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Published: October 8th 2009
Sunday 30th August to, Friday 11th September, 2009 Sunday evening was to mark the arrival for the second time in just over six months of my dear mother Margaret, chaperoned for her fortnight stay by her eldest grand daughter Katharine in much the same way that Joan Fontaine’s unnamed character had accompanied Edythe Van Hopper in the 1940 silver screen adaptation of the Daphne Du Maurier classic ‘Rebecca’. In the manner to which Edythe would no doubt have been accustomed it would have been nice to have collected them at LAX in an open topped chauffeur driven Bentley, as it happened all circumstances would allow was a faeces encrusted Jeep. Let me explain.
With their planned arrival at LAX not scheduled until after 9pm it was to be pretty much any other summer Sunday which began, accompanied by neighbour Dana with an egg breakfast at the Long Beach Museum of Art restaurant, an al fresco eatery whose sun soaked gardens afford wonderfully elevated views of Long Beach and the Ocean beyond, a true Californian start to the day. My excitement at my guest’s imminent arrival was clearly palpable, not least because of the mouth watering prospect of getting my
hands on the ordered bundles of Cumberland sausage that was going to be deeply ensconced within their baggaging.
When we returned home available parking within the adjacent few blocks of the apartment as is often the case at weekends was practically non existent, the beach goers having snaffled every available spot with the exception of one unoccupied ten foot length of kerbside roadway at the end of the street which had been conveniently obstructed by two strategically placed wooden stools. Sitting alone on the steps of the adjacent apartment was a tiny, forlorn looking little girl, Asian and an image of childhood innocence in her flowery Sunday best dress, black shoes and contrasting white ankle socks.
As we slowly approached we briefly discussed and immediately concurred that saving a space on a public street where parking spots were like gold dust was just not cricket so as I waited Dana jumped out and lifted the offending stools onto the pavement speaking a few words to the little girl in the process who’s face by now looked as though it was going to break out in floods of tears and and as we walked the hundred yards or so
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Peek a boo. On the Hollywood tour bus.back home I asked what had been said. She replied that the girl had told her in a futile cow eyed attempt to deter us from parking, almost a thinly disguised warning, that her mother would be returning home very shortly and that she wouldn’t be best pleased and we joked as we walked how when I next returned to the vehicle I’d probably find a brick had been hurled through my windscreen.
When the time finally came to collect Marg and Kat I headed to the car and from a distance noticed splatterings of a watery brown substance staining it’s sides, bonnet and roof. Parking beneath the trio of trees that line the grass verge outside my apartment inevitably means the Jeep takes a battering from the seemingly incontinent feathered friends who reside within the foliage above but it’s always to scale, tiny grey and white droppings as opposed to the apparent elephant diahorrea that was now covering my vehicle. Knowing ostriches can’t fly I instantly smelled a rat and my suspicions, rising with each step were confirmed when I got close and noticed numerous flies gleefully buzzing around attracted by the stomach turning stench that was emanating
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Olivia. Fire woman ! from the bodywork.
It took a handful of seconds with contorted face and breath held tight to thankfully conclude that it wasn’t actually shite, human or otherwise but a pretty good impersonation nonetheless in both look and smell that had obviously been purposely created and deposited from a great height by somebody pissed off as a result of having to carry their groceries that few extra yards. Subsequent investigations (a resident of the apartment block and friend of Dana’s confirmed this fact) revealed a Vietnamese woman to be the one and only suspect and my mind immediately conjured up pictures of her standing over a steaming, bubbling cauldron stirring her evil concoction as her little daughter watched and learned with admiration.
For a few minutes thoughts of revenge entered my head by means so sinister that shocked even myself but remembering a previous visit I’d made to the Vietnamese War Museum in Ho Chi Minh igniting a reluctance to enter into conflict with the Viet Cong allied to receipt of the news that prime suspect number one was married to a member of LBPD soon dampened the fires of rage that burned within me although I must admit
I did briefly reconsidered my strategy a couple of days later when the gunge had transformed itself into what appeared to be a resin based practically impossible to remove solid.
As if all this wasn’t enough upon greeting my guests at LAX I was quickly handed the heart breaking news that Katharine’s honesty combined in equal measure with her naivety had resulted in US Customs not only ransacking her baggage but also confiscating my beloved bangers. The shattering disappointment of this news was tempered slightly however when I was handed a package containing the new full Norwich City away strip, something I’d completely forgotten about ordering a month or so earlier, a years supply of Branston Pickle and a couple of house bricks of mature Cheddar Cheese.
Any concerns I had about leaving Marg on her own as was the case on her last visit were thankfully alleviated by Kat’s presence and whilst I returned to work the two of them set about exploring Los Angeles by their own devices, even going as far as to do something I’ve yet to do in America by boarding a train bound for downtown LA. Los Angeles has to be one
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Marg cools off in Hollywood. of the world’s poorest cities in respect of available transportation, clogged freeways and precious little in the way of a railway network but the girls earned top marks by bravely negotiating the bus and over ground rail systems to the City.
Their arrival Stateside had bought with it the onset of some unnaturally unseasonal weather as Long Beach was smothered under a blanket of unbearably hot and humid conditions and it was unfortunately Thursday before I was able to take my first day off, much needed after four sleep disturbed sweaty and restless nights on the living room floor. At Kat’s request we repeated Marg and I’s day out of six month’s earlier with a trip to Hollywood to pose with waxwork Marilyn’s and take an open topped bus tour through Beverly Hills which gave us a welcome brief respite from the heat before returning to prepare for our planned shindig.
Having just spent a year in Madrid Kat, who by now was challenging Margy for the welcome role of chief cook and bottle washer had offered to prepare a paella for the neighbours and having borrowed a pan the size of a dustbin lid which in hindsight
was just as well set about preparing the ingredients. Sometimes, due to the presence of unwanted gatecrashing guests, parties can get out of hand. This one, although in no way due to the presence of anyone remotely unwelcome quickly escalated to the extent that there were soon sixteen people crammed sardine like onto my balcony feasting on an array of cuisine and liquid refreshments supplied in the manner of one of those ‘Darling Buds of May’ garden parties by all and sundry.
As midnight approached Marg, obviously starting to feel the pace expressed her intentions to retire and was promptly scooped up and carried like a bride on her wedding night by neighbour Mark to the bedroom before being unceremoniously dumped on the bed to the amusement of all.
The following day’s planned visit to the naval City of San Diego was sensibly put on hold for twenty four hours when the realization eventually dawned through the fog of three hours sleep that it was in fact almost dawn before Kat and I and a handful of other guests had hit the sack and after a day of doing very little other than lounging on the beach and
lunching in nearby Seal Beach the following morning we hit the road with a gusto. Okay not quite a gusto, more of a whimper as the Jeep embarrassingly ran out of petrol a few hundred yards from home on the busy corner into Second Street. I knew gas was low but not that low and expected to make it to the garage but as the power died with a whimper it dawned on me immediately what had happened.
Walking either way to a gas station, each a couple of miles away would have taken forever so instead I returned to the apartment to seek assistance from Phil and as I reached the flat having left the girls stranded on the side of the road I turned to see a Police Patrol car cruising slowly over the bridge.
“Shit” I thought, the last thing I needed was Marg and Kat getting unnecessary grief from an unsympathetic law enforcement officer who’d probably throw the book at them and have them cuffed and peppered before I’d had chance to return and explain the situation but after Phil had ran me to a garage and back they informed me that the fuzz
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Graumann's Chinese Theatre, hollywood, Ca. hadn’t even stopped, just simply cruised on by blatantly turning the other cheek in the process. This was just typical of LBPD and got my goat up more than actually allowing the petrol drought to occur in the first place. Cross a side street on foot as a signal turns amber and you’ll be pounced upon by the boys in blue from all angles, place two helpless and stranded females on a busy bridge and they’ll just drive on by !
The day in San Diego commenced with a drive through my old haunt of Mission Beach which, once we’d located the trolley line (railway), never easy in a vast and unfamiliar town was followed by a visit to and a stroll around the uncomfortably hot and even more uncomfortably touristy streets of old town, the fascinating history of the early settlers spoiled by the hundreds of garishly tacky imitation souvenir shops and eateries that lined the streets. I couldn’t wait to get out.
From there we reboarded the trolley and headed into the Gas Lamp District for lunch where we unwittingly stumbled into ‘Dick’s Last Resort’, unbeknownst to us part of a renowned infamous Americacn ‘fun pub’
chain, a typical SoCal cantina style bar come restaurant with outside benched seating serving food where quantity undoubtedly held preference over quality.
We soon realized that the word fun in this instance was being used in the loosest sense of the word when a six foot plus brick outhouse of a waiter approached and without a word of greeting as he passed our table and in the manner of a practicing circus knife act flung our cutlery haphazardly onto the table. In what looking back must have appeared a typical British stiff upper lip manner we said nothing and simply sat motionless aside from a raised eyebrow but when he returned and delivered the menu’s in a similar vein the look of horrified displeasure on our faces must have registered.
“You guys haven’t heard of us before have you ?” he asked before adding on our vacant faced confirmation of the fact that “here we just like to have fun”, attempting to prove the case moments later when he poured a bucket of ice over a girl no older than seven years old causing her to retreat in tears beneath the table for the rest of her meal
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Too many cooks. Kat prepares Paella. as her parents giggled in horrified embarrassment. Dick and his accomplices idea of fun was obviously very different to ours.
Our obvious bemused innocence no doubt thankfully got us off the hook from being the victims of similar pranks aside from each of us being forced to wear purpose made KKK style paper hats emblazoned with marker written statements which he obviously considered hilarious but which proved our sense of humor differed greatly also. Marg’s stated the amusing but blatant lie “The last time I got lucky I yelled bingo” , Kat’s the bizarre “So easy a caveman can do me” and mine the ridiculous “I still pee sitting down”. We finished the day with a long and tiring walk along the embankment before finding ourselves back at the car ready for the drive back.
It was hot, so hot that I started the engine, turned the air conditioning up full and in a bid to hasten the chilling closed the doors and then watched open mouthed as moments later the Jeep, in the manner of a spoiled child deciding he wasn’t going to go anywhere depressed all four door locks simultaneously in one foul swoop. I looked
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Here's one we made earlier. at the others with a look of WTF not believing what I’d just seen. We were locked out and stranded a hundred miles from home!.
Some people have the ability to restore your faith in the human race and the lovely girl who’d just finished a long eight hour shift in a nearby diner and yet who still found the kindness and the time to make three phone calls on our behalf did just that. The resultant tow truck driver who no doubt supplemented his income by selling car stereo’s made short work of infiltrating the Jeep’s defences and as a result forty five minutes and forty five dollars later we were on our way home headed for a bbq thrown in the girls honor by Jeff and Deborah where a mix of fatigue, excitement and red wine saw me end the evening in near disgrace as drunk as a lord.
Another bonus that came with the girl’s visit was the fact that Labor Day, a national public holiday in celebration of the countries long suffering workforce fell within their visit and as with all national holidays a celebration was deemed necessary. Consequently, an alcohol free convoy to
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Sixteen peeps and a dog crammed onto the balcony. the beach was arranged with the neighbour’s who thoughtfully even went as far as to provide, carry and erect a canvas gazebo to ensure the English rose’s comfort and protection from the sun. I’d heard a lot about Crystal Cove, our planned destination in my time here but had never got around to visiting but it was allegedly a beach forty minutes to the south of Long Beach where the waters are apparently just that and the surf is frisky to say the least.
To be honest, despite the fact that for a bank holiday it was surprisingly sparsely populated I was a tad disappointed. The sandy beach was unkempt and littered with seaweed, never an aesthetically pleasing sight, the ocean shallows were sporadically pierced by jagged muscle covered rocks and the seabed dotted with sharp pebbles which made time in the water cursed by a back of the mind fear that stubbing the toe or standing on something other than soft sand was just around the corner. But I couldn’t allow that to spoil the enjoyment and a relaxing afternoon was had by all, by all that is except for my mother who, if it wasn’t for her
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Marg sweeps Marg off to her chamber. spunky bulldog spirit could have left the beach, indeed the United States severely traumatized.
I was twenty yards from the shore on one of my regular cooling off dips when Marg, sat alone on her throne beneath the sun protecting cover of the gazebo like a member of aristocracy during the Indian Raj arose and with all the gracefulness of a youthful Dame Margot Fontaine proceeded to glide to the waters edge. Even in the shallows of the foamy calf depth water the waves produced a terrific back draft as they returned from whence they’d come and so Jeff and Deborah, in their efforts to assist and at the same time to avoid possibilities of having to dial 911 took a hand each and proceeded to walk Marg into the ocean.
As each wave crumbled to foam on the shoreline three backsides, in a bid to bear the brunt of the force of the waters would systematically be turned and exposed to those of us further out at sea and even though the waters were still well below waist level each would be greeted by the trio with a squawk of giggles and a whoop of chilly discomfort.
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Before unceremoniously dumping her in her pit. I was stood observing the three of them with a smile etched onto my face and the waters swirling around my chest when in an instant my feet were lifted off the floor. I had no sense of by how far I’d risen, just that the body of water that had lifted me and that was quickly accelerating and growing in stature on it’s way to the shoreline was bigger than anything that had preceded it that day and watched in hysterics as it grew to the point where gravity had no choice but to intervene. It was about three feet behind the human chain that by this time had realized what was happening and was by now grouped together like a hunched up huddle of quivering flesh when it reached it’s absolute peak before crashing down in a roaring wall of white water obliterating everything in it’s path, my mother and her minders included.
Like a trio of boxers who’d just been on the wrong end of a brutal onslaught the three of them were on the ropes, even Jeff had been stunned to his knees but where mother nature is involved throwing in the towel is
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Kat after a bit of midnight swimming with Mikey and Dane. not an option and the battering was far from over. The water’s still had to return to sea and as they did so I could just about make out the sodden rag doll form of my mother being tossed from side to side as Jeffrey clung on to any available part of her anatomy he could get a grip on in a bid to haul her back to her feet. Absolutely priceless and a series of events thankfully caught on celluloid by Monica for all time.
Although Kat and Marg were staying on until the Sunday I unfortunately had a pre planned trip arranged with colleagues to Sin City, the first of two exhausting trips in three weeks, so the remaining three evenings that we spent together were done so in relative calmness; dinner, glass of wine and game of scrabble on the balcony, the lull before the storm. Thankfully I've made some good friends over here and the ladies were perfectly cared for in my absence, dinner with Dan and Lisa and a trip to Disney with Jeff and Deb ensuring I was hardly missed and on the Friday morning as I bade them au revoir I did
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Dick's Place. Little did we know ! so feeling as fit as I had for the previous two weeks. Just as well, only seven days would pass and the Pig Sty would welcome it's next two guests. Jerry and Spike were on their way and things were just bound to get messy !!
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BAZ
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Brilliant
Can’t wait for retirement so I can read all of these more thoroughly!