194 Days In - The Quality of the Air

Those of you who know me will know that cleaning my car is really rather low on any priority list I might make.

The other people who live in LA seem to put it a little higher on their lists, and being the only person on the road with a dirty car can cause some self-consciousness.

There was great excitement, then, when (after having taken the car for an oil-change, which I had never even heard of before coming here) we were offered a free car wash.

Scarily not that perturbed that the oil-change did not check my break pads, or suspension, or even back lights, off I poddle to the designated place to receive my newly clean car.

Parking in a row of cars waiting to be cleaned, I clock the “just washed” look of other cars in the line. Clouds of shame begin to gather.

It was a very rare occasion, in the UK, that I would wash my car. Maybe if I was selling it, or if there was so much mud on it I couldn’t actually see out. But England does help you out a little, with torrential downpours and drizzly days.

Rain is such a rare and wonderful occurrence here that when it does come, it simply displaces the dirt on your car, arranging it into new patterns.

That is how dirty the car gets.

I think I may have mentioned that we live on a tamed desert - there is a lot of dust in the air. I may not have mentioned that Los Angeles has filthy, filthy smog. I have often been shocked, when driving, at relatively close mountains hazily coming into view, and when out and about in town everything is doused in a romantic soft-focus.

It is not quite as bad a Kathmandu, but worryingly close.

A famous weather phenomenon here is the Santa Ana Winds. This is when, instead of getting breezy, slightly humid winds from the ocean, the air comes rushing over the desert and arrives hot and dry. An upside is that it straightens frizzy hair, but these “devil winds” not only traditionally cause quarrels and anxiety, but they bring all the Los Angeles smog to those of us smugly perched by the sea.

When the winds visited us a couple of months ago Chris’ mom ran round the house in a panic ordering us to close all the windows. In my usual “it is better to have the window open” opinion, I was dubious. That is until I saw the effect out at sea, in the form of a green haze hanging over the water.

I kid you not.

So it all makes sense; I am not unusually grubby out here, the air is just filled with dirt.

After watching a numerous amount a men scrub, rub and even hoover every inch of the car (including the inside rim of the doors), I handed over an above-average tip, avoided all eye-contact, and informed Chris that he would be taking the car to any washes, in future.