Landlord-Tenant Relationship Chilly

Sounds like there’s a cold war going on in one Orange County apartment complex. The crime log of the Laguna Niguel News states that “a tenant and a landlord were reported in a verbal argument because the tenant did not refill the ice cube trays the way the landlord prefers.”

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You thought you had problems (cont.): A resident phoned police, the Seal Beach Sun reported, to complain “that the people upstairs had an unusually loud ringer on the phone.”

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Hey, it’s worth a try: At a novelty store in Belmont Shore, I came upon a wind-up goddess that was said to have the amazing ability to detect parking spaces, even in Southern California (see accompanying). It came with this poem:

Goddess, I bless you and keep you/ On my dashboard at all times./ I know that you will bless me too. As I gather my quarters and dimes./ Past the pay lot and reserved places/ You are scoping the street for me,/ Watching for wide open spaces,/ Not far from where I want to be.

I shelled out $3 worth of quarters and dimes for the goddess and trudged back to my car, which was parked innumerable blocks away but at least had not been ticketed.

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Liberal conspiracy? Irv Loh of Thousand Oaks saw a juxtaposition of signs that might make some Republican voters suspicious (see photo).

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Just a light trim, waiter: Turns out the menu on a riverboat cruising the Danube was not razor sharp when it came to describing one item (see accompanying). Charlotte Fournier of Laguna Woods figures it was supposed to say “chafing dish.”

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Our fond fronds: I began collecting literary descriptions of Southern California palm trees (see photo) after I read a poem in which John Updike referred to them as “isolate, like psychopaths ... beneath the adobe band of smog across the sky.”

I just came across a new (less frightening) entry from author Walter Mosley in his 1950s L.A. novel “White Butterfly”:

“Their silhouettes rose above the landscape like impossibly tall and skinny girls. Their hair a mess, their posture stooped. I tried to imagine what they might be thinking but failed.”

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Palm attitudes (cont.): In “Chimney Rock,” author Charlie Smith also saw the tall trees as something less than glamorous, with “their ragged tops tethered to slender trunks like wigs on stiff rope.”

Horace McCoy (“They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”) had a different take: “I often imagined they were sentries wearing grotesque helmets.”

For a more succinct analysis, the late newspaper columnist Mike Royko, no admirer of things Californian, called them “utility poles with feathers.” At least he didn’t view them as psychopathic.

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miscelLAny: “As we move into the thick of what may be the most acrimonious U.S. presidential campaign ever,” wrote Editor Tom Blair in San Diego Magazine, “I’m reminded of former San Diego City Councilman Tom Behr’s sage observation. ‘Redundancy,’ said Behr, ‘is an air bag in a politician’s car.’ ”

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083; by fax at (213) 237-4712; by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012; and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes. com.