WHALE OF TOW

This is actually a picture of our rental car getting towed.  

WHALE OF TOW

"No! Wait! Stop!" I yelled.  

The meter had refused to take my quarters, and upon closer inspection it clearly stated that meter enforcement ended at 4:00.  Without any further detective work, I figured that meant that after 4:00 you could park for free.  

"Lady, read the sign," the tow truck man said pointing half way down the block.  "No parking after 4pm. We clear the road for rush hour."  

Argh.  Welcome naive wanderers.  This land of traffic waits for no dunderheaded tourists.  

"It's $230 for me to release your car.  Cash or credit. And you also got a parking ticket.  That's $170. Just so you know."

We headed home but I couldn't shake my dismay.  My husband is working extra hard to pay for this trip and I just blew $400 bucks on nothing.  I cried my feelings of stupidity and remorse into the phone.  

"It's ok honey" he said sympathetically. "Really.  It's OK."  That was nice.  I felt a little less horrible.

In fact that whopper of a moment brought to a close the less-than-eventful first half of this trip to LA.  After forking over my credit card, signing a few papers and finally heading off on our way, we had no choice but to look at the sunny side of things.

"Thank goodness we caught it just in time" my daughter said.  "What would we have done if they had hauled the car away before we got there?"  We agreed we had something to be thankful for, so we grumbled a little gratitude.

"And we had a really nice day up until that moment" I pointed out.  We had. We'd gone to the La Brea Tar Pits.  It was a pretty darn cool place.  So yea.  That was a good thing too. (Yes, I know I just said "the the tar tar pits.")

Strange, but accentuating the positive started to turn things around.

The next day, the sun was shining and we headed to the beach. For the rest of the week, whatever we did would have to be free so, the beach it was.  We pulled up to a meter, read every single sign within the block six times, and parked.

"You can park for free across the street" a friendly man said, pointing.  "People don't pay attention, but I park there every day for hours."  

Wow!  Free!  And a nice man too.  Turns out, he's from Glencoe, the town right next to ours back home in Illinois.  We chatted and laughed with him for almost an hour.  Nothing like unexpected kindness from a stranger to make your day happy.

More positive stuff later in the day when some auditions came in, a wonderfully supportive friend arranged a meeting for Alina with a casting director, and another call came in for an opportunity for Alina to be an extra on a show, though she wasn't able to accept that one.

Yes indeedy, things might be turning around as long as we keep our sunny sides up and stay clear of parking meters at rush hour.

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