The Night the Moon Set in Long Beach

KFWB traffic reporter Jane Monreal said there was slowing on the 405 the other afternoon because a young woman was “mooning” cars from an overpass in Long Beach. A different kind of freeway backup! It was just the sort of distraction to make rush hour even longer than usual: a Skin-Alert.

*

BACKUP (CONT.): Traffic problems like the one above may account for the license plate that Jeff Bliss spotted on the Ventura Freeway: IVHADIT.

And they may have turned a calm motorist into the one that Larry Harnisch saw weaving in and out of traffic in South Pasadena. That driver’s plate read: BDDRVR.

*

COLD PROPERTY: Today’s real estate tips for the adventurous (see accompanying) include a house that was “unscrupulously” remodeled and another that comes with several critters included (no extra charge!).

*

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Writer Hugh Ryono was feeding a seal at the Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro when a visitor asked him the meaning of the letters “KW” on one of the fish buckets.

“Killer whales,” answered Ryono, a volunteer at the center.

“Killer whales,” the visitor said in astonishment. “Aren’t your pools a little small for killer whales?”

Ryono explained that the buckets were among several items transferred to the center when Marineland closed in 1987. The least Marineland could have done was attach a plaque that said “Orky and Corky Ate Here.”

*

ANGELENOS ON THE HIGH SEAS: Carol Lindgren of Torrance snapped a dolphin sign off the waters of Alaska--but this dolphin was a buoy (see photo).

The “authorized” notation of the sign reminds me that just before Marineland closed, L.A. County sheriff’s deputies arrested two intruders who visited Corky and Orky late one night. The two men had sneaked into the park, jumped in the water and begun frolicking with the killer whales.

Afterward a deputy opined that the men were lucky they emerged unscathed inasmuch as “the whales were probably a little disappointed that they swam around the tank with them and didn’t get their mackerel.”

In other words, the trespassers were lucky they didn’t become KW dinners.

*

GONE TO THE DOGS: The Park Bench Cafe in Huntington Beach offers such dishes as Bow Wow Chow, Hound Dog Heaven, and Doggie Kibble. But customers who wolf these delicacies down are not allowed to sit on chairs--or tables, for that matter. These meals are offered in a designated pet area. The cafe even hosts canine birthday parties (six-pooch minimum).

Needless to say, the restaurant allows leftovers to be taken home in doggie bags.

*

TEN YEARS AGO: A Washington Post poll found that only 9% of Americans could identify William Rehnquist as chief justice of the United States. But 54% could identify Joseph Wapner as the presiding judge on the “People’s Court” television show.

miscelLAny:

In case you missed it in Tom Gorman’s article on desert trash companies, the general manager of the Mesquite Regional Landfill is named Robert Filler.

*

Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.