Saturday, April 12, 2008

Tour de West Coast...


As I did back in January, I left Portland and flew to the LA area for a long weekend. After Chicago weather, and the chill of Portland, it is very nice to get to Southern California where it's sunny and (yesterday) in the mid to high 80s. As I type this on Saturday morning I'm sitting on the porch (veranda if you're proper, lanai if you live with Blanche, Rose and Dorothy) and bracing myself for temps in the 90's today. Far be it from me to complain about warm weather when I've just come from what seems like a 12 year winter in Chicago, but if you know me, you know what a heat weenie I am.

Getting into LA was interesting. I had to touch down in San Francisco, which was no problem, and then get into LA around 9:30 pm. It must be spring break or a high Jewish vacationing holiday. Do NOT get me wrong. I'm not saying anything against Jewish folks because I have the greatest respect for them (and actually, if Or Chadash would ever write me back, I'd be interested in taking classes to learn more about the Jewish faith) However, there must be a convention in LA for "Jews of the Stereotypical Faith". Every woman sounded like Fran Drescher in The Nanny but looked like her mother. Yiddish "bubalah punnum" phrases were flying everywhere. Every preteen boy had what I've heard called the "Jew Fro" and the stereotypes went on and on. I will say, however, like the opening scene in the move "Love..Actually" it was a very warm scene Jewish or not as everyone was terribly happy to see everyone. Except for the chicks from Pennsylvania.

We rented a car at LAX since we'd have more people that seats in a 2 seater BMW. It was late, the car rental center was crowded, and obviously people were impatient. However, the term impatience doesn't excuse the behavior of the women in front of us. Imagine if you will trailer park white trash come to town. They were bitching, out loud, and sadly, it sounded like pure redneck twang and I was worried someone would hear me and connect us. Once they got to the counter, wouldn't you know we would end up right next to them.

They had been talking about how they hated flying and how annoying it was. You'd assume from that they there experienced travelers. The rent-a-car lady asked for a local number like I had been asked each time I'd rented a car before. You would have thought this woman had been asked the type of maxi pad she used. "I don't have a local number, I'm from Pennsylvania (thank God... not a southern state) why would I have a local number?" I think the answer the clerk wanted to give was "so we can call you at 4am and tell you what a dumb bitch hick you are"; but she demurred in the interest of customer service.

Tune in tomorrow for some more California tour fun! (and an explaination for the following picture....)

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