Playing Catch Up (Part One)

I'm home! Did you miss me?

So much to post about! I might as well start at the beginning...

We left Tuesday afternoon after paying a painful seven dollars each for a drink at the airport. Little did we know those would be the cheapest drinks on our trip. We had a three hour layover in San Jose (and that airport sucks just so you know) and then on into Orange County. The fun uncle picked us up and took us to grandma's, can you believe within five minutes she was already on my case?

I had to call my mom to let her know we arrived safely, I decided to use the cell phone and grandma offered me the use of her phone because of how much our phone costs. Polite offer but I declined saying it wouldn't take very long anyway. She went on to say "that's right, ____ doesn't have long conversations." Wow. Great. Starting early I see. This was a direct dig to the less then shaded insults she inflicted on me a couple weeks ago. I had hoped that it would have been dropped but whatever, right? I'm on vacation dammit.

We went to bed, early but it was best to avoid more friction because had we stayed up, so would she. The next morning we got up and all ready to go before even coming out of the bedroom. She rattled off the list of breakfast items she had but we managed to talk our way out the door with her car keys. It was time to explore.

First we head off to Rite-Aid, for no other reason then we knew where it was. I needed a cigarette. Can you blame me? Not only had been hours (since the San Jose airport, longer then in a long time for me) but grandma was itching me the wrong way too, ugh. Thank goodness the hubby understands. We hopped across the street and had Weinersnitzel to eat, we don't have too many of them up here so why not. After that we headed down to the Huntington Beach Pier.

It was a hazy day and silly us didn't even think about sunscreen. We wandered for about an hour before heading back to grandma's to go out on the beach. Lucky for grandma she has lived her town for a long time so she has a house just a stone's throw from the beach that was purchased before the prices skyrocketed to seven and eight digit numbers. That town is constantly changing and people with too much money have taken away most of the novelty of a small beach town. The number of original "beach shacks" is drastically declining, it's a little sad to see history change for the sake of progress. One house even looks like a castle, I mean really, is that necessarily?

We trekked out to the beach and soon learned that the term tenderfoot was an understatement. I used to be able to walk across the street, down the beach and straight into the ocean without much notice of hot ground. No longer, oh my goodness it hurt. Back on went the crocs and I suffered with sand in my shoes until we reached the cool relief of the Pacific. I can walk across hot gravel at home but hot sand? I was no match. This is where the blisters on my feet began. We took as much solace in the water as we could before heading back up onto the hot sand. A short trek down, literally only four blocks and we took a few snapshots of Sandra Bullock and Jesse James' house. Pretty. We couldn't stop and play lookie-loo though, there was people standing on the patio, heh. A couple more blocks down we stepped back off the beach to the greenbelt, the sidewalk running down the center of town.

Time to head back to grandma's to get cleaned up for the Angel's game. My feet were already starting to hurt as we walked home and up the stairs. As I was washing the sand from my shoes can you imagine my surprise when I realized just how pink my reflection in the mirror was? Forehead, nose, cheeks. My three quarter length sleeves left my wrists and hands a rosy shade and the Capri pants left another stripe across my ankles. The best parts? The right side of my chest was beet red and the holes in the crocs left dots on my feet. Ha! This was day one!

It was getting late but we decided not to risk it and put sunscreen on before heading off to the game. My fun uncle had gotten us tickets right by the left field foul line, about ten rows back. I'm sure he'll catch one sooner or later. He slipped us fifty bucks and told us it was food and whatnot. We started things off with some $9.50 drinks, a margarita for me and a Southern Comfort concoction for the hubby. Ow. Hot dogs came a little later, we couldn't go without getting an Angel Dog.

My uncle knows way too much about sports and was able to name everyone without hesitation. Of course rooting for the Angels, it was sad of course when they didn't win, loosing by one lousy point in the tenth inning. A guy four rows ahead of us caught a foul ball after it bounced off another guy's head. He then proceeded to get one of the security guards to sign it. The guy later was kicked out of the game at the end of the ninth inning.

For now I am going to take a little break in my story to take a nap, ha! Not because of the story but because I am friggin' tired. I didn't sleep well the whole trip and I am still catching up. If I nap now maybe Ketchup will too and that way he will actually be awake later when I'd like to be up and doing stuff. It's always nice when our schedules sync enough to function. Anyway, I will be back later, I promise (I have too much to say to give up now, hehe.)

Later!