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Published: March 14th 2010
Room At The Inn.
Hang on in there !Closed since September for a maintenance and upkeep programme that consisted of one vacuuming, two scrubs of the pan and a wipe of the window sills the 'Sty' officially once again opened it’s doors to visitors in mid January with the visit of my old compadre Paul ‘Moose’ Murray. I’d been waiting in anticipation of our reunion at LAX arrivals for over half an hour when he finally emerged into view, a solitary sports bag no bigger than Dick Whittington’s hamper slung haphazardly across his shoulder, wearing a scowl and scuttling across the concourse at a pace that depicted a man on a mission whilst nervously scanning around, presumably for me, like a meerkat on the lookout for predators. If I was Customs and Excise I’d have had no alternative but to pull him over for a chat.
Speaking as a host, having a guest like Moose who possesses no agenda other than to simply escape the stark depths of an English Winter is easy. No need for activity planning nor giving consideration of ‘things to do’, just a simple case of handing over the bicycle lock combination and leaving him
Room At The Inn.
Smiles before a fall ! to it. Unfortunately for him in his quest to escape the hostile English weather fronts he promptly brought the damned things with him ensuring that his first week was spent in the midst of a deluge the like of which I‘ve never seen before and which resulted in cars being submerged to their roof’s just a mile or so inland from the flat.
Having arrived Friday night the heavens duly opened and remained that way for the best part of a week ensuring that upon each nightly return home from work I would find both him and various articles of his limited clothing supply hanging around the flat in the overly optimistic hope of drying out.
To coincide with the end of his first week and the ceasing of the rains the Professional Bull Riding Tour rolled into town. Witnessing a rodeo had been near the top of my ‘to see’ list for some time and whilst this wasn’t quite a rodeo I saw the opportunity that the PBR tour’s stop at the nearby Honda Centre presented us as the next best thing so after an afternoon ride down the coast to a chilly and blustery Newport Beach
Room At The Inn.
Moose at the Trump Golf Course we made our way there.
The object of PBR is simple, a young seemingly fearless cow hand will don the chaps and waistcoat and attempt to remain ‘mounted’ on a quite obviously livid and raging bull for a full eight seconds using just one hand, two legs and anything else in between for adhesion achieving points for style, duration and the level of the beasts co-operation in the process.
There’s no doubt that to pull off such a feat should be considered quite an achievement. I can recall on more than one occasion in the past Peter howling manically as he struggled unsuccessfully to remain on the back of a slowly paced, gently rocking mechanical bull and whilst a belly full of Stella Artois could quite easily be construed as a handicap it was clearly obvious from the arc of the testicular swing of these snorting beasts which resembled a pair of wrecking balls in both size and power that this was an altogether completely different kettle of fish.
That said, and despite their undoubted strength and aggression I couldn’t help developing a feeling of pity for the bulls similar to that felt for performing circus animals.
Invariably, once they’d succeeded in tossing the hapless cowboy from their backs they would, instead of reveling in their glory with a machismo hoof stamping victory dance make a direct beeline back to the pen like a scolded puppy returning to it’s basket. On the rare occasion one of them attempted to show off or milk the applause it would be immediately roped by the attendant horseman, lurking in the background like the grim reaper at a retirement home and dragged away from the limelight within the blink of an eye. It all seemed a little sad.
Having purchased tickets in the ‘cheap seats’ which afforded a view of proceedings similar to that of Google Earth we promptly did our usual trick of skillfully evading security to get closer to the action and once through Checkpoint Charlie dived into the first two vacant aisle seats that we came across. The make up of the audience, consisting of an equal mix of screaming families and Stetsoned and Wranglered ‘cowboys’ made the fact that the seats were next to two glammed up dolly birds all the more gratifying.
The girls, Breanne and Candace as I soon discovered were the young
wives of two of the bull riders from Colorado, Candace actually being the bride of current World Champion, 25 year old Kody Lostroh who had earned in excess of one and a half million dollars for his success last November, not a bad return for a total seasonal ride of about twelve and a half minutes.
Their obvious familiarity with all things PBR allied to their refreshingly friendly personalities and pride in their men meant they were more than willing to give an invaluable step by step insight into the finer details of their hubbies profession, an insight interrupted only by Breanne’s announcement that the next rider about to spring through the gates was her man which preceded our own spot of whooping and hollering as his near faultless ride pushed him into the top three.
My biggest cheers of the evening though were reserved for the occasional moments when one of the stooges, the nimble stagehands whose sole purpose was simply to distract the bulls attention thus preventing them from goring a grounded cowboy by skipping into its eyeline, would be chased briefly around the ring boundary before being cornered and receiving a set of sharpened bull
Room At The Inn.
I feel the pain as Ian digs for my ski's. horns up the ass.
After an hour or so it dawned on us we weren’t going to witness anything new and with the Master of Ceremonies, dressed traditionally as a clown, beginning to become quite an irritant we bade good night to the girls and made our way back to the shore.
Towards the end of his stay and with my supply of gym guest passes having exhausted themselves Moose decided in the interests of both exercise and exploration to hire a kayak from the beach outside the apartment. I rejected his invite to join him but instead accompanied him to the launch area and watched from the adjacent jetty with an ever increasing smile spreading across my face as he waded up to his knees in icy cold water and boarded the unstable vessel with all the grace and eloquence of a herd of rampaging bison.
He was to be gone for an hour and having observed him master the paddling technique within a handful of powerful strokes, each made with an expression of extreme concentration etched on his face I made the decision to follow on foot.
The beach outside the flat which houses
Room At The Inn.
Breanne and Candace. the Kayak Rental stand and the one that flanks the mile long peninsular seperating the bay from the ocean are segregated by just a handful of buildings and some boat moorings meaning that to pass between them you have to venture onto the road out of sight of the water. Having done just that when I returned to the peninsular beach and scanned the waters for sight of him I was flabbergasted to find that he was nowhere to be seen.
My initial reaction was sheer amazement that he had managed to propel himself with such brute power and force that in the time it had taken me to stroll behind the buildings, no more then a couple of minutes he had motored out of sight. I was impressed and was just contemplating returning home in admiration when a slight disturbance of the smooth millpond water surface from behind one of the Christmas floats, still awaiting collection, caught my attention.
At first glance I thought the small dark object I could make out bobbing in the water to be a seal, a not uncommon sight in the bay but then noticed a long flat object following behind and,
Room At The Inn.
Atop Mammoth Mountain. ruling out the possibility of it being a whale who’d lost its way due to it’s bright yellow coloring immediately realized what it was. Moose, with one hand gripping onto the floating Christmas tree frame had attempted to remove his jacket but succeeded only in being the first person I’ve known in my time here to capsize a kayak.
If this had been the June all well and good but this was the middle of a particularily chilly January, the water a breathtaking mid fifties Fahrenheit and I watched bent double with laughter as he struggled and spluttered manfully to doggy paddle his forlorn vessel to the shore. When he did finally make it and still unaware of my presence on the beach he stood for a full thirty seconds hunched over and dripping wet with his hands on his hips staring motionless at the floor. Priceless.
Three weeks after Moose’s return it was visiting time at the zoo again, former colleague Ian and his girlfriend Mandy popping over from New York for the California leg of their two centre holiday. Their aim was to break up the Big Apple retail therapy exercise saving Ian a small fortune
in the process with a spot of skiing and the day after their arrival the three of us and Phil loaded up and headed off to Mammoth for a journey that ended in the midst of a snowstorm that reduced visibility to little more than arms length.
When we woke the next day in excess of a foot of fresh snow smothered the Jeep and the morning’s exercise on the slopes, due to the cushion like nature of the knee deep powder which meant that falling over, although it only happened to me personally twice was akin to dropping into a Hungarian Goose down filled mattress was probably the most exhilarating session of skiing I’d ever enjoyed.
An uncomfortable liquid lunch spent in the company of Mammoth’s very own self confessed cannabis baron and with it the chance to loosen the circulation cutting boot straps was taken in more crowded circumstances than a Titanic life raft and as we ventured out again I was raring for more.
Unfortunately, the two swift pints of Mammoth Pale Ale, later realised to be 6.5% proof and added to in it’s potency by Mandy’s regular topping of my glass not to
mention the pint taken at 10am dictated that the eagerly anticipated afternoon session didn’t quite match its predecessor for any of the emotions for which we venture onto the slopes. Within minutes of reconvening and looking and feeling more like Bambi on ice than Franz Klammer I’d tumbled to the ground on several occasions, each fall sapping a little bit more of the rapidly decreasing energy from my bones.
Like a marathon runner about to hit the wall any hint of enjoyment was swiftly being replaced by a simple desire to just survive and reach safety intact. Phil, patently unaware of this fact had decided in his customary search for thrills to lead us on a slight detour through a forty five degree incline of knee deep off piste snow, something that was impossible to identify at first glance other than for the tell tale sign of an occasional spruce of foliage poking it’s head through the white.
Whether it was the effects of the Mammoth Pale Ale or a simple lack of concentration I’m not sure but I was accelerating rapidly towards a state of being totally out of control when my ski’s in the manner of
a trotting dog who’d just identified the welcoming odour of fresh pee suddenly decided they were going no further. Unfortunately for me it was at that very precise moment that I came across an impossible to identify brow of a hill.
My feet had very little difficulty freeing themselves from the bindings of the by now stationary ski’s thus propelling me airborne in the very manner of a human cannonball and as I flew through the air unaided and in what felt like slow motion it crossed my mind that this landing could be the trickiest yet, not tricky enough however to cause me to take steps to break my fall. With my arms firmly pressed against my sides I must have resembled Eddie The Eagle as I flew through the air.
The first part of my person to regain contact with terra firma was a combination of face and shoulder and as I lay face down as still as the night resembling a 90’s yuppy, both nostrils packed full of white powder waiting for the pain to sweep over me I knew something was wrong.
Unable to identify take off point it was a full twenty
Room At The Inn.
The Grim Reaper. minutes of agonized digging like dogs after a bone before we managed to locate the buried ski’s and I was able to gingerly make my way to the bottom of the mountain where Mandy, who by this stage had reached a similar state of exhaustion as myself and I immediately headed for some liquid anaesthetic. The full extent of the pain in my shoulder when it finally materialized signaled the end of skiing not just for the day but for the weekend as well as a two week abstinence from exercise of any form meaning the inevitable seemingly instant weight gain of 6lbs and a most unwelcome tightening of the waistband.
As I write I am little over a week away from the end of my employ in the retail grocery business. I’d like to say it has been a blast but unfortunately for the main part I’d be lying. Up to two hours a day sat crawling/commuting up the 405 Freeway allied to a feeling of isolation and a certain degree of ignorance had seen to that. How had the end come about ? Now there’s a story.
A month or so ago a reshuffle of resources
amongst the F & E management hierarchy meant I was to have a new boss, my car share partner Lisa. We had discussed the offer she’d had on our commute’s to and from El Segundo where I’d urged her to accept her newly offered position and was over the moon when she did just that. Lisa is a good communicator and a good friend and I felt that I could quickly learn more in a short period of time from her and John, another recent addition to the F & E cost team than I’d learnt in the previous eighteen months. Suddenly the grunting sound of the pig alarm clock didn’t sound so nauseating.
I went into my first one to one meeting with my new guvnor looking forward to the challenges that would be coming my way like a brash and cocky boxer leaping from his stool upon hearing the first bell and all was going well until toward the end of the first round when I was stunned by an upper cut that I simply hadn’t seen coming and which had me instantly reeling on the ropes.
Lisa told me with an anguished smile that she
Room At The Inn.
Baz makes a point ! had doubts I possessed the requisite knowledge and experience to act as Cost Manager. Although surprised not to mention hurt I couldn’t disagree with her and no doubt surprised her by responding to that effect. She’d soon be going off for three months to give birth to her first child and needed someone with more know how and experience than I could offer to head the section in her absence. I was in no position to disagree.
Two weeks later she confirmed she would be seeking someone to replace me adding that career wise it was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. My initial emotion, an inevitable feeling of failure was obvious but having had time to think things through and discuss with Phil those thoughts were quickly erased from my mind. I’d survived eighteen months performing a wholly unfamiliar role in a country whose practices differed immensely to the UK and in a business and a trade that were totally alien to me, for the main part with very little or no guidance or assistance.
By my own admittance during my first months at F & E I had literally bumbled my way through from
day to day, the world of Due Diligence, Feasibility Studies and Capital investment Appraisals were completely foreign to me and without the mentor I sought and needed my misery had got to the stage where at one point I was almost dreading getting out of bed to go to work. I’d even asked Phil at one stage to get me out of there.
Things over time had got much better however and John and Lisa’s arrival had given me a new sense of optimism but it was too little too late and I’m now totally looking forward to my new role, a role that I’m told may involve a lot of travel across the States and beyond. Watch this space.!
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waymo
non-member comment
Ha ha you been rumbled at last, bloody charlatan!