2014 - Day 2 - Third USA Trip -- Being knocked over the head with a poo bat!

I am thrilled to be back in LA!  I am surprised I got here in one piece following my gymnastics during yesterday’s flight.  I got into some severe problems with my bladder however I made it through.  Once we landed and jumped through all of the hoops that is required at the border, we picked up our hire car and were on our way.  We had a reasonably quiet afternoon given that we were completely exhausted following the flight.  In fact, poor Nic’s eyes looked like two p!ss holes in the snow. He was struggling.

There was one thing though that we did have to do before anything else – hit Wal-Mart! I needed to purchase a kettle/jug as the American one that we had bought and used on previous trips had shat itself.   Hotels in the USA do not supply kettles for coffee making – instead they have things like a percolator which is all very well and good if you like drinking paint stripper.  When we travel we take our own coffee which is why we need the kettle.  Also, my constant companion is a hot water bottle (excellent for pain relief!) and I therefore need a hot water bottle for that.

We found a Wal-Mart within 10 minutes of where we will be staying so headed in that direction. If only I had the courage to photograph some of patrons that I saw. You know those emails that go out with stacks of photos of the weird ass fashion that Wal-Mart shoppers wear?  Yep….they are honky dory real.   I tried to photograph some fellow customers discreetly on a previous visit to the USA an ended up with a collection of photos that included a nostril, an earlobe, a couple of fingers and an elbow, a butt cheek (my own…don’t ask), several of the ceiling and the floor, and a partridge in a pear tree.   I could be my usual brazen self and whip the camera out, out in the open, however I have been sadly mistaken before when photographing what I thought was a person deliberately dressing up for fun…..when in fact they were just in their normal day clothes.  Errr whoops!

Nic was gobsmacked at the prices of items in Wal-Mart.  This included 4 litre bottles of Vodka for $8.99 and absolutely ginormous pizzas for $7.99.  He is depressed that he can legally carry 2 litres back into Australia.  I will no doubt visit several Wal-Mart locations before I head back home in 6 weeks.  I totally love Wal-Mart.  I have placed a bet on myself that we will purchase another suitcase to take things back in.  I am fairly sure that we are a sure thing.  Sure we are.  Sure to be sure.  Sure.

Our hotel is not far from Disneyland.  Usually we would spend our time in L.A staying at Pasadena which is just beautiful.  This time we are at Anaheim as it was just the cheapest place to stay this time.  The hotel is quite nice and comfortable and is very familiar given that we stay in the same chain of hotels whenever we travel. Unfortunately the toilet overflowed tonight which required a call to the front desk begging for assistance.  I will point out that we didn’t cause the toilet to overflow thank goodness, because if it was the result of anything I put down there, it is possible that the floor would have disintegrated.  I guess fortunately there is an abundance of HAZMAT teams in the USA at the moment.

We took Nic for a drive to Corona (the LA suburb….not the beer) some place that made parts for motorbikes or had something to do with a professional riding team.  I didn’t quite understand what we were taking him to but he apparently met one of his hero’s and he was over the moon.    I tried to reflect the excitement that he was expressing however was overcome by a god awful smell.  When we opened the car doors at Corona, a thick, sewerage smell totally enveloped the car.  I immediately wanted to blame Nic for it; however it was too bad even for him!  When we left Nic for a while so that he could walk through the factory that we had taken him to, we drove to a local drugstore just for a look.  (CVS is more than a drug store…it’s a one stop shop with the most amazing items at Thanksgiving and Christmas time!)  We hopped out of the car there, and were again knocked over the head with a poo bat.    Dead set, I looked around and people were carrying on with their day as though they couldn’t smell “Eau de Diarrhoea-mixed-with-rotten-rat-guts-and-bat-shit”.  Nic said that he had passed comment about the smell at the place he was visiting, and he was met with almost an offended look.  They had no idea what he was talking about.  I have no idea what is wrong with the people of Corona, but if I ever here the word “Corona” from now on, I will automatically imagine a large pile of hot, steaming, dog poo.

We also took Nic to Angel Stadium.  He couldn’t give a damn about baseball, but he does give a damn about the motocross events that are held there in baseballs off season.  Not a stones throw from Angel Stadium is the Honda Centre, home of Alyx’s beloved Anaheim Ducks.  We went to a ice hockey game there with her when we were in LA during our last visit.  Alyx is a little beyond obsessed with this team and I felt a little guilty being there without her.  Nic could have used the opportunity to totally piss his sister off however to his credit he refused to.  He wouldn’t even pose for a photo there.  To soften the blow, we went in and purchased the items as listed on Alyxs want-list which we added to some other items that we purchased earlier in the day.  This allowed us to place a big tick on our to-do list.

 

We had dinner at a place called Clancy’s Bar and Grill which is not far from the hotel. It looked nice enough and the menu appeared to be ok. We should have run when we were greeted by a short, dumpy, greying woman (not that there is anything wrong with that.  I could have been looking into a mirror) who was missing more than a couple of teeth.  She showed us to a table where we were quickly served by the loudest American that I have ever heard.  She looked as though she had just stepped out of a “Debbie does Dallas” movie and with one look at us, immediately thought we were there for a night of gluttony and grog swilling.  She looked more than a little surprised when I requested a glass of water, and the Bear and Nic ordered a coke.   She looked even further surprised when I ordered an appetiser (the same as an entrée in Australia) for my main meal, and when Nic and the Bear ordered something relatively small meals.  I wanted to point out that just because the Bear is a tall bloke, and just because I am the size of a house including the backyard barn, didn’t mean that we had to eat three quarters of the menu.   When we got our meals, that were certainly nothing to write about, and we decided that we would not be eating at Clancy’s ever again.  

Back at the hotel we settled in for the night and I was happy as a pig in mud given that there were several episodes of “The first 48” on the A & E channel.  Unfortunately the Bears night was disturbed with a certain short duck (not mentioning any names) who decided to go for a sleep walk again.  This has been happening on a regular occasion where I apparently get up and do some pretty weird shit and the Bear says he has a time and a half tying to shepherd me back to bed.  He can hold a conversation of sorts with me even though I apparently don’t make a great deal of sense. 

Hmmmm……doing weird shit whilst talking nonsense?  I am not sleep walking.  That is just me!