesn't need a church to live here; one needs a strong sedative.