It drizzled the whole day today. In the morning like shards of ice the rain hit as I ran from the car- my mommer screaming at me to get back under the umbrella, me pretending not to hear her, my doddy's bald head snug in his beanie and my jiejie protected by the flocculent fur head piece of her coat- past the wide expanse of the coloseum to the Natural History Museum. The second photo of the bones of a fin whale was in my opinion the most striking exhibit in the museum. It occupied a hallway all on its own and the walls were bare save for the beguiling shadows of the whale's backbone that danced along the hallway under incandescent light and reverbecho whale songs on record that jiejie said were extremely creepy but which I found rather cajoling. We all had our favourites my jieje and doddy could not peel their eyes of the resurrected t-rex which took centerstage in the museum in all its bare-boned glory and my mommer expressed a vague disinterest towards all the exhibits except in the insect zoo where she was squealing at every wriggling thing in acute disgust especially the scorpions which I kind of adored. Later on in the day jiejie felt ill so she stayed in the hotel room and slept and mommer stayed to take care of her while doddy and I went gallivanting about hollywood's walk of fame and streamed through Madame Tussauds' wax museum which was really fun.

I'm quite glad our hotel is in the suburban, almost rural outskirts of LA. The streets are emptier the shops less glitzy and glamourized (as compared to 3rd street on Promenade where we went crazy shopping yesterday evening) and the people more reserved and unfriendly but something about their coarse nature gives the area an offbeat charm. Yesterday after breakfast in the morning I begged my mommer to let me run and explore the area on my own but she refused to relent for fear I would be raped murdered robbed etcetra etcetra so she got my doddy to run with me. We ended up walking for the most bit (though I attempted hopping about and flailing my arms about to keep warm) and I got stares from people because I was wearing fbts and a shirt in approximately 7'c weather. I regret not bringing my camera along with me because we came across many charming cafes brimming with warmth (warm people and warm cups of coffee and their own piquant brand of surburban charm) and many instances of astonishing street graffitti and we won't be returning to this area because tomorrow we head for Vegas and when we return to LA in about a week or so we'll be headed to Anaheim instead.

Also yesterday after supper at a nondescript diner owned by a ferociously defensive little Korean lady (but that served up fantastic donuts) something happened that really made me think about everything I take for granted. There was a vagrant sitting on the steps in the blazing cold outside the diner and jiejie gave him a donut because we'd bought one too many, and he held the donut up to God and started praying. Doddy then decided to give him a tenner and the dude did a double take when he realized it wasn't a one dollar bill (all the american bills are of the same size and I guess most people, if they do donate to the numerous homeless out begging on the streets, give him a dollar bill at most) and he grasped at it with both hands and smiled so guilelessly and so credulously it made me sad )O: There are wayyyyy too many homeless people on the street and doddy and mommer try to donate whenever they have spare change on hand but there are just so many of them DO SOMETHING OBAMA!!!!

Its eleven thirty on the 12th of December over here and mommer is rushing me to bed because everyone else is asleep so I think I'll head off now.