Recently.

Well , it was another exiciting weekend over here that involved a lot of dozing on the couch. Seriously. But it also involved a preview of the new Simpsons ride in Universal Studios, Hollywood, some dinosaurs, a “rock and roll music” concert, extremely high temperatures and…dozing on the couch. Most notably, we turned the air conditioner on…twice! How exciting is that? Very exciting in our house. But high temps and too much sun gave me a migraine and the only thing that would soothe it was cool air and a couch.



To be fair. The picture above was taken near sunset. When the sun is actually hitting the wall on which the thermometer is positioned. So, one wall of my living room is getting the 114 degree blast while the back of the room isa more reasonable 95 degrees. The room itself stayed cool-ish. But the air conditioning helped get it down below 85.

So the Simpsons ride? Very cool. Very fun. Very fast. As one of the guys I was with pointed out, the most exciting part of it was being on a ride that was not yet sticky from the hands of a thousand tourists. Personally, I am not much a fan of Universal Studios. There’s not a whole lot there and…eh. But I can see it from my back window so when the chance came to ride the ride, I didn’t turn it down.

The Simpsons Ride before it gets all...sticky.

Apparently, the style of the ride is similar to the old Back to the Future ride (which it has replaced) but I don’t remember if I was ever on that ride (my husband claims that I was, but he also claims that my favorite cookies are gingersnaps and he is wrong so…you know…grain of salt and all that). It’s a virtual thing where you kind of start off in a virtual rollercoaster and then the story progresses into a wild chase. All your favorite characters are there and it’s pretty darn exciting. Lots of detail went into the whole set up, from the entrance throughout. I enjoyed it immensely. And I would say if you are a Simpsons fan, it may be worth it to go to Universal just for the ride.

And while I was in the park, I got to ride the Jurassic Park water ride for the first time ever. I am assured by those in the know that it was much more awesome ten years ago. Nonetheless…yay! Dinosaurs! So, you know…cool. I did try to get on this ride one other time, maybe 8 years ago. I made it all the way to the front of the line when they closed it down due to too many baseball caps in the water filtering system. Yeesh. But still..dinosaurs! (Stegosaurus is my favorite.)

What else? Oh the rock and roll musical concert was Crowded House. Very nice. It was the husband’s birthday and he was gifted with a ticket so away we went. Nice venue. Good music and lots of old people rocking out. What more could you want? Ok…old is a relative term. They were all about my age. Which is old. But clearly not too old to rock out because that’s what the audience did. And I personally never thought of Crowded House as a WOOOHOO! YOU ROCK! I GOTTA DANCE! Sort of band, but the rest of the world apparently does. That’s ok, have fun old people. I’ll sit here quietly and watch.

And then there was the dozing. And the cleaning of the bathroom. And the nice sushi dinner. OH! and Doctor Who! With Tim McInnerny. I love him so very much. Thank you Doctor Who writers. You are doing a bang up job of employing my favorite actors. How about a little Alan Rickman now? Or maybe some Stephen Fry? You know you want to…


OH MAN! In searching for a wee picture of Tim McInnerny because you know I can’t resist, I came across a review of him in OTHELLO, my favoritest of favorite Shakespearian things. I had read the glowing reviews of Eamonn Walker’s Othello and somehow glossed right over the fact that one of my favorite actors played my favorite part in my favorite play. Tsk. I should pay closer attention. I know you think I am a little goofy when I get all swoony over him, but dude...talent.

Warm.

Oh it must be back to school time because I am looking at notebooks and journals and schoolbags and wishing I needed some. The stationary lust hits hard in September but I am well stocked and have no need for just one more sharpie set or one more blank book. Don’t get me wrong, I will find a reason to have them all but at the moment…nothing. My husband did give me a big ol’ handful of mini gel pens though, that ought to keep me at bay for a while.

So, it’s been hot. Did you know? Like super hot, hot. Like even I think it’s hot kind of hot. I am the girl that requires sweaters until it’s in the eighties and three quarter sleeves until it’s 93 degrees out. I sleep in sweats or long pajamas and even I wore a tank top to bed. Over one hundred degrees for many days. This made the weekend quite unpleasant and claustrophobic as we only have air conditioning in one room. Going to the bathroom was brutal. Going to bed in the actual bedroom was unthinkable. More than ten minutes in the kitchen? No way. But going out? Also unthinkable. Imponderable. Unbearable. So I sat in my little corner of the couch and read and watched Mad Men and…did very little. Hey, I would have cleaned…really…if it hadn’t been so hot. But…you know it was for my health that I didn’t.

Now in truth, it has been my experience anyway, that it’s really only unbearably hot in Los Angeles for about two weeks of the year. Not always two weeks in a row but in general, only about 14 days a year require me to use the air conditioner…but also keep in mind, I am like the lizard. Cold blooded. I like the warm. In general, when everyone else is saying it’s way too hot, I am quite happy. But when I say hot. It’s hot. But two weeks is ok. I can handle that. People tend to forget though. In a week or so it will still be pretty warm and people will start saying things like “It’s September, it should be cooler than this” as they have said every year in all my ten years here. And guess what. Every year it’s been this hot around this time. So, what do I do? I leave. Next week I am off to Florida, where it is…hot. But I will be in Disney where there are may cool places to hide, so I won’t mind. Also, Disney as an adult…much more entertaining. There are already plans in motion for cocktails and…well, more cocktails. I can’t wait. And then after cocktails there will be much shopping and more cocktails and IT’S A SMALL WORLD. It shall be grand, I tell you, GRAND!