I’m Back

I’ve made it back to the northern part of the great state of California. I am ever so happy to be back. The southern part of the state has traffic that makes me what to kill people. This is an unfortunate way to spend a few days. I did get to see some old friends though, which made the traffic worth it. The fact that I actually endured the traffic to go see them is a really good indication of how much I actually like them. There are not many people on the planet that would be worth tackling the 405 freeway. You know what else makes LA worth it? Chin Chin. The Chinese-y restaurant that only exists in LA and Los Vegas. It’s Chinese food in the way that Taco Bell is Mexican food. And that way is awesome. I wonder if carrying 15 pounds of chinese chicken salad on a plane would set off any security alarms. It might be worth testing out.

The script I went down to La La Land to write is coming along nicely. I need to get it done by the end of this week, so I imagine it will be coming along even nicely-er towards the end of this week. I signed a confidentiality thingy, so I can’t tell you what the movie is about, but god I hope it actually gets made so that you can all watch it. It is RAN-dom. It always entertains me how every person in LA has a movie idea. And every 20th person actually has a little money to try to shoot their movie idea. In other cities people look into things like investments, maybe real estate. In LA if you have some extra cash you make a movie. It’s just what you do. Ha.

In the Not All People Are Complete Asses Department today I have a great story that will warm your heart. When I arrived at the airport there was a huge group of people waiting in the welcome area holding a sign the said, “Welcome Home”. I didn’t recognize any of the people so I figured they might be there to greet someone else besides me. Whatever. As I looked around the group it was pretty obvious that the large group was waiting for their soldiers to come down that escalator. One little girl was holding a sign that said, “Welcome Home Daddy.” I just about died right there. I grabbed my camera out of my pocket to take a picture of this scene but could never quite get a shot that didn’t involve me blatantly standing in front of the group, making their moment into a photo op, so I just put the camera in my back pocket on the off-chance that the group of soldiers came in while I was there. Then I realized that that was inappropriate and so I moved on to my cab and went home.

Cut to yesterday when I realized that my purse (where my camera usually resides) was unusually light. I looked in the purse and noticed my camera was gone. I did a quick mental timeline of the last time I’d seen the camera. Crap. It must have fallen out of my back pocket in the cab. (Coincidently these are the same pants that my Blackberry fell out of before it splashed into the damn toilet. Perhaps the back pocket of these pants is not the safest of storage compartments for my electronics, ya think?) I was none too happy that I’d lost my camera, but I moved on and figured I’d get a new one later this week.

Then today when I was paying for some food I remembered that the nice Cab Man had given me a receipt for my cab fare. On that receipt was his number. I called the number and asked Cab Man if perhaps he had found a camera in his cab, “Yes, yes, your camera, I have here. I wanted to bring to you, but you live in big complex and I didn’t drop you off at your door, so I do not know where you live. I have it here.” How awesome is that? And even more awesome is the fact that the next person in the cab after me is the one who actually found the camera and they are the one that gave it to Cab Man. Two people could have stolen my camera and two people decided to give it back to me. Awwww. People aren’t all complete asses! Yay people!

I had to pick the roommate up at the airport tonight, so I went by Cab Man’s Cab Area at the airport and he gave me the camera. And I gave him a hug. I think we were both surprised by that. I’m not a big hugger on the whole, but I was so touched that this man had been so kind. It was an awkward hug in which Cab Man thought I was going to shake his hand and then realized I was going to hug him and then didn’t really know how to hug me and almost hit me with his forehead. It was a great hug. And totally reminded me that there are some nice people out there.

Oh and Welcome Home Soldiers. If you didn’t already have so many waiting for you, I would have given you a hug too.