"I've Got Blisters On My Fingers!"

Yep, real live blisters on my fingers. I didn't get them from shredding the guitar as in the famous Beatles quote, I got them from helping my mom in the yard this morning.

My job was to dig up grass where she wanted to add a couple of cement squares along the driveway. My tool was a shovel, which I used to chip into the grass before having enough "give" to fully dig into it.

Having just blow-dryed my body in an effort to warm up from our cold house, I started this task wearing jeans, a long-sleeved pajama top, and a long-sleeved sweatshirt. About midway through I put a belt on to avoid "plumber's crack" and steadied my top half with a bra. By the end of it all, the sweatshirt was on the grass and my jeans were caked in dirt. I sweated and sneezed throughout the dig but admit there is something nice about earning my keep with this manual labor, blisters and all.

After my outdoor work, I thumbed through the L.A. Times and the Daily Breeze. The Daily Breeze is a slim local paper that is one half AP stories and one half stories about the South Bay. In honor of the start of the city football playoffs, the Breeze's sports section had a big article on Carson High School's football team. My team, Banning High, got a small paragraph about their match against Crenshaw High.

My favorite Times article of the day was one of those "no duh" stories: "Traffic Rises As Gas Prices Fall." Oh really? Anyone on the roads this month could've figured that one out. I drove up La Brea to Melrose, then down La Cienega to Jefferson the other morning and it was hell. It wasn't even rush hour. Perhaps if gas prices stayed high there'd be some real movement towards alternative modes of transportation. I'm not even a commuter and I can't stand it!

The more I live in the South Bay where the traffic flows, the less life in the city appeals to me. Sure, I miss out on concerts and happy hours and spontaneous access to friends but at least I am sane behind the wheel. I'm not saying there isn't traffic down here but it's nowhere nearly as awful as on the major thoroughfares in L.A. proper.

I shouldn't be shocked by gridlock having lived on the Westside for ten years, but I am. Even more loco was Sunset Blvd. on the night of the Madonna concert at Dodger Stadium. I couldn't believe it. Eastbound traffic so bad that signals would change without a single car moving. And Frank McCourt wants to develop Elysian Park???!! What a crock. It's already hideous getting into the park and nothing has ever been done to alleviate the mess of hundreds of thousands of cars trying to get through quaint streets. Developers stink.