Ancient Aliens and Bad Food in the OC

Oh, seat 1A. My spiritual home. Purple Virgin America mood lighting, black leather seats, huge glass of champagne, and best of all, judging the poor on their long, long, long walk of shame to the back of the plane. This is my favorite place on earth.

One of the many things I love about Virgin America is that the bulkhead is made of glass so the poor can't hide while they stand in line. It's so awesome.

This is my first time doing TSA pre-check. I tell this to the TSA woman, but she misunderstands and thinks this is my first time flying and that I am developmentally disabled.  I just let it go since she could put me in jail, but this is actually really nice, this TSA pre-check thing. No shoes off, no belt off, nothing out of your bag. Exactly 11 seconds to go through security. I support this.

Just to add to the goodness, Virgin America now gives you another huge glass of champagne to enjoy during takeoff. No need to finish or hurry up.

Soon we are out of the rain and into the sun. Hello, volcanoes.

More champagne? Why not?

A "winter salad" of arugula, free range chicken, roasted pumpkin, fine Corinthian grapes, marinated purple onion, and organic humanely raised feta? Why not?

Even more champagne? Why not? Because I am about to pass out drunk, that is why not.

Where am I going again? Oh yes, So Cal. Home of 89.9 FM KCRW, the best radio station in world, the one I give all my extra money to, and to an exhibit of alien artifacts found in China at the Bowers Museum in Orange County.

On Virgin America you can watch live TV from LA or New York, or a myriad of satellite channels, or if you are drunk like I am you can turn off the TV and take a nap. Since I am in the first row I have no under-seat storage.  I have to try to cram my iPad and Bose Noise Reduction Headphones case into the small pocket in the glass bulkhead in front of me.  I push too hard and break it. Half of the bulkhead falls forward. My iPad, safety cards, barf bags, and several complimentary purple headphones tumble out onto the floor. As I push back on the wall in abject horror, the rest of the glass bulkhead decouples from the wall.  Fricking Airbus! Stewardess is in the bathroom, but everyone else in first class is either laughing or glaring at me with significant judgment.

Why God? Why do I have to be me?  I have just broken an airplane.

I discover that if I hold my left foot firmly against the middle of the bulkhead and my right foot firmly against the bottom of the bulkhead it will not move forward. It does not seem to want to fall backwards, just forward, on to me and Mark.

So yes, for 800 more miles I have to sit with my legs against the bulkhead so it won't fall on us. Where is Mark during all this? Laughing his ass off.

I am so totally sober now. And I am embarrassed, horrified, getting legs cramps, and I have to pee really badly.  There is nothing like a full bladder during turbulence. But I hang in there and I do not spill a drop, mostly.

Being first off the plane, Mark and I come up with a plan. He will carry my bag and I will slowly shift my support of the bulkhead from my legs to my arms as I stand up. Once standing I will nonchalantly hold the wall up as I move around to the exit door. Then I will let go and we run into LAX Terminal 3. 

I never envisioned myself running into Terminal 3.  Quite the contrary. The first time I was there was after a trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico.  My flight home was messed up by United so I had to re-route through LAX.  When I got on the plane I did not know I had been exposed to a norovirus, but about half way through the flight I began to spew body fluids all over the plane.  Upon landing at LAX I continued to throw up on the chairs, the carpeting, the walls of the bathroom, and upon many other travelers.

The next time I was in Terminal 3 I had been down in LA meeting my parents for a long weekend.  They had been exposed to a norovirus and…forgot to tell me.  In our rental house in West Hollywood they threw up on the chairs, the carpeting, and the walls of the bathroom.  I did not get any symptoms until I was in Terminal 3 waiting to fly home. Then I threw up on the chairs, the carpeting, the walls of the bathroom, and upon many other travelers.

Finally, last year some deranged person, probably with a norovirus, shot up Terminal 3 and killed several people. 

You run from Terminal 3, not into it.

...........

Strangely we make it through Terminal 3 without incident, get our luggage, and then safely outside in 72 degrees and sunshine, I put on my sunglasses and announce in my best Bridget Jones voice, "Am on mini-break. Hurrah!" Nearby people clap.

We get the rental car and immediately turn the FM dial to 89.9, KCRW.  I make Mark take a photo of the radio display.  I am listening to KCRW for real, instead of over the app on my phone. It just sounds better this way.

The drive down to the Orange County was easy.  The 405 was busy but not terrible, and the drive to Laguna through some open land preserve was very pretty. Mark had not been to the OC before, but he watched the TV show so he can’t stop saying, “Welcome to the OC, bitch!”  I don’t know what this means, he seems to think it is funny.

Laguna Beach is a little beach town with a lot of restaurants and art galleries near the water. Expensive homes climb the nearby hills. It kind of evokes the Amalfi Coast of Italy.  Kind of.  But not really.  Positano has good restaurants.  Laguna Beach does not.  For lunch we end up in Tommy Bahama drinking Tommy Bahama drinks and eating Tommy Bahama food while wearing Tommy Bahama clothes. Meta.

There is one of those annoying bar singers with a guitar here making noises. Soft rock hits from the 1970s. People start to sing along, un-ironically. Women of a certain age, their necks wrapped in scarves, and their elderly frat boy husbands are chortling, "I'm driving down the road trying to loosen my load". Then it’s, “I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name.” It's so awful. It continues on and on.  I get uncomfortable and then angry.  I tell Mark that if there is a "Hotel California" sing along soon there will be a bloodbath here today and I will get the electric chair. He wisely pays the bill as the crowd sings, "Doctor my eyes...."  I’m like, “Doctor my ears…..”

We escape to see an awesome sunset over Catalina Island.

There is a rooftop bar at our hotel with free wine from 5:00 to 7:00 each night.  Instead of some vile oaky California Chardonnay they are pouring really nice Soave from Italy. We get some, but it’s packet and there is no place to sit, so we go back to the hotel room, which is conveniently right next door. At one point the bartender walks over to our balcony and asks if we want more wine! We don't even have to leave our balcony! 

We have a late dinner at this silly local institution called Las Brisas.  It’s supposed to be Mexican seafood but the food is bland and silly.  It’s from nowhere. Envision microwaved Minute Rice with some Pace Picante Sauce on top.   At one point the waiter brings out our bottle of wine but gets distracted and forgets to open it, just leaving it on the table.  I finally just took a butter knife and cracked off the top of the bottle so I could pour the wine.  No one noticed.

.....

We are having breakfast at this place frequented by locals called The Penguin Cafe. It’s just a basic bacon and eggs kind of place, but then I taste the toast.  I astrally project for a moment. Once I return to my body I’m like, “Wow, this is the best toast I ever had in my entire life.” I suspect I know the recipe, but I have to ask.  Yes, I am correct.  They confirm they using the famous Joan Rivers toast recipe from the 1990’s.

We drive south along the coast to for a bit and run into a town called Dana Point.  It seems to be filled with rich old white people.  Each street is named after a lantern. Green Lantern St., Gold Lantern St., Violet Lantern St., Amber Lantern St. I am so not making this up.

After working through the entire Crayola color palette, we head up to Santa Ana to go see the Bowers Museum exhibit: CHINA'S LOST CIVILIZATION: THE MYSTERY OF SANXINGDUI. Basically in the 1960’s someone found these brass sculptures in a garbage dumb in Sichuan Province.  Turns out this stuff predates any other Chinese cultural relics and was found in an area that is not even close to where anyone thought Chinese civilization started. The sculptures are amazing. They all have large triangular eyes and weird big pointy ears.  No one can explain how these people had the technology to do this work 3000 years ago.  Clearly, ancient astronauts were involved. Yes, you heard me. Aliens.  

This show was awesome.  I am so glad I came down for this.  I buy a big coffee table book, a small replica of one of the masks, and an 8GB USB drive that copies of one of the alien’s faces.

After the show we head back to the hotel to watch the Seahawks game.  En route Siri tells us how bad the Seahawks are losing.  I can’t believe I care about this, but I do. With about 2 minutes remaining we crack open the champagne we had bought to celebrate their win so that we can drown our sorrows.  The minute the champagne is open everything changes. The Seahawks score 22 points and win. Later, at the hotel happy hour I actually engage a gay man in chat about the Seahawks.  He does that fake smile and shrugs like I used to do, saying there are just too many balls to keep track.  Who am I, talking about football? I don't even know myself anymore.

Dinner tonight is at some place called Nicks. It’s mostly like a TGI Fridays, but they do have deep fried asparagus sticks and cocktails made with California poppy liqueur.

 ………..

Leaving town the next day we stop at The Penguin Cafe again. I ask for 9 pieces of toast only, no eggs, no bacon. They tell me they get this a lot and are happy to oblige.  I astrally project again.  While up there I say hi to Joan.

Traffic on the 405 going back up to LAX is fine.  When we check in at the Virgin America kiosk I get my boarding pass, but Mark gets an error message saying there are problems with his reservation.  Clearly they think he is the one who broke their plane. I mean why would you suspect me?  I am blond.

The poor girl at the counter is unable to decipher the error message, does a double take, laughs and shakes her head.  As she hands Mark his boarding pass she laughing and mumbles…“Broke the plane, yeah, right…..”

........

On the plane now. As we walked in, first, we see an envelope on Mark’s chair. Quickly opening it we read it. "We know what you did." I gasp in horror. But then no one says anything. We sit down and order champagne. It's like everything is normal. I look around and realize this a different plane.  A Boeing plane. Confident I can't break this one, I sit back, sip champagne, and catch up on a whole weekend’s worth of podcasts.

The rest of the flight is fine.  When we land the whole section of poor people in the back scream “Go Hawks!”  I scream too, on the inside.

On the way home I-5 is backed up for miles.  It’s stop and go all the way to my exit.  No where in So Cal did we see traffic like this. But whatever, mini-break was lovely. And so were the aliens.

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