The weekend was pretty uneventful – on Saturday we hopped in the car and drove to the main strip where they have all the stars in the sidewalk, and places where people put their handprints / footprints in the cement. Some very old ones in there. The awe and reverence with which people view some of this stuff is pretty disturbing. Honestly, I can’t think of one person who is that darn impressive. There were performers out there who want you to give them tips to take pictures with them – some dope dressed up like Spiderman (we got a photo with Samuel but Amy played dumb about the tip, since he didn’t say anything until after we took the photo), and a super dope who gussied himself up to look just like Michael Jackson. There was a huge crowd around that cat, and I murmured perhaps just a bit too loud “I thought we were done with this weirdo”. Insensitive, I know. Anyhow, we stopped in a Disney Store there for some ice cream. I think it’s such an irony that these three kids who are oh so colorful, when confronted with a menu of endless chocolate sauce/whip cream/craziness, all wanted vanilla ice cream in a bowl.
Other than the celebrity worshippers, stars on cement, weird people and the ice cream, the only other thing were the same stores that are in every single shopping mall in the country. If you parachuted in there you wouldn’t know if you were in Novi, MI, Nome, AK, or Hollywood.On Sunday, we decided to go to Griffith Park, which I found online. It is in the mountains overlooking the Hollywood area – the website said there was a train for kids, a merry-go-round, and the Griffith Observatory. We never made it to the observatory – there was 5 jillion people there – but I can tell you that when we were in Griffith Park there was no doubt that we were NOT in Novi or Nome. Tijuana maybe. Let’s just say that it was a little slice of the 3rd world.
When I got terribly lost the kids’ anticipation built up and when we finally found the train we had no choice but to go ride it. It would be best termed the “Poo-Poo Express”. It was a one mile loop around the pony stalls, and while most of the passengers probably didn’t notice the smell as being any different than their neighborhoods, it was a bit on the yucky side. The train itself was dirty, rickety, with chipped paint, and it seemed to waddle down the track, going especially slow when it neared the biggest piles of pony poop. I couldn’t help thinking that that is what mass transit would belike in America. Please somebody drill, or find a way to pop a ball of uranium J. We all felt (well the grown-ups anyway) icky afterwards, but at the end of the ride, Peter threw up his hands in the air clapping it was worth the suffering…I think… On Monday we took Peter to his appointment and he did a fantastic job. First of all – the doctors are great, but they are not exactly “people of the clock” (in other words, we had to wait an hour and a half to get in there) and we had the whole clan with us. By the time we got in there, we had already had to drag Isaac out of the little playroom in the waiting area a couple of times (he has been a bit of a pain in the dupa on this trip, incidentally. I think Peter is enjoying this in his own little way J) Anyhow, the Chinese Taz (we are in a Looney Toons phase around here) did awesome. They took the drainage tubes out of his head and he hardly even winced. They also took some of the bandage off of his head, so he no longer shines bright green. He now has a very fly black Nike head cover thing, like the rasta dudes wear on their heads under the football helmet. Poor kid, he went from looking like he popped out of a lamp to looking like a (Chinese) Black Panther.
One fascinating thing that we noticed while waiting at the office was that Peter very carefully studied an older kid who had one normal ear and one ear with microtia-atresia (like Peter). Peter was staring at his atresia ear, and then walked around (at a distance, such that the kid didn’t seem to notice) to the normal ear, then back again. It was the first sign of any real awareness from Peter, and I think a sign that this is as good a time as any to start this process.Peter is feeling great – he was jumping off the couch (ignoring the blood and goop-filled drainage bags dangling out of little holes in head his) on Sunday already, and really has snapped back fast.
Monday night, we drove down to San Diego from LA. It took nearly 4 hours, most of it sitting in LA rush hour traffic. Wow was that fun. Words can’t even say – everything was just ugly, dirtly, and crammed 5 lanes wide with cars that were just sitting there. It was funny – once we got to Orange County, though, the traffic opened up and it looked like someone took a fire hose and case of lemon pledge to the joint. Our experience proves that the most unrealistic thing in the show “24” was not Jack Bauer disarming nukes with a ballpoint pen MacGyver-style, it was the fact that he didn’t spend several episodes each season just listening to the local soft rock station in LA traffic.Today we went to Sea World and enjoyed it. We got a bunch of stern, condescending warnings about taking care of the environment, the ocean is our friend blah blah, and that animals are our brothers (that one seemed like a stretch). It struck me as interesting that we were getting this stuff from people who make millions keeping 5 killer whales in a 100 foot wide fish tank for their whole lives. I don’t feel guilty, but it seems like they might??? Anyhow, silly progressive platitudes (they even had songs playing during the whale show) about brotherhood with fish aside, it was a great day and a very nice park. It was big, but not too big, crowded but very clean, and there were tons of things to do and look at. A funny moment on the way there, we drove past a beach area and Isaac said (to Samuel) “look at all that sand!”. Samuel, in a very “you’re such a silly young kid” tone, said, “That’s why they named this SanD-iego Isaac”. Isaac seemed to accept his logic and neither one asked why we were cracking up. How fun. Samuel is very excited – 3 more sleeps until Drew and Aunt Lisa show up to go to Disney! Amy will do a seperate post with some Sea World photos but here are some from Hollywood and the last photo ~ the boys have a picnic breakfast in the hotel room since there was no table (Samuel's idea).
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