Should have stayed on Sunset Boulevard yesterday

.
Got pickpocketed yesterday. The main City of Angels HD video cam was removed from my pocket yesterday as I stood in line waiting to cash a check at the cash checking place.

See I don't get out much. I work play and sleep in the living room of a one-bedroom apartment where I live with my daughter and however many of her friends live here with her in the one bedroom.

My food comes from Meals on Wheels so I rarely shop, don't need clothes as I rarely leave, if I have a doctor appointment the senior center picks me up. So yesterday was one of those rare, honestly, rare, days when I had to get out and walk around to run errands in my neighborhood.

In the last year I must haveh lost track on how bad the neighborhood is getting, how bad it has gotten in just the past few months that my life has become more and more centered in that one room. Maybe the neighborhood is WHY I have been shutting up inside that room more and more...

Yesterday I came home to that room and realized that in my short venture outdoors a hundred dollar digital camera had been pickpocketed out of my pocket.

Lucky for me, I have a backup cam. Lizzie's Christmas present last year will get me through an upcoming trip where I have to have a camera. Then I can start saving to replace the City of Angels video cam when we get back.

I got pickpocketed because I was on Hollywood Boulevard, not Sunset. On Hollywood there are guys who spot little old ladies who are not paying attention. I wasn’t paying attention. I was actually walking down the street with my arms waving, a headset on my head, singing along with Gospel music. Evidently I caught someone’s attention.

They must have followed me into the check cashing place, where I ended up leaning and waiting, wa-i-i-i-iting, this l-o-o-ong time because it was Sunday and only one guy was working there, running the only bank and grocery for blocks around.

I was leaning on the counter, my headset on listening to music, focusing on music to keep from being irritated at the long wait, my hands were inside my bag getting out what I needed, then I was leaning on the counter there waiting waiting waiting - until I ended up in that zone people get into when they are waiting in long lines.

Finally finished with my business, I'm outside, see a homeless guy - this one rolled up in a sleeping bag lying across the sidewalk so I was actually going to have to step over him on Normandie, a pretty busy street, where I was walking - I have this urge to document these people who are living on the sidewalks of Los Angeles, so I usually have my camera in my pocket when I go out walking where I live.

I went to get the camera from my pocket and it was gone.

RAN home, fibromyalgia be damned, and man I'm hurting this morning because of it, and I know the real pain will come tomorrow, it’s usually two days after over-exerting that the pain kicks in, so I'm already painfully aware that there is more pain to come ...

Ran home hoping upon hope but the camera was not in my home. Called my daughter hoping and hoping she’d taken it to work with her to show people the pics in it of her twenty-first birthday. Nope she didn't have it.

I went back and retraced my steps, in fact, as soon as I saw that the camera was gone, I went back over every place I’d been, and the guy in the check cashing place got a funny look on his face, I think he knows something was wrong, I think he’s had pickpockets operating out of his store before. ..

So. The camera was not on the concrete. I figure if it had fallen out of my pocket, the camera would have smashed onto the sidewalk into pieces. Maybe it did fall and someone pounced on it, but I think I would have felt a camera weight leave my pocket, even singing along with Gospel music.

Makes me wish I hadn't been listening to the music, makes me wish I’d been more on my toes, makes me wish I lived in a neighborhood where you go back in a store and say, did anyone see a camera, and the guy says, yeah that man turned it in. Here it is.

That's not the way things happen in my neighborhood. See the real mistake I made was going up to Hollywood Boulevard to run that errand. But the check cashing place on Sunset Boulevard closed last year.

That whole block where the Nix Check Cashing used to be is being torn down. El Rancho Market and Carl’s Junior have been empty shells of businesses for almost a year now. Word was shops were closing because a Target was going in at that intersection, Western Avenue and Sunset Boulevard.

Now a year later it’s just empty shells where a huge shopping area used to be, a mass of parking lot, slowly filling with vehicles that are actually living quarters for more humans passing through.

Just grateful I have that backup cam for the trip. Grateful it was not my wallet or ID or train tickets that got pickpocketed as I'd have to cancel the trip.

************
This is news from my part of town. People walk around killing each other in broad daylight:

Los Angeles - LA Daily - Murder Was the Case: L.A. Homicide No ...
Aug 7, 2009 ... Murder Was the Case: L.A. Homicide No. 190 and 191, Two Homeless Men Killed in Knifing Attack in Hollywood ...

Police say 4th homeless man stabbed in Hollywood
San Francisco Chronicle - ‎Aug 7, 2009‎
A fourth homeless man was stabbed in Hollywood, apparently by the same suspect who attacked three others, killing two of them, police said Friday. ...

Fast police work led to suspect's arrest in Hollywood attacks
Los Angeles Times - Genaro Molina - ‎Aug 7, 2009‎
A cyclist rides past the Music Box theater on Hollywood Boulevard, where a homeless man was stabbed. Police say suspect Domingo Rodas has a long criminal ...

4th victim in Hollywood stabbing rampage found; motive remains unclear
Los Angeles Times - ‎Aug 7, 2009‎
Los Angeles police detectives said they have found a fourth victim as they continue to investigate multiple stabbings that occurred Thursday on the streets ...

Detectives seek motive in Hollywood stabbing spree that killed 2
Los Angeles Times - ‎Aug 7, 2009‎
Los Angeles police detectives this morning were trying to determine the motive in a stabbing spree Thursday on the streets of Hollywood that left two ...

Man arrested in fatal Hollywood stabbings
San Jose Mercury News - ‎Aug 6, 2009‎
AP LOS ANGELES—Police have made an arrest in the stabbing deaths of two homeless men and the wounding of a third in Hollywood. Los Angeles police Det. ...

Fourth Hollywood
MyFox Los Angeles - Scott Coppersmith - ‎Aug 7, 2009‎
Hollywood (myFOXla.com) - A fourth victim is in critical condition as a result of the stabbing spree that lasted a little more than three hours in Hollywood ...

Man goes on homeless stabbing spree?
abc7.com - ‎Aug 7, 2009‎
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (KABC) -- A suspect stabbed three homeless people in three hours in Hollywood. Each incident occurred within about one mile from each ...


Murder Was the Case: L.A. Homicide No. 165, Homeless Man Found ...
Murder Was the Case: L.A. Homicide No. 165, Homeless Man Found Stabbed in Hollywood. aggregated from: LA Daily. Police are searching for whoever stabbed a ...