eleven thousand

fun times in the valley:

got home from work around 7pm last night. talked to becky on the way -- we're going walkin'!

becky just moved here from out-of-state, as such her father was nervous about her living in "dangerous" l.a., so he bought some pepper spray for her. protection. so she brought it over last night since we'd be walking in the twilight. so becky was letting me look at it, she showed me how to use it and stuff. and i wanted to know what it feels like. you know, before i spray someone with it, i want to know what it's going to do to them. well, kinda ... i didn't have any desire to spray it on my face. but i thought it would have some effect on my skin. becky tried to stop me, but i was determined. so i went into the kitchen to spray myself. i squirted a little on the inner side of my forearm. didn't feel anything. i sprayed some more. still nothing. i bent over to look a little closer ... and evidently breathed in ... heh heh heh ...

yeah, don't breathe in. i immediately started coughing and couldn't catch my breath. and my eyes started watering. i started laughing -- well, kind of: couldn't really laugh much because of all the coughing and choking. so becky came running in and saw me doubled over. she thought i was in horrible burning pain so she runs over to wash my arm off in the sink. and i was laughing and coughing too much to be able to tell her not to come and not to breathe.

soon enough, the two of us are just dying in there. becky washes my arm (which still didn't hurt at all -- pepper spray doesn't do anything to skin) and shoves me out the kitchen door. she comes running out behind me.

after we catch our breaths, becky pulls her hoodie on and covers her face as best she could and was about to go back in to open windows. i offered to do it since the whole mess was my fault. i went in opened the back door and as i was making my way back through the kitchen, the phone rang. so my 70-year-old roommate comes over to grab the phone. i told her to stay out in the living room and i brought her the phone. but it was too late: the pepper spray was permeating the whole house. coughing, my roommate went out in the front yard and then i overheard her telling whomever was on the phone what i had done ... great ... and the rumors start flying!

well, we survived. the house was airing out. so becky and i left for our walk. becky was holding the pepper spray: i lost the privilege.

soon after we left, becky asked, "so are you up for an adventure?" and, since i always am, i replied in the affirmative. there is this building/house/something up at the top of a hill we climbed once, and becky decided that it was time to investigate further. so we climbed back up that hill. reaching the top, we noted the the sprinklers were on at this place, so we timed it so that we could get up and over the fence without getting too wet. and just as we started over the fence, the sprinklers turned off. perfect! over the fence, through a couple short bushes and up about 35 stairs we went!

at the top of the stairs was a long wall with an opening and gate right at the top of the stairs. more stairs were behind that gate. we wanted to investigate the wall, though. so we headed west along the wall. when cars would pass we'd freeze in position, so as not to draw unwanted attention. we walked all along the wall, at the other end of which was a chain-link fence. that stopped us. hmmm. but there was another opening in the wall about ¾ of the way down, so we headed back there. up the stairs in that opening to a courtyard that was in rather disrepair. broken stone, dying weeds, and graffiti everywhere. what is this place?

we found more stairs at the far west side of the courtyard. up those. and up some more. at this point we could see some lights on at a house not too far away. were we in someone's backyard? but it didn't look like anyone was home at that house. so we carefully climbed a bit further. and we could see that this was a big open lot. the house with lights was actually across the street.

okay. so it looks like this lot used to have a house on it that either burned down or was otherwise destroyed. so it's just an abandoned lot now with a really cool romanesque garden area. becky and i spent a few minutes up there looking out at the valley then headed home.

it was quite an evening!

the adventures of the evening brought me to a total of 11,700 steps that i took yesterday. that's a lot.