There are days when I consider dumping every modern convenience and cocooning in my apartment until the day I kick the bucket.
Today was one such day.
I was actually looking forward to meeting a friend at Saks on Wilshire in Beverly Hills. A bit after Christmas we stopped in to the makeup counter where she conferred with the boutique staffer and was told to put January 8 on her calendar when there would be a surfeit of sales. That afternoon had been lovely. People were still out of town, and we had a lovely impromptu lunch at the Beverly Wilshire and wandered about, including at Saks.
So, today I actually had my credit card with me and was anticipating advice on what new makeup I should buy.
I got to Beverly Hills well before the time I was to meet with my friend. There are an abundance of public parking lots. There was no space in any, and lines of cars waiting for the random customer to leave. I went to several and could see the lines on others. I went into the side streets of the surrounding neighborhood. Not to my surprise, every block had restrictions of one sort or another.
And around and around. Honking traffic abounding. Trying to avoid cursing violently.
Denise, my friend, told me the last time we had a successful outing that a visit to Beverly Hills always cheered her up. I even agreed. It is nice to mingle in the realms of the rich and self-proclaimed famous. It's nice to pretend that you are not solidly middle class and that you can actually afford a 35 dollar lunch every day. And a two hundred dollar moisturizer.
Not one street moved quickly, and given the one way streets, that meant 20 minutes just to go around the block.
I then tried to call Denise on her cell. It dialed and said "talking" on my car console, but the line seemed open and no one there. I tried four times while going blocks out of my way looking for a space that didn't say, "no parking anytime" or a combination of glyphs that required the Rosetta Stone to decipher before someone honked you to get out of the way.
We think of ourselves as so civilized. Maybe I'm just pissed off about the barbarism of Islamists in Paris that we are not allowed to say are trying to kill everyone who isn't a follower of the prophet. Maybe I am just pissed off because my spell checker here won't let me writer, "pissed" instead of "passed". I just went back for the second or third time to change it to what I intended, not to what the machine insists. Everyone is telling us how to be and where to be and when to be.
ENOUGH!
We are devolving as a society and we are all the Emperors with No Clothes as we go down the drain.
The best I could do today was to hie myself home, get the car in the garage and run to my near by Wokcano for a lunch and a hearty glass of wine. And then, to where I am right now, on my terrace, with a second glass of wine, and a big white cat on my lap, making it difficult for me to write this vent.
Here's a theological problem for me. I am exhorted to love my fellow man and woman as I seek to love Christ, because Christ is in all men and women, and how we behave toward each man and woman reflects our claimed love for Christ. But truth. . . .I feel little love, and a great deal of distaste. Not that I think I am any bargain. We are all making a fine mess of the gift of this world. But at least if I am alone, in my place, the lack of interaction, except with my cats and the odd squirrel who pauses on the tree outside my bedroom window, there is little damage I can do or can be done to me, except of course by an Act of God, you know, earthquake, or some other such apocalyptic event. Then, I will have to explain to Him why I was such a dud in the loving the human race requirement. A conundrum.
But for now, I shall hold in abeyance seeking a long term solution to the problem. I shall sip another bit of wine and pet my cat and watch the birds flitting through the sky.
Well, this moment, it is beautiful and safe in this little spot.
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