To the multitude of people (OK, just one) who were sucked in by my "tease" from last time, all I can say is "neener, neener, neener". But now comes the time to reveal all, or at least most, of the content of that evil tease.
ONE YEAR LATER, WE FACE DOWN OUR DEMONS
For those of you who are sick of hearing about past adventures, or if you are new to this Transplant Tribune thing, I suggest you go back and check the posting of June 28, 2009. Here we are, one year later. I was determined to get "closure" by joining Cheryl as she visited her great Aunt Bessie Hammond on this, her 94th birthday. We once again flew to Long Beach Airport on Jet Blue. On the way I was squirmy and could not find a comfortable position in the seat. Just as we started to land I got a strange sensation in my chest, of all things. What the Hell? This cannot be. At least we now know to go to LB Memorial, not Community, but still, what is up here? It wasn't like pain, or pressure; I cannot describe it. I decided it must be heartburn and when we landed it went away. That was the first and last time on that one, thankfully.
We went to Shoreline Village (tourist trap!) for lunch, to a place we went last year for dinner. Good Seafood Cobb Salad; so far so good. Then it was off to Aunt Bessie's nursing home for a visit and a bit of dinner. She was watching news and there was one of those famous L.A. car chases going on, you know the ones with the news chopper following along, like with O.J. years ago. "The suspect is on Cherry St. approaching Ocean Blvd. Now he is turning left through slow traffic onto Shoreline Dr....." Shoot, that is right over us, right now! They finally shot the guy in the parking lot of the Marina. What a dumbass. I LOVE L.A. Actually I DO love Long Beach. We have been going to the Long Beach Grand Prix since 1976 and have seen the entire town turn from a tacky Navy town full of drinking establishments, retirement homes and adult theaters to a beautiful and entertaining city.
We hung out in the Living Room with some folks in various states of disrepair while Auntie talked about each and every one of them in a pretty loud voice. She is hard of hearing, you see. We were very embarrassed but nobody seemed to notice; they must be used to her. We went into dinner while AB fixed up her own meal of jello, ice cream and cranberry juice. No teeth. We had a nice moderately-sized dinner while watching other diners silently eating and totally ignoring their table mates. Aunt Bessie showed us how she tears up napkins and takes them back to her room to use for blowing her nose. She told us she always wraps up any leftovers she has to discard so homeless people who dumpster-dive will get clean throw-away food. More kibitzing in the Living Room while Bessie tried to give Cherie a bunch of the home's National Geographics, gratefully refused, by the way. She really is generally with it on current events and such, and her last checkup was quite satisfactory. And then, the escape. Next opportunity: the Christmas Party. Cheryl tells me it is a genuine laff riot.
It was a mere four blocks to Community Hospital of Long Beach. The memories came flooding back for both of us. Cheryl shot some pictures of me in front of the sign and in front of the door to the ER. A very nice volunteer saw our admittedly strange behavior and came out to ask us if we needed assistance. We explained our antics and got an enthusiastic congratulations. And no, Leslie, I did not give the one-finger salute. They try pretty hard, it's just they got no $$$.
We found our hotel, the Maya, right plum next to the Queen Mary. We enjoyed some small plates and a brewski in the hotel restaurant. Next morning we strolled around Belmont Shores until it was time to go to the airport for my first commercial jet flight from LB to OAK.
They don't have many jetways at this very, very old airport. So we did the steps thing up to the door. At the top, I remembered when Tricky Dick got on the plane when he got the boot back in like 1974. So I turned around at the top step, and did my best awkward Nixon wave to all the angry passengers waiting to get a space in an overhead bin. "Hey, I'm Richard Nixon, and I used to be your President. Bye bye". Wait, was that Air Force One? Seems to me he shoulda had to buy a couple of cheap Southwest tickets like the rest of us, being disgraced and all.
It felt good to wave farewell to Long Beach for now, but as Arnold sez, "I'll be back".
Excellent flight this time, plenty of entertainment on XM radio and generous snackies too. Jet Blue rocks, dude.
So we had returned to the scene of the crime, stared down our demons, and survived to tell you about it. Cool, eh?
CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE
Why are you looking down here? I said I couldn't think of anything else. What do you think, I'm lying to you?
Happy Trails to You, Until We Meet Again...wasn't that what Roy Rogers and Dale Evans ended with?
Bob/Irv
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