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EARTHQUAKE IN LA!!!!!!!

This morning I was at home doing some chores when an earthquake rattled Los Angeles County. Funny thing, I ran out of coffee yesterday but I certainly didn't need this jolt offered as a substitute. While my apartment was bouncing all over the place I froze for a second with flashes of the night I survived the big one - Northridge '94. Turns out the epicenter was in Chino Hills, about 30 miles east of downtown LA and rated a 5.8 magnitude. It took me a few minutes to calm down and realize that it wasn't the end of the world - just yet. Within seconds I got a flurry of emails and text messages asking if everything is ok. I assured everyone that it was nothing major in West Hollywood. My friend Joe in San Diego predicted that the extreme right-wing nuts would use the quake as god-fearing propoganda for Prop. 8 against California's recent acceptance of gay marriage. Possibly, but all I know for sure is that I came pretty close to using my puppy's 'wee wee pad.'

Girlfriend 2

Years ago I had a cat I named Girlfriend. After I put her down I vowed that it would be a long long time before I would commit to owning another pet. A couple of nights ago a neighbor had a friend over with a little puppy and after I cooed over her for about 10 minutes she said, "My friend has another one if you want her." Without thinking or planning I said, "Bring her to me." An hour later I was the owner of a 6 week-old chihuahua that I have affectionately named, Girlfriend 2. I went to the pet store and bought some puppy food and 'wee wee pads' - cuz really, that's all she is gonna do right? Eat and crap. Our first night together was fairly uneventful, she was nervous and just slept a lot. We had one funny moment tho... Girlfriend had to go pooh-pooh so I put her on the pad. Her initial 'push' caused both of her legs to lift off of the ground a little, then when she pushed a second time her legs flew over her head and she did a sommersault. It was at this moment that I knew she was meant for me - no regrets.

Where to Next?

I'm Home. Great trip. But the only thing I keep thinking, WHERE TO NEXT?

How Would You Like to be a Nice Guy?

I go to Europe every summer and I make all my travel plans in December and January, good six months prior. This includes my airline ticket. Over the years I have become quite picky and have narrowed my trans-continental flights to a single seat - the beauty of buying my ticket so far in advance is that it is always available. I always fly American because of the milage program and that particular airbus has two sections of coach and I always choose the window seat in the last row of the of the first coach section. I sacrifice the seat reclining as far back so that I will have nobody sitting behind me. I was at London Heathrow waiting in the gate to board for my flight home when I heard an announcement, "Mr. Keenum, please come to the ticket counter." I walked over and said, "I'm Mr. Keenum." An American Airlines agent named Paulina looked at me with a smiled and asked coyly, "How would you like to be a nice guy?" Nothing good comes from a conversation that starts like that, right? I asked her, "What do you need?" Paulina said, "You are in seat 27J. It's not a great seat - sure it's a window but because you are up against a wall you can't recline all the way." I responded, "I fly in that seat all the time, I'll be fine, thanks." I turned to go and she stopped me, "Well, Mr. Keenum, I am trying to seat a honeymooning couple together and it would be helpful if you could give up your seat." I moaned, "Well..." Pualina interupted me, "I am prepared offer you an aisle seat in the rear of the plane." That was not much of an attractive offer and I said, "I really don't want to give up my seat, I'm sorry." Paulina persisted, "That seat you have now, you're just gonna be bunched up on that wall. And you're a big guy, maybe you'd like the extra room with the new seat." Now she's calling me fat and looking out for my comfort? I explained, "I'm really sorry, but I bought this ticket 7 months ago so that I would sit in that very seat." Paulina went back to her original approach, "I just figured that you'd like to be a nice guy for the honeymooning couple..." I shrugged and said, "Sorry." Paulina replied, "It's fine. Thanks anyway." Once I boarded the plane the woman sitting in front of me stood and spoke, "Hi, sorry to bother you," She pointed to the man next to her, "We are the honeymooning couple and I wanted to apologize for that agents' behavior. We merely asked if she could do something for us, we certainly didn't mean for her to be so aggressive with people." I smiled, "It's ok. I'm sorry I couldn't help but I tend to get claustophobic and this seat is good for that and I didn't like her approach. I'm glad she found some nice people to help you out tho!" She replied, "She did, thanks." Well, well, well... as it turns out, the seat next to me was empty and I flew from London to Los Angeles with two seats! And that really pissed me off because Paulina knew this and presented it to me as doing me a favor by giving me more room with her new seat assignment. How would I like to be a nice guy, indeed.      

Um, My Coke?

I always stay in the same area in Amsterdam and I tend to eat at the same falafel stand quite a bit. For my last lunch of this vacation I decided to go to an Italian restuarant that I have been eyeing for years. I went in and it wasn't very crowded; I was greated by a very pretty hostess who sat me near the bar. I could see an older man and woman behind the bar prepping for the dinner rush. I didn't like the look on the woman's face - she was very sour and she kept whispering to the man in Italian and she was clearly complaining about the hostess. The hostess brought me a menu, "I'll be back for your drink order." The woman began barking orders at the hostess in Dutch. Every 3 seconds she was barking something else at her, I was growing uncomfortable. She was telling her to do everything except wait on me! Finally the hostess came to get my drink order, "Sorry, what would you like?" I whispered, "For starters I would like her to stop yelling at you." She replied, "It's my first day. I can't seem to do anything right." While we were talking the woman behind the bar picked up the phone and began a heated conversation, when the hostess went to the bar to get my drink the woman handed her the phone, "Carmine wants to talk to you." There was a brief chat and when the hostess hung up the phone she screamed something in Dutch at the woman, grabbed her purse and stormed out the front door. I sat there feeling really stupid, um, my Coke? The woman came to my table, "Sorry about her. The pretty ones don't think they need to do any work." I looked at her and said, "It looked to me like you were working her ass off."

A few Video Clips of Amsterdam

I shot a few video clips while I was in Amsterdam. This is a panoramic view of one of the main squares called the Leidseplein, it's an active center with tons of tourists, passing trams, street performers and plenty of cafe options - oh and lots of beer!:

The next couple of clips are of a street performer in the Dam Square (haha, I said Dam Square)...

And finally, back to the Leidseplein... this clip starts with a street vendor demonstrating the tennis gizmo he is selling (yea, I bought one), then I pan over to a performer trying to draw a crowd to start his act by firing up his chainsaw - while his boombox blares 'Safety Dance'.

Best of Holland Tour

I've been to Amsterdam a number of times and I have never booked one of the excursions that take you out into the Holland countryside. Outside of the Anne Frank House and the Van Gogh Museum I never really thought of Amsterdam as, um, cultural. This time around I decided to book an all day trip with the Best of Holland Tours which included stops at two traditional Dutch fishing villages with a boat ride to connect the two, a visit to one of Holland's windmills and finally two factories - one for cheese and the other for wooden shoes. I boarded the bus and I asked the woman who was taking tickets, "Is there a restroom on board?" She barked, "No, you will sit and hold it." I said, "Um, ok." I sat next to the rear door where she was taking tickets and a couple came on and sat a few rows ahead of me. The woman taking tickets sniffed a couple of times and asked me, "Do you smell food?" I shrugged and she continued, "I am smelling food. For certain it is fish and chips now." She walked up the aisle and found the eaters and said, "Ah, it is you. Give that food to me. We will put it in the luggage hold and you can have it again at the first stop." They asked, "How long 'til the first stop?" She said, "Forty-five minutes." Yum, that should be nice and tasty. The last pair to board the bus were two young girls - I would later befriend them and find out that they were Canadian and touring Europe for two months as high school graduation gifts from their parents. They were very chatty and kind of loud, every sentence began, "Like, you know..." The bus took off and the woman taking tickets turned out to also be the tour guide, she began, "Hello, bon jour and buenos dias ladies and gentleman. My name is Hedde and I will be the one giving the explanation today." She paused and then continued, "And now this is French that I will speak." She had a weird way of whisper-talking into the microphone and on words that she wanted to emphasize she would whisper louder and elongate each sylabol. You should have heard her say the word DYKE when she was explaning the intricate water system in Holland, "And the water is held back by a huge DYYYYKE." The young girls would pay attention to the English presentation but when she switched to French and Spanish they would talk - too loud. I could tell that this disrespect was bothering Hedde and finally 5 minutes into the bus ride Hedde nipped things in the bud, "Ladies.  Ladies. Stop the talk, please. We need quiet for the explanation. This bus is like a church - very quiet, except ME!" They stopped at once, mainly from embarassment - afterall they had been called-out over the PA system. I took out the notepad I always travel with and scribbled something down, ripped out the page and passed it to the two girls; they suppress giggles when they read the single word I had written to them: BUSTED! 

(I should say that even though the initial Hedde experience was bad I warmed up to her once we got to the first stop. She was odd for sure but she turned out to be real kick - who wouldn't love a woman carrying a tulip tipped umbrella? She even told me her favorite joke, "Aren't you suprised that golfers don't wear two pairs of pants? You know, in case they get a 'hole in one.'" I bought her lunch.)

Here is a video I shot of the port in Marken. About half way through it you can hear me scold a 3 year-old who was trying to steal my seat!

Ah Emma

In addition to meeting the 'busted' girls I made the acquaintance of two women in their mid-60's. One lives in Bakersfield, the other in Chicago and they meet up once or twice a year to be travel the world, "At this point our husbands would rather stay home. We have more fun without them anyway." They were lovely ladies and I hung out with them quite a bit - swapping travel stories and disgussing Emma's love of all things feline. We enjoyed a lot of laughs. Also taking the tour was a group of Spanish youngsters in their early 20's. There were 5 or 6 of them and the appearant ring-leader brought his girlfriend and his bong. At each stop they would all steal away and 'smoke-out' which of course would make them silly and the boy and his girlfriend would become inappropreately sexual. At times they were all over each other and they didn't seem to care that they were surrounded by decent people and children. Our final stop of the day was at a wooden shoe factory and as we were waiting for the bus to swing around to pick us up the girlfriend was standing in the middle of the waiting area with people all around, he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. She reached around and grabbed ahold of his joystick and gave it a squeeze! Then he swung her around and they kissed passionately and then he put his hand between her legs and made a move for her yum-yum. I completely lost it. I had an out-of-body moment and started screaming at them; I was so bonkers I don't even remember what I said but I can recall how hot my face got from my rage. The boy was going to argue back but another couple of people got involved and they slunk away indignantly. When Emma came out of the wooden shoe exhibit I was still flush and told her of the scandal she had missed. Emma said, "Oh, I know. They have been like that all day. And there are kids around. Back at the cheese demonstration they were right in fornt of me doing all sorts of lude things to each other." I asked, "And you didn't say anything?" Emma confessed, "Well, I was a bit intimidated by them. And to tell you the truth," she leaned in to whisper, "I'm an old lady and it's been awhile since..." She rolled her hand for me to fill in the blank - oh dear, she was TITILLATED?! We shared a laugh as I stroked her arm, "Ah Emma, no wonder you have so many cats."

Cut the Cheese

The countryside tour of Holland included a stop at a gouda cheese factory. They must be in cahouts with the tour company because they had a sizable cheese shop on the premises and they made us stay for just a little too long. We were not shown a demonstration as much as we were given an aural step-by-step of the process. The 15-minute lecture was given by a lovely dutch women dressed in traditional clothing and in short intervals she moved between English, Spanish and French with considerable comfort. In short: You first must milk a goat or cow and pour the days offering into large vats to stir for 6 hours. The stirring process causes the whey to rise to the top and is then discarded. You must pour the remains into molds to form the appearance of what is know as 'the wheel' and compress then for a couple of days which allows then to also dry-out. From there the plastic shell is painted-on and then they are stored to age for at least a week and some up to a year, the longer they age the sharper the cheese. From the factory they are shipped to be sold in shops all over Europe. Once purchased you can then, er, cut the cheese. Yes, that's an obvious fart joke but there was an even better one told on that day. As our cheese demonstrator was rattling off the ingrediants to their spicy gouda she finished with a fart joke, which of course she repeated in 3 languages, "...and the last ingrediant is our little secret, but be careful if you buy some today," she warned, "because it really gives you power within the hour." The Spaniards laughed the loudest.

Morris Folk Dancers

In the small fishing town of Volendam, near Amsterdam, I ran into a group of Morris Folk Dancers. I stopped to watched them skip around and wave their kercheifs in dance on the main street (see video below) and then pass a hat around for tips. After they collected a nice chunk of change, including a 2 Euro coin from my pocket, they gathered their belongings and wandered off. They sounded a lot like Christmas with all the bells attached to their shins. I went to explore the town; I strolled off the beaten path and eventually came upon a bar and decided that I had earned a refreshing beer. As I got closer I realized that the Morris dancers were there as well drinking their earnings. I went in and found myself next to one of them at the bar and as the bartender handed him his beer I said, "Hey, I paid for that!" He responded in a thick Scot accent, "Might-e nice o' you." Then I asked, "What are you guys doing so far from home?" He replied, "We are performin' at a festival. Today we got time on our hands so we dancin' the streets for beer money. Dancin' is far better when your bladdered." I looked him over and joked, "Well, I'm guessing you'd have to be!" He laughed, "Indeed."