Not a whole lot to report. The big event of the day was to be my first-ever visit to Cole’s Pacific Electric Buffet (I know… what kind of Angelino am I that I haven’t ever been to that historic L.A. eatery?!) but my mom wasn’t up to it so instead we walked down to Cafe Tropical and she had an espresso con leche while I gave their Cuban sandwich a try and regaled her with yesterday’s tale of good samaritanship gang aft aglee.
Other than taking care of some pre-Death Valley trip business, lounging in the hammock and TiVo’ing through last night’s two-hour season finale of Hunh? — I mean Lost — the only other thing I did was as a follow-up to my entry on Buster and World Turtle Day a couple days ago I dove into the blog archives and came up with the posts about the undeniable miracle of not losing Buster back in March of 2004, which you can read here if so inclined.
Or you can just peruse the following snip:
So it will forever be a mystery as to what put Buster over the balcony. Whether it was a sudden interest in what lay out there? Or a sudden push from one of the cats? I will never know.
But how did Buster survive the fall is as big a miracle as the timing of my turn onto Del Mar. Bigger even.
I would guess that from my balcony all the way down to the ground is a good 15 feet. Had Buster dropped all that way to the concrete landing, I don’t care how tough a tortoise you are, there’d be some damage at least — a chipped or cracked shell at the luckiest, but with nothing to cushion a 15 foot freefall, a crushed or broken limb or death would be far more likely.
There wasn’t so much as a scratch on her.
So what happened? One absolute mini-miracle after another (indicated as m1, m2). As best as I can figure, once past the point of no return, Buster did not fall at all out (m1) so much as straight down (m2). And about three or four feet below my balcony floor are these wrought iron rails spaced about six-inches apart that are curved outward at the top and extend about a foot(m3). My theory is that Buster landed on these extensions while falling somewhat parallel to the ground (m4; falling perpendicular to the ground she would have moved right between them) and slid down them without slipping through (m5), coming to rest between them and the other upright metal rails that enclose the garage area (m6). I then offer that at some point either immediately or after struggling to manuever she did fall three feet onto the floor of the garage rather than 8 more feet or so to the concrete walkway outside (m7).
Tomorrow should provide more blog fodder, either here or/and on Blogging.la. I have a dentist trip out to Encino and I’m going to make the 17-mile trip out there by bike and the return trip using the MTA’s Orange and Red lines to get me back downtown, specifically 118 E. 6th Street, which just happens to be the street address of Cole’s because I’m jonesinghard for some historic restaurant action… oh yeah, and a french dip sammich.
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