Scooter, Libby rate me.

I need a lightweight scooter. Something quiet that runs on geothermal energy or bird songs.

Lately, I’ve been taking the metro around. I’ve actually had four different reasons to go to downtown Los Angeles this week. I’ve taken the metro three times. The metro is the easy part. What is difficult is getting there.

I live 1.8 miles from the Hollywood/Highland station. Red Line. It takes twenty-five minutes to walk there, no matter how many times I tell people it takes twenty minutes.

On the other end, I have been luckier. The locations have been closer to my final stop. Tonight, we had an uproariously tasty book club for a book about sociopaths who live right next door (Mary made short ribs. Thanks, Mary) and I took the Red Line to Union Station and the Gold Line to Highland Park. Upon arrival, I walked for thirty minutes to Mary’s house in Monterey Hills. The walk takes you over the 110 Freeway on an old, narrow bridge, through Hermon, whatever that means, and down Collis Avenue to Mary’s and John’s lovely home on the edge of a coyote infested hill. Also known as Elephant Hill. Do a search in the upper left corner of this blog for Elephant Hill and you can see the picture of it.

It was a great walk. I wanted to walk. I needed to walk. I have been sitting at my computer for days on end.

However, the whole one way trip to Monterey Hills took me one hour and forty-five minutes.

Of course, I was waylaid by an event that was happening at the Kodak Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. Was it for an awards show? A trade show? Victoria Secret? It was hard to tell. Everything has the same Gestapo ring about it at the Kodak. I had to enter the maze mall that horseshoe engulfs the Kodak because I could not cross the fifteen feet of sidewalk that was being saved for the event. Upon entering the mall in order to get to the train entrance, it was almost impossible to get through all sorts of security guards. A wretched woman would not let me cross a fifteen feet section of hall at the top of the stairs. I asked her how I could get to the subway. She responded, “We don’t have a subway.”

I wanted to kill her. “Okay, the Metro.”

She went on about how she didn’t know and how she had to check with someone and there is another bridge I could cross over to get there. She went to check with another guard. Then, a citizen told me what to do (take the bridge) and I did it. It was like one of those dreams where you can’t get where you are going.

Next time, I’ll take a different route.

But really, it would not have been so frustrating if I had zipped up there more quickly and had more time to deal with these keepers-of-the-exclusive event. I need a scooter. A quiet, lightweight, solar scooter.