LApparatus

Ongoing observations include:

1) Most freeway entrances are controlled by stoplights during rush hour. There's a light that turns green every few seconds and one car goes at a time. So, you know, there aren't big globby clots of traffic flow on the freeway. Oh wait, there are anyway. How totally mad crazy would it be without those things? The good thing is that everything is usually moving so slowly anyway that you don't really have to worry about going from zero to eighty on just a few yards of asphalt.

(notice how I said "yards" there? did you like that? that reminds me that I probably should note down kilometer to mile conversion for my dashboard so that I can figure out how fast I am going. alternatively, I could just stick to driving in LA. traffic and I would never need to know.)

2) There's a handy thing in my shower that allows you to turn the water on and off without changing the temperature. Genius. They should have these everywhere.

To depart from the stated topic, or maybe not, you decide: I really don't have an accent-- everyone else does. I have been enduring some razing lately for saying "sorry" too much (and for saying "sorry" instead of "sahrry") and also for my pronounciation of the word that means the opposite of "in". You know what I'm talking about (oops). It's good-natured razing, but it's starting to give me a complex, nonetheless. Anyway, discovering cultural divides is always a little shocking: don't people know that "elastic band" is another way of saying "rubber band"? Or that a Caesar is a Bloody Mary? Or that "phone" can be a verb?

So many moments of surprising foreigner-ness; unexpected.

Oh, and that's "ash-falt".