Despite being laid low with a hideous virus, I was told that while I was in San Francisco, I had to go to Pier 39 to see the sea lions, so today, that’s what Yellow Swordfish and I did.

I don’t know what I expected - a bunch of sea lions sunning themselves on rocks among the breakers, I guess, with tourists tossing them the odd herring - but what I actually saw was a bunch of the aforementioned marine mammals basking in the fog on a number of wooden pontoons, in a tiny harbour, and stern warning signs informing all and sundry that it was illegal to feed the wildlife. So, no herrings then?

They’re definitely fun to see though, and it’s quite fascinating to watch them rolling off the platforms and bouncing back up again. And when they bark, they sound just like my little pirate, whose proper dog bark has gone kinda rusty with age.

There was a lot of jostling and arguing and fooling around among the younger set, so the elder statesman pictured above had taken himself off to the peace and quiet of a private pontoon for one. He seemed to be having a little trouble with an itch he couldn’t quite locate. Don’t you just hate when that happens?

Just before I left for America, Daniel Cox of Notions to the Left of Far Right tagged me with a meme for six quirky things about myself. Apologies, Daniel, for not getting to it sooner, but my excuse is that before I left, I was too stressed to think about it and for the last week I’ve had very limited internet access, but now I’m sick with some icky chest virusy thing and this meme is a gift. I can post without having to think too much.

Anyway, quirky? Am I quirky?

Well, yeah. OK, I admit it - I have a few quirks. One or two odd kicks in my gallop, as it were .. but which ones to share with you guys? I mean, we don’t want to go frightening people! And if you know which movie that quote comes from I’ll take my hat off to you!

I guess that leads me to my first quirk.

1) I’ve developed a serious fondness for hats. It’s Other Half’s fault. He has always loved hats, and just recently he indulged his fancy for a genuine panama, and I have to say, it’s gorgeous. Forget the ‘genuine panamas’ in the chain stores (would you believe we found one in Marks and Sparks last year that claimed to be genuine but was made in China, from paper?), no, this was a genuine, hand-blocked Ecuadorian panama hat, made by a chap named Freddie, and it arrived in a beautiful balsa wood box. Anyway. Quite apart from my fondness for OH’s hats, and Johnny Depp’s hats (there’s another fine hat man for you!), I love my own hats.

I treated myself to a Russian style ‘fur’ hat a couple of winters ago, made from sheepskin. It’s beautiful, it suits me (kind of … ) and it’s seriously warm! For the summer, I’m sporting denim ‘baker boy’ peaked caps, or if I’m feeling frisky, a black straw cowboy hat. With a pirate scarf. Quirky enough for ya?

What next? Oh yeah. I have this thing about wallflowers.

2) I love wallflowers but I seldom plant them. I have a bizarre superstition that if I do, we’ll move house before they flower. It happened once, and once only, but I can’t get it out of my head, and OH keeps telling me to plant wallflowers because he’s desperate to move away from here and he wants to see if it works.

Perhaps I’ve mentioned this before, but -

3) I love knives. Pretty much any knives, but small and beautiful is best. I love the way they feel in my hand, and I love the timelessness and the salt-of-the-earth indispensability of them. All of humanity uses knives for various purposes from the peaceful, to the aggressive, to the fun. If I’m feeling miserable, don’t let me walk down the household goods aisle in Sainsbury’s or I’ll probably buy one to cheer myself up. So, here I am on holiday in the US and what am I bringing back as a souvenir? I’ll give you one guess.

4) I hate to drive. I especially hate to drive long distances, by which I mean anything over twenty miles. OH thinks it’s really weird that when we go out in my car, I want him to drive, but so it is. Oh, and I prefer the rock-bottom utility seats. Those all-singing, all dancing, adjust in five different dimensions at once jobs just don’t cut it for me.

5) I take my pillow with me whenever I travel. This probably can’t be considered truly quirky, since I do it for the sake of my damaged neck - you can never rely on any hotel to provide you with suitable pillows, and in my case, if I don’t have a suitable pillow, I’ll wake up in the morning with a hideously painful neck which may well need a visit to a chiropractor, or if I’m really unlucky, I’ll wake in the night with an asthma attack. And so, I travel with a large suitcase, or even two, depending on how long I’m planning to be away. This led to an excess baggage charge last week, dammit, on my flight from St George to Los Angeles.

6) I can’t eat and watch Johnny Depp at the same time. I just can’t. Why? Uh … I don’t think I can explain that one to you. See if you can work it out for yourselves.

So, here’s the rules -

Link the person(s) who tagged you.
Mention the rules on your blog.
Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them.
Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.

And my victims are -

Momma Mia, Mea Culpa

Still Amazed

Diary of a Housewife

The Introverted Exhibitionist

DeaFulgora

Godless Sunday

Please don’t fret if you don’t want to take part. It’s voluntary!

Well, here I am in Solvang, sneezing like a cat with a feather up its nose, and coughing a horrible raspy cough. One of my Deppsisters had a filthy chest cold and now I have it too, and so do at least two of my fellow Deppsisters. No doubt they’ll go home to their various states (and to Canada too) and spread it around a little more. Me, I’m planning to go infect San Francisco.

The week was enormous fun, even though the daytime temperatures hit 110-115 degrees and I normally just don’t do anything above 90 Fahrenheit. We managed with a ton of sunscreen, and by drinking a lot. So, OK, most of the ‘ladies’ were drinking margaritas and beer, but it was liquid, right? And we managed by hopping between air-conditioned house and air-conditioned cars, with side trips to air-conditioned restaurants, where more margaritas, beers, and Mai Tais were consumed. Being just a sweet little old English lady, I stuck to drinking water and hot tea (yes, even in that heat. One has one’s standards, dahling), but I took lots of incriminating pictures … which I shall not publish, unless the other ladies fail to pander to my every whim for the next year. Mwahahaha!!

We had such a great time. We watched Johnny Depp movies and interviews, we visited the Hollywood Walk of Fame to view the Johnny Depp star (which I had to wipe clean of grime in the approved way* before it could be photographed), and we visited Grauman’s Chinese Theater to see how well our hands and feet fitted into the famous prints. We lounged in the pool at the house and chatted, and got stuck in the LA traffic and chatted, we went to Disneyland and rode the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and chatted some more, and we attended Opening Night at the Hollywood Bowl and saw BB King, Liza Minelli, James Galway and Duane Eddy and some quite spectacular fireworks.

It’s truly amazing that a group of women from as far afield as Saskatchewan and England, taking in half a dozen US states on the way, can form such a strong bond of friendship after meeting on the internet with a bad case of JDOCD**, but so it is. We don’t just drool and chat about Johnny and watch endless movies, we talk about our lives and discuss everything under the sun and we support each other through the tough times. We are a close-knit group of true ‘real world’ friends, but we’d never have met up if it hadn’t been for that guy. Some of us have smartened ourselves up, lost weight, somehow found the resources to travel alone for the first time in our lives, or started to write. Some of us have looked to him as a role model and said ‘Fuck it’ to life and to the obstacles that stopped us doing what we wanted. On this trip most of the group decided to get tattoos at Yoni’s on Ventura Boulevard, each of them individual to the person concerned, but all including one small common design as a symbol of sisterhood. For some this was the first tattoo they’d ever had done, and perhaps they felt just a little rebellious, but they felt good. And that, dear readers, is the Depp Effect.

We like to think that if Johnny Depp knew of our friendship and the things we have had the courage to do in the name of that friendship, he’d be tickled to death.

One can only hope.

* Don’t ask.

** Johnny Depp Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

.

Well, today was the day that we’d been practising for - the day of the great Red Rock Canyon trail ride.

At nine this morning, we presented ourselves at the trail ride office complete with hats, sunscreen, sunglasses, bottled water and cameras, and full of confidence. This confidence was a little shaken by the form we had to sign, stating all the things that could go wrong and completely absolving the company from any and all liability, and also by the fellow trail riders who went back for their sweatshirts. Sweatshirts? Really? We were in lightweight jeans and short-sleeved cotton and the sky looked clear and blue … maybe they knew something we didn’t? But no, as it turned out, they didn’t. The sky stayed clear and the temperature rose to the point where I’d personally have melted in a sweatshirt, but then, they were from Florida, so maybe Utah on a bright June day did feel a tad chilly to them.

So we all piled onto the minibus which was to take us to the trail head and the sweatshirt guy was chatting to the driver and telling him how he’d been on a horse once before, when he was six. He rather thought it was tied to some kind of carousel, but he couldn’t be sure. Anyway, he was sure he’d be fine and was looking forward to it immensely. Go Florida Guy!

The horses were waiting for us, all saddled up and ready in a corral, and one by one we were assigned a horse, told its name and mounted up. The ‘riding instructions’ promised in the brochure consisted of two sentences -

“Don’t yank on the reins, hold ‘em by the knot and let ‘em lie loose. Hold your hand this way for stop, this way for go, this way for left, and this way for right - and lean back going down, forward going up”.

Oh, OK - now we’re all cowboys! Yeehaw!!!

Actually, the ride was fantastic. The scenery was stunning, the horses knew what they were doing and where they were going … mostly … and nobody fell off or died of cold, or indeed, sunstroke. One guy did drop his camera case though. And OH and I survived very well indeed, although we were rather tired when we got off.

And Florida Guy? Well, he was a tad less chatty on the way back, but he was heard to mumble something about his thighs hurting rather a lot. Our thighs, on the other hand, thanks to getting a little practice in before we left home, were just dandy.

Just as well, really, because we’re moving on tomorrow and the last thing I need is to be hauling suitcases through the airport with legs like jelly, only more painful.

Next stop, LA and the girly Deppfest. I think that should be fun!