pressreturn

I’ve just returned from a trip to Los Angeles where I was as busy as a one-legged squirrel in a nut burying contest. Hence the lack of updated random drivel here that all three of you subscribers (thanks!) have come to expect.

Just before I left Philadelphia, all the trees and ragweed plants and all the other green pollen producers seemed to conspire overnight to stage a denial-of-service attack on the city’s noses.

Everywhere you went, people were sniffling, sneezing, snorting, wheezing, coughing – eyes were teared up and puffy – it was one of the worst weeks I’ve seen for a while. I’m not usually affected, but ten sneezes in a row a few times a day is enough to let you know that something’s going on with the air quality.

So I was rather happy to be escaping to the other coast for a bit, knowing that there’s not nearly as much pollen around as here.

When you’re dealing with ice storms and snow in Philadelphia, fondly remembering the days outside Starbucks wearing shorts at the same time of year, it’s easy to forget one of the worst things about LA: the traffic. It really is pretty evil. People think nothing of sitting in their cars for one or two hours a day each way. That’s just the way life is.

I spent a fair amount of time last week on the parking lot known affectionately as the 405 freeway. And, being driven, I got to watch what people were doing around me. A lot of breakfast eating, coffee drinking, newspaper reading, make-up putting-onning … and nose picking. Yep – I hadn’t noticed this before – but it seemed that last week was nose-picking week in Los Angeles.

Everywhere I looked, there were people in various stages of nasal excavation. I’ve got an image in my head which is one of those nasty, horrible things that just cannot be “unseen”: a well-dressed, middle-aged lady, driving an expensive looking Mercedes – one hand on the wheel, the other fist-deep into her nose … so deep it looked to me like she was scratching the inside of her skull.

Must be just one of those April things. Nose action coast-to-coast.