Our Mickey Mouse Experience

So, my wife and I celebrated our anniversary this month at Disneyland Park in Anaheim. But if you read my column two weeks ago, you figured that out already, right? Being old school types, we opted not to do the whole “Park Hopper” thing and stayed within the original, classic Disneyland. Then again, I’ve never really understood the concept behind California Adventure. I mean, why would tourists and especially Southern California residents spend close to $100 and precious vacation time to see what Southern California is like.

Um, it’s pretty much like what you just drove through to get here.

As far as Disneyland being the “Happiest Place On Earth”, I can’t vouch for that. There were lots of screaming (and not in a good way) kids and more than a few terminally frustrated, out-of-patience parents who could’ve used more Hakuna Matata, if you know what I mean. That said, Disneyland certainly might be the Most Crowded Place On Earth. But to be fair, we did unknowingly time our visit to coincide with what had to have been spring break for the majority of school districts in North America.

Besides the teeming masses and lines that stretched to San Diego for many of the most popular attractions, I’ll always remember the vast, endless ocean of strollers either parked in front of each attraction, or barreling towards us head-on as we walked from one “land” to another. Which reminds me, when did strollers become the size of Winnebagos? For crying out loud, I’ve seen smaller hybrids than the baby-bearing behemoths responsible for traffic jams all over the Magic Kingdom. These things could mow you down without even disturbing the Disney onesie-wearing, Disney sippy cup drinking, Disney pacifier-sucking little person inside.

Which brings me to the subject of merchandising, which nobody does like Disney. Walking around during our anniversary visit, I saw countless versions of the Disney logo and the legion of Disney characters on hats, caps, sunglasses, shirts, jackets, sweatshirts, gloves, hoodies, pants, sweatpants, strollers, shoes, sandals, wallets, purses, drinking cups, coffee mugs, key rings, cell phone cases, plush toys, flashlights, pillows, linens, salt & pepper shakers, dishware, wheelchairs, baby wipes and … okay, I didn’t see a Disney wheelchair or baby wipes, but it wouldn’t surprise me. And I haven’t even mentioned the Matterhorn-sized mountain of toys available for purchase with – you guessed it – your Magic Kingdom Visa or Mastercard.

And then, there’s “Fastpass” – Disneyland’s questionably named system which issues priority tickets for its most popular attractions to park guests who – yep, wait in line – for a Fastpass. Now, you can’t have a Fastpass for any given attraction if you’re already holding one for another attraction which theoretically allows you to bypass the so-called “stand-by” line (which is what everybody else and their brother has to wait in for all of eternity) and get closer to the head of the line and then finally get on the attraction that lasts all of two or three minutes at most and then you have to dash across to the other side of the Magic Kingdom to wait in another Fastpass line for a different attraction and then come back again two hours later so you finally use your Fastpass to bypass all the losers in the stand-by line and … whew, I’ll bet getting U.S. citizenship is an easier process.

On our anniversary, in addition to waiting in line, we had dinner at the Blue Bayou restaurant in New Orleans Square. In all of our many trips to Disneyland, neither of us had ever dined there and I’d always wondered if a Blue Bayou meal would taste like the chlorine that wafts through the air as you ride the Pirates of the Caribbean just under the noses of diners.

For the record, there’s no smell of chlorine while you’re dining. And no Captain Jack Sparrow threatening to ‘blast yer scurvy scuppers’ while you eat your gumbo, either. Just excellent food, good service and really high prices. But hey, you only celebrate a 26-year anniversary once in a long while, right? 

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is an edited version of my column first published yesterday, 4.26.12, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper.

© 2012 WordChaser, Inc.

Here a Bear, There a Bear

Round, brown & 400 pounds.

If you were out of town with no access to television or the internet, you could be forgiven for not knowing that the Los Angeles suburb, the Crescenta Valley, had a 400-pound, fur-covered, dumpster-diving visitor of the bear persuasion in the early morning hours the Tuesday after Easter.

During the morning in question, multiple news helicopters hovered for hours over the neighborhood homes and apartments near Montrose, Mayfield and Briggs avenues in our quiet and serene bedroom community of La Crescenta. They hovered. And hovered. And hovered some more. Ironically however, almost every time the all-important LIVE BREAKING NEWS!! shot interrupted the morning programming of local stations, the bear was usually nowhere to be seen, having taken cover under the canopy of trees or a patio awning. Ya gotta love live television “news.”

One camera on the KTLA station’s chopper, however, did happen to catch a local man committing WWT, or walking while texting – who was so painfully oblivious to his surroundings that he very nearly came phone-to-snout with the roaming bruin. When he finally looked up from whatever critically important conversation he was involved in on his mobile phone, his reaction was as instinctively panicked as it was hilarious to watch on video. It was a classic moment made for YouTube and as such, within hours was being viewed and the link forwarded all over the world.

Various media outlets across the nation picked up the footage of the too-close encounter and re-televised it for their own local broadcasts. Even a good friend of mine in Louisville, Kentucky emailed mid-week to ask how close our house was to the marauding bear. Hey, at least the various media accurately pegged our location as either “La Crescenta” or “Montrose” or “Montrose-La Crescenta” instead of close-but-no-cigar “Glendale” like they normally do.

According to news reports during and after the massive mobilization of media and law enforcement equipment and personnel, the wild, wandering trash thief was eventually heavily tranquilized, transported deep into the Angeles National Forest and released back into the wild from whence he came. According to eyewitnesses, the male bear was “groggy and grumpy” as he was freed from his cage.

Although zoologists would call our recent furry forager Ursus americanus, the male bear was likely one named “Meatball” by residents who’ve reportedly spotted him in various CV neighborhoods rummaging for leftover meatballs in outdoor refrigerators.

As I’ve mentioned, our family has spent considerable time in the Mammoth Lakes area of Northern California’s Sierra Nevada mountains over the years. We’ve seen first hand the results of human interactions with the substantial local bear population in this small resort town and it isn’t always positive. In fact, wildlife experts who deal with this problem on a daily basis often say that, “a fed bear is a dead bear.” By this they mean that allowing bears to rummage through trash cans and camp grounds or eat pet food that has been left out only draws the powerful and dangerous animals into repeated contact with humans. This can ultimately lead to a bear’s death as it becomes more emboldened and aggressive in searching for these easy sources of food. Also, because bears naturally come to associate human activity with a so-called food reward and often return to the same location even after relocation, often the only solution is, sadly, to eliminate the bear.

With that in mind, I sure hope that our local meatball-seeking bruin who made national news last week is smarter than the average bear and stays far, far away from the Crescenta Valley from now on. Because, as much as we’d all love to think of bears as having names like “Yogi” and “Boo Boo” (or “Meatball”) – and of being harmless unless you happen to be a pik-a-nick basket – the reality is much different. The bear they captured on Montrose Avenue last week was fortunate to have wound up with only a sedative hangover, new wilderness to explore and a craving for Italian food.

Then again, maybe I should rethink my own daily activities, too. After all, “groggy and grumpy” and on the prowl for meatballs could very easily describe yours truly any given day. I’d better make sure I shave every day and watch out for news helicopters hovering overhead.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is an edited version of my column first published yesterday, 4.19.12, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper.

© 2012 WordChaser, Inc.

Our Year of Living Adventurously

I’m sure my wife would agree that when she married me 26 years ago, she had no idea what she was signing up for. Poor woman. But, lucky me.

On that unseasonably cold, early Spring day over two and a half decades ago, standing together in the outdoor gazebo at the Saddleback Inn in Lake Arrowhead, we said our vows before God, my favorite uncle (who just happened to be a Presbyterian minister) and a handful of family members who drove up the winding mountain roads through pea soup fog for the event. Sometime later, as we planned our future plans and dreamed the dreams of the just-married, we promised each other that upon reaching our 25^th anniversary, we would celebrate by taking a trip to Europe, specifically Austria and Switzerland.

Surely by then our kids would be grown and independent. Surely too, my upward career path in the ad biz would have provided enough financial stability by then to afford such a romantic getaway. Surely we would have the time to relax with an overseas trip in celebration of a quarter century of wondrous wedded bliss (we were newlyweds, okay?).

But as Leslie Nielsen once said in the movie, Airplane, “Don’t call me Shirley.” I’m also reminded of the sage Yiddish saying, “Man plans, God laughs.” If so, they must be holding their angelic sides and gasping for air in heaven.

I’m pretty sure we were at least right about our kids. Yes, our four progeny are healthy, independent, wise beyond their years and, for the most part, well on the way to realizing their own dreams of family, faith, careers and a fulfilled life. May it be ever so. Amen and amen.

As to my career? Bwah-hahaha. Chortle. Guffaw. Snort. Titter. That’s a good one. You know that steep, upwardly mobile rise to a creative corner office on Madison Avenue West I mentioned above? It quickly began looking more like a dive off a steep cliff not long after I left the ad (mad) agency world and went freelance nearly 16 years ago.

And so a year ago this week, our 25^th anniversary was upon us and there was no way in financial fantasyland that we would be going on any European adventure. I mean, if we couldn’t afford the gas to drive to San Diego, flying to St. Moritz was absolutely, ridiculously out of the question.

So, instead of letting the 25 year milestone pass like “just” any another anniversary night out with a nice dinner, some flowers and a card –  we decided to celebrate in an unusual way for an entire year – by attempting to complete 25 low cost, semi-local mini “adventures” during the 12 months until our next anniversary. (Yes, ladies, I did the dinner, flowers and card routine, too. I may be challenged in the disposable income department, but I’m not an idiot.)

One year later, how’d we do on our adventure quest? We made a valiant attempt, to be sure. Although we didn’t quite make it to 25, we came awfully close, including making several long bike rides (one as far as 65 miles round trip from Duarte to Long Beach and back), an attempt to summit Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the continental U.S., cross-country snowshoeing in Mammoth Lakes, hiking to the top of Mt. Baldy, riding with the CV Weekly team on a “float” in the annual Montrose Christmas Parade and quite a few others. It’s been an adventurous year, to say the least.

So, how did my wife and I celebrate our 26^th anniversary this week? Here’s a clue: it wasn’t in the Alps, but it did involve the Matterhorn (which, unfortunately was closed for renovations … arrrghhh!!). And even though the gas to Anaheim cost almost as much as airfare to see the real thing, can you really put a price on true love? (Men, the answer to that one is “Absolutely not!” Got it?)

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a repost of my column first published yesterday, 4.12.12, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper.

© 2012 WordChaser, Inc.

Jesus vs. the Zombie Bunnies

I don’t shock easily. Years ago, I could stand on the sidewalk in front of Monte Vista elementary school waiting for our kids and my grimaces and eye rolling were barely noticeable as I listened to the bleep-worthy language of some of their irrepressible young school mates.

Today, I can stumble across the latest online music/video assault by Cee Lo Green or Nicki Minaj and when I think about how many teens wallow in such classless, soul-polluting sludge – I don’t get mad, just terribly sad. But I haven’t doused a computer monitor with toilet bowl cleaner in a long time.  

That said, I was caught completely off guard last week when my wife and I were shopping at Target in Pasadena. Browsing one of their racks of Easter greeting cards hoping to find something to send to our out-of-town kids and grandkids, my gaze came to a screeching stop on a card that almost certainly was put in the wrong section.

The card showed two female cartoon eggs at a bar. “It seems like all the good ones are either married or gay,” said the blond egg to the redhead. Inside, the payoff read, “Oh well, happy Easter, anyway.” Yep, nothing says Easter like two pickled eggs on the prowl for a good man/egg. 

Standing with my mouth agape, I suddenly realized that there wasn’t just one inappropriate card, but an assortment of outrageously irreverent cards with a similarly sick take on Easter.

For example, next to the card with the two hardboiled eggs was one with a photo of a fuzzy, newborn chick on the front under the caption, “It’s Easter. WTF?” Honestly. Even in the deepest recesses of my mind, I never ever expected to see “Easter” in the same sentence with “WTF.” I mean, seriously. How did we get here?

It gets worse. Another card had a photo of two contemporary 20-something women flashing their best phony smiles at the camera. The caption bubble over one of the women said, “Can you believe my new Easter dress is a size 2?” On the inside, her girlfriend answers with one-word: the “B” word.

Yet another card featured a cartoon of a maniacal rabbit with blood-red eyes and a headline that screamed, “It’s the Zombie Bunny!” Touching. Next to this was a card with a big, bold font that simply read, “Cluck you.” How very special. Thanks so much for thinking of me at this special time of year.

I’d seen enough. The rest of our shopping trip I wandered behind my wife in an irritated daze. Days later, it’s still on my mind. I mean, they actually did it. They took the one last vestige of sanctity and holiness and dumped a big ol’ shovel full of faith-mocking mud on it. I don’t know whether these cards was created out of a disdain for Christianity, an ignorance of Easter or simply to sell cards. More importantly, I wonder who would buy such a crass slap at the sacred? And, for the love of God (pun not intended), who would want to receive such a thing? I just don’t get it.

Then again, our culture has increasingly become one where some folks become equally offended at the mere mention of the true meaning of Easter – that of the historical death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Son of God and Savior of humankind. His redeeming sacrifice and ultimate triumph over the grave is the entire point and purpose of the Easter celebration. Not chocolate bunnies. Not hunting for colorful eggs. Not feasting on spiral-cut hams. Not even tasteless greeting cards.

Now, I’ll certainly enjoy my ham (and maybe a tiny piece of chocolate – or two) and fellowship with family this Sunday. But lest you receive a card featuring zombie bunnies or foul-mouthed fowls and wonder what the celebration is really about, I wish you a very happy Easter. He is risen! He is risen, indeed!

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a repost of my column first published yesterday, 4.5.12, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper.

© 2012 WordChaser, Inc.