For once L.A. didn’t live up to...

For once L.A. didn’t live up to its rep:

Al Kaelin phoned his sister-in-law in Grand Forks, N.D., and was relieved to hear she had escaped flood damage. In fact, he said, she was more “worried about us because we live in El Sereno. She heard on the news that our community was wiped out by fire.”

Kaelin assured her there’d been no significant damage from the recent brush fires in El Sereno, which is northeast of downtown L.A. In retrospect, he says he’s a bit surprised “over the publicity and sympathy Los Angeles is getting in Grand Forks, N.D.”

Of course, this is the week “Volcano” opened.

WALK THAT WOK: A. J. Howell snapped a shot of a warning sign in a Hermosa Beach parking lot that is next to the lot where the Big Wok eatery is located (see photo)--another case of dueling shopping centers.

SPEAKING OF PARKING . . . : Comic Marty Ingels took a photo on Sunset Boulevard that illustrates you never know where you’re going to find a handicapped parking permit (see photo).

REPLICATING SIGALERTS:

During the evening rush hour Thursday, a Valley resident on the westbound Ventura Freeway hit a solid wall of red brake lights. “Traffic was barely moving through Studio City,” our correspondent continued. “I just sat and waited. Going through Sherman Oaks I noticed the electronic freeway sign lit. I figured something was wrong ahead. There sure was--people had slowed down to a crawl to read RT LANE CLOSED AT 4TH STREET. I’ve lived in the Valley for years. There is NO 4th Street.”

The message referred to a SigAlert in downtown L.A., which was of no import to westbound Ventura Freeway motorists--until it exacerbated their own traffic jam.

NOW YOU LEAVE YOUR CASH THERE AND DON’T GET IT BACK: John A. Johnson e-mailed us that Edchada’s, a Mexican restaurant in Twenty-Nine Palms, use to be a Security Pacific Bank branch and now offers seating in the former vault. The non-claustrophobe section, we presume.

OUT OF THIS WORLD: A letter addressed to “Religion Editor” arrived at The Times from the Hookers for Jesus Fan Club. The group’s motto: “$20 and You’re Saved.”

Reminds us of the Silver Lake woman who was convicted on prostitution charges a few years ago despite her defense that she was high priestess of a church. She said the church rituals called for male “worshipers” to have sex with her in exchange for amounts in excess of $100. She termed the contributions “sacrifices.”

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Our thanks to those who wrote to wish us well during our minor bout with a flu bug, even if one reader did use stationery from the L.A. County coroner’s gift shop, one addressed the card to Steve “Garvey” and one feared we had been fired.

Steve Harvey (but not Garvey) can be reached by fax at (213) 237-4712, by phone at (213) 237-7083, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by regular mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.