Yesterday, while Rosie the dog and I were ambling down Echo Park Avenue in search of the orangutan, whom we never saw, my neighbor Anne Soon Choi did see the primate. It was 10:30 a.m., Anne wrote to me in an email. It's all a question of timing with orangutans -- and all other things and people.

Anne says:

I saw him(?) I assume it is a him...[The orangutan] was in a t-shirt and pants and a cap of some sort...it was at the bus stop bench [near] the House of Spirits...I nearly rear ended the person in front of me.

Poor thing [orangutan] was trying to sell Levis.

Well, as we now know, shortly after Anne nearly rear-ended the driver in front of her, the orangutan boarded a bus for a working ride around the neighborhood. Sometime after that, Rosie the dog and I arrive on the scene, where we find a young man seated on the blue cooler, the bus bench, trash in the street and a beautfiul day. But no orangutan. Anne has gone off to do Anne things. Rosie and I turn around and head back for home and everything in between.