very be careful

Thursday night, the phone rings. It was Kitty. "You have to drop what you're doing. I need you to come down to Pershing Square right now."

I was already in the car, on my way to dinner with Jim and my brother. "Why, what's going on?"

"It's a scene, and I need you to come down here right now."

My brother was at the wheel, the car sat at the corner of 5th and Los Angeles Street. "So where are we going?" he asked.

"Pershing Square. It's a scene."

We found parking in front of Cicada and walked over to Pershing Square. We heard music and people on the skating rink. We dodged the rats scurrying from lit tree to lit tree, passed the vendors selling funnel cake and chinese food, and made our way to the front, by the band.

There she was, sitting with a friend in front of the band, behind the dancers and in front of the ice rink.

"Who's the band?"

"Very Be Careful. They have a huge bike messenger following."

I looked around. Yeah, that was evident. I liked them, they rocked the Square. I think half of all the off-duty security guards in downtown were also in attendance. I looked at the rink - lots of action there, too. Jim remembered that he read something about Spaceland in Pershing Square on Thursdays.

"How did you come to know about these guys?"

"They've played Cole's before."

"So this is a scene, huh?"

Kitty yelled, "It is too a scene, and don't you say anything different!"

"No, I'm not questioning that, I just wanted to get an idea of what your baseline is for 'scene'."

Kitty then mentioned that the "rodeo clown" that she was crushing on was out on the rink and that he had rejected her advances. I didn't take her seriously at first and made fun of him. Actually, he's not a rodeo clown, but she did keep referring to him by his profession, rather than by his name. Which made me less inclined to take her seriously. So as not to give it away in case he reads this, he's a rodeo clown. Then Kitty whined, "Celia, I really liked him."

"Okay, I'm sorry. I won't make fun of the rodeo clown."

Things were winding down after a while and Jim didn't want to dance. So we left for dinner. We drove past the square and spotted the rodeo clown crossing the street, on the way back to the ice rink. And he was holding hands with some chick. I called Kitty, "Hand the phone to your friend, K," I ordered.

K got on the phone, "Yeah, we're still here but it's breaking up."

"Get Kitty out of there, I just spotted the rodeo clown on the way back, and he's holding hands with some chick."

After I hung up, Jim reminded me that I couldn't blog about it or Kitty would know about the rodeo clown.

"Nah, it's one thing to read about it a few days later, it's another thing to see it for yourself." But yeah, it was a scene.