People and Events

Believe it or not, the streets around Los Angeles are being fixed a little faster these days.

But that fact didn’t deter Mayor Tom Bradley from ordering aides to count all the potholes they could find, or stop the mayor’s intrepid public-image advisers from announcing the results.

So, for the record, Bradley’s office deputies and clerks spotted 1,833 “surface street ruts and chuckholes” while driving in the city during November.

One employee, whom the mayor’s office chose not to identify, notched 300 suspected potholes on his/her belt.

The public is free to report potholes too.

Call (213) 485-5661 between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m., and the Bureau of Street Maintenance promises to send a crew within 24 hours . . . weather permitting.

Thirty-two years after their first public appearance on the old Lawrence Welk television show, the Lennon sisters--Dianne, 48; Peggy, 46; Kathy, 44, and Janet, 41--huddled against the cold on Vine Street Tuesday. The occasion was the unveiling of a star in their honor on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Passers-by stopped to hear the foursome sing “The Christmas Song,” and patients in a dentist’s office across the street got up from their chairs to see what all the cheering was about. Their mother, Isabelle (Sis) Lennon, stood with a crowd of aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters and children at the celebration, wiping tears from her eyes. Her daughters’ show-business career was fulfilling without being disruptive, the proud mother said. “They lived at home and did dishes like everyone else.”

How do you say “Go for the burn” in Japanese? Twenty aerobics instructors from Japan visited a Southern California health club to learn some American secrets on how to sweat. The winners of an instructors contest in Japan have given a demonstration at a national aerobics competition in Tennessee earlier this week and took a busman’s holiday Tuesday at Mid Valley Athletic Club in Reseda.

They spent three hours in the weight room, pool, and aerobics class to learn some new steps. “It was relaxing,” said Emi Sasaki, an instructor in Tokyo. “But we were glad that it was a low-impact aerobics class, not high impact--because we had just had a nice lunch” of smoked chicken salad and lettuce soup.

Speaking of exercise, psychiatrist Adel Eldahmy has seen a lot of patients lately with “hypergymnasia.” That’s his word for someone hooked on sweat. Eldahmy said he and colleagues have found that many patients with eating disorders are also compulsive about exercise.

The typical hypergymnasia patient is a professional woman, 25 to 30 years old who “hides low self-esteem under good looks and trim figure,” the Long Beach doctor said. Unlike regular exercisers, who put in about four hours a week in the gym, these women sometimes work out for three or four hours a day. They don’t even stop when it hurts, trying instead to replace the emptiness in their lives with exercise, Eldahmy said.

The Los Angeles Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals set up shop in Broadway Plaza downtown to sell people on giving homeless animals for Christmas gifts. The unique thing about their pitch for adopting pooches and pussycats is to give a gift certificate instead of the pet.

The certificate allows the pet to be introduced to the home after the hectic holidays and enables owners to choose the right animal for their life style. The SPCA first offered gift certificates last year because many animals ended up back at shelters when owners didn’t want them, spokesman Jay Geer said. The $40 gift certificate includes the animal with required vaccinations, pet food, bowl, pet care book and coupon for free neutering or spaying.