A Day at the Fair

When I was a kid, we went to the county fair every year. It was the highlight of my summer. My parents or my friend’s parents would take us and we’d play the midway games and go to the 4-H demonstrations. There were baby goats, pigs—and pig racing—a petting zoo, and milking demonstrations.

And we’d eat. Cotton Candy, hot dogs, soda.

It was heaven for a kid turned loose with $20 in her pocket.

Yesterday we went to the L.A. County Fair. It was the first time in about 15 years that I’ve been to a fair–and it was the first time I went to the L.A. County Fair. I can’t believe how much fairs have changed over the years. They’ve always had the shopping pavillions with the up-and-coming Sham-Wow guys, jewelry cleaners, new windows and arts and crafts. But I don’t know if this is specific to the L.A. County Fair, or if it’s just par for the course now, but there was a section that was like a giant swap meet—cheap clothing and shoes, cell phone supplies and all sorts of randomness. It was kind of disappointing.

But really, the only reason to go to the fair is for the food. From 10 a.m. to midnight you can eat anything you want—in cholesterol-clogging, artery-busting, coronary-inducing quantities.

When we got there, I started with a BBQ beef sandwich and an ear of corn. This was probably the healthiest thing I ate all day. And that corn? Was perfect. It was fresh, crunchy and grilled just enough.

The corn on the cob rocked my world

When we finished our lunch, I spotted a stand with chocolate-covered bacon.

Photo by Elise Thompson (LAist.com)

It was basically thick pieces of bacon dipped in dark chocolate and served in Chinese take-out containers. I’m not a fan of dark chocolate, so I didn’t love it, but Bill thought it was weirdly good.

We heard a rumor that someone was serving deep-fried pizza. We didn’t find it, but we did find the deep-fried Oreos. I think I’m in love (and a little bit sick).

Doughnut-y, Oreo-ish goodness with a sprinkle of powdered sugar and drizzled with chocolate

And this place…

Chicken Charlies

Chicken Charlies will fry just about anything. They serve fried Avocados, fried White Castle burgers, fried frog legs and fried Twinkies.

I was more interested in a drink at this point.

daiquiri and a beer=$24

The daiquiri cleansed my palate so we went searching for more greasy goodness and found these…

Tasty Chips

These Tasty Chips are  hand-cut, homemade potato chips with just the right amount of salt. They give you dipping sauces like ketchup, ranch or this jalepeno cheese sauce. After much sampling and tasting it was determined that for optimal flavor you should dip the chips in ketchup first, then the cheese sauce. Personally, I’m a purist and ate them plain.

By this point, I was feeling a little sick, so I bypassed these….

Caramel-y deliciousness

But I was thinking about having one of these.

Monster Sausage

These foot-long Italian sausages are served on a grilled bun, smothered in onions and peppers.

This place…

Juicy's cranks out a lot of BBQ

cranks out a whole lot of this…

Finger-lickin' good

cazy amounts of chicken, and turkey legs bigger than your head.

That place also serves this:

Okay, I've heard of chicken and waffles. But this?

A chicken sandwich served on a Krispy Kreme doughnut.

I was sorry I didn’t get a chance to tackle the dill pickles, eat the brick of french fries or eat a waffle cone full of ice cream, but you’d need to hit the fair every single day for a month to hit all of the food places.

And you should keep your cardiologist on speed dial.

I think I’m totally going back next year.

PS: These photos were all taken with my Blackberry. Not too shabby, hu?

TMI

I have been on antibiotics for about a week for my recurring sinus infections. My dentist prescribed them because my face has been swollen like a balloon and I’m pretty sure it’s the reason I’ve had the ever-present eye twitch.

I’ve been on antibiotics twice before in the past few months for this and I guess she decided they were worthless and prescribed the mother of all antibiotics: Zithromax. I just looked up the drug online and it’s one bad-ass motherfucker.

Any time they show you the molecular structure of something, you know it’s totally hardcore.

See? Hardcore.

But, for me, I think it’s a little too bad ass. And Bad and Ass are the key words here.

It’s doing an awesome job on my sinuses—or it was until these damn winds picked up—but it’s destroying my digestive system pill by pill. I didn’t make the connection at first; I thought I just needed to take it with food. But with food, without food? Doesn’t matter.

According to the website, these are some of the side effects:

Abdominal pain? Check.

Gastrointestinal issues? Check, check and check.

Dizziness? Check Headache? Check. Vertigo? Check.

Plus, I’m fatigued (who wouldn’t be with all the gastrointestinal distress?) but another bonus? Not only am I fatigued I have insomnia!

I have been doubled over with such stomach cramps that it feels like I’m about to give birth. I’ve been swinging back and forth between constipation and diarrhea. Suddenly, I’ll get the urge to run down the hall to the bathroom, but I can’t stand up totally straight, which just exacerbates my dizziness.  I was going to wear white pants to an event I’m going to tomorrow but I’m guessing that absolutely no good can come from that.

The sinus pain and swelling I can deal with. This? Not so much. I am done.

I’m Having a Baby!

A food baby, that is. (Did I freak you out Bill???)

Some time later (hopefully sooner) I will be delivering a 5-pound 8-ounce Tuna Melt and fries.

I’m registered at Carnegie Deli in case you’d like to complete my registry. Pastrami on rye with Swiss, ketchup and a good New York Cheesecake would be nice playmates for my bouncing baby.

Don't let this happen to you...

Ugh, remind me again, why I chose the tuna melt over the salad I intended to order? Was there some kind of aneurysm that caused me to do this? Ugh.  My gut is so bloated right now I look more pregnant than my 8-months-pregnant daughter-in-law.

Send some Pepto Bismol, please.

(Thank you,Debra )

There is Nothing Caring Or Urgent About Urgent Care

Last night I caved in and decided to go to Urgent Care. My raspy voice was no longer sexy. In fact, there was nothing sexy about the gallons of greenish snot traveling through my sinus passages, threatening to overtake my nose and cascade out like a waterfall. My cough was no longer a delicate little “ahem”—instead it sounded like a cacophony of strangled ducks, quacking and hacking while they struggle for air. I had started to flap my arms like a duck when I coughed too. My throat felt like it had been shredded with razor blades and my whole body ached from the effort to stay upright.

So I stopped in for a quick visit on my way home from work.

I walked in the doors and was stunned to see the place teeming with people—like a swarm of germs. The room was jam-packed. For a split second I thought about turning around and going home to the warmth and safety of my bed, but I knew if I didn’t go then, I wouldn’t go at all. So I went up to the desk, checked in, displayed all the appropriate insurance information, paid my co-pay and waited for my turn.

There was nowhere to sit. Every single chair was full of sprawling, slouching, coughing, sneezing, bleeding, wheezy, bleary-eyed people. So I found some empty wall space by the front door and sat down to enjoy the US Weekly I bought just for this occasion. Trashy gossip mags and emergency rooms go hand in hand. I didn’t have the attention span for my book, and the paragraph-sized articles with big pictures were perfect. Tabloids are picture books for adults. But the floor was cold and every few seconds the door would open and shut because people were either coming in and out or loitering with their cigarettes by the front door (FYI to the lady with bronchitis: you probably should cut back on that 3-pack-a-day habit). I finally got annoyed with the teenage girl who stood in the doorway, holding the door open because she didn’t want to go all the way outside, but didn’t want the whole Urgent Care population to hear her very important phone call with her OhmygodBFF! I asked her politely to commit to being either in or out, but she gave me a look and said into the phone, “I don’t know. Some cranky lady wants me to move or some shit. I know! Whatev, right?” Sigh.

I didn’t have the energy for that battle so I scooted down the wall a little bit, but I was right under the TV, which was blaring Jeopardy!, which just made my headache unbearable. They finally called someone and two chairs opened up, but before I could get up and move toward them, some dude who had been there all of 3 seconds skulked over to them and sat down, saving one with his jacket. By this time I had been here about 30 minutes. My ass was cold from the floor, I was shivering from the front door and I was turning into a cranky shrew.

Just a little sociology break here: There are two kinds of people who come into Urgent Care. 1. The people who come in, survey the scene and resign themselves to patiently waiting their turn, and 2. the people who come in, survey the room, assume we all have nothing else to do except sit there, pitch a fucking fit and yell about how they’re not going to wait in this mess, try to jump the line, but then sit there looking as stupid as they feel when they realize they need to sit down, shut the fuck up and wait their turn like the rest of us.

Break time must have been over because they suddenly started calling a bunch of people in. My name was called so the nurse could triage me. The dude never even looked at me once. Eyes on computer, asking my questions, typing in my answers. He took my temperature, my blood pressure and sent me back out into the petri dish. And my wall.

A few minutes after I returned to the waiting room, three seats opened up. This time I moved quickly. I grabbed one on the end so I didn’t have to sit between two sickly people, opened my US Weekly and settled in for the long haul. 20 minutes later, the people who previously occupied the row of chairs that I was now sitting in, came out and fumed loudly at the audacity of people stealing THEIR chair. (They didn’t really say audacity, but I can’t really duplicate the expletives they spewed). Who knew they were coming back? And after 20 minutes? Those fucking chairs are fair game suckers.

At about 8:00 p.m., I was one hour into this little adventure and entering the 9th circle of hell. The 2-hour Bachelor Season Finale came on the TV, and the room was rapidly filling with wheezy, vomiting kids who all but oozed snot. Most of them were never told to cover their mouths when they coughed, so they hacked all over everyone, wiping their nasty noses with their fists and then touching every single piece of furniture in the place.

Meanwhile, this older couple sat across from me, and the woman stared at me the entire time they sat there. Not sly little glances, but openly staring. Her eyes bored into me. And god forbid I should cough (while covering my mouth, thankyouverymuch). The woman gaped at me with open hostility, like I was soley responsible for all the sickness in the world. Um, it IS Urgent Care, bitch. Fuck off. Believe me, I didn’t want to be there any more than she did.

I tried to tune her out and read, but I couldn’t concentrate. So I closed my US Weekly and put it back in my purse. At this point, The Staring Woman got shitty with me. “Are you finished with that?” I wasn’t sure what she was talking about and said, “Hu?” (Eloquent as always.) “Are you done with that magazine? Maybe some other people would like to read it.” At this point, I had sort of had enough. I had put in about 90 minutes at this point, so I was the Veterano, the battle-scarred OG, and she was just a thug. (Okay, I was a little delirious at this point.) But I was over this shit and beyond pretending to be nice. So I told her that if other people wanted to read, perhaps they should have planned ahead and bought their own like I did. She sighed loudly at stage whispered to her husband that she couldn’t believe I would steal a magazine from the ER.

Around this point, her husband got called in and they both disappeared for a while.

Replacing them was a woman and a 2-year-old she had zero control over. While the woman yakked on the phone, her daughter ran in and out of the front doors, making everyone freeze. The woman finally bellowed across the room at the child, waking everyone who was napping, to get her ass back inside. Then, while mommy still chatted into the phone, the little girl, decided to throw her box of crayons up toward the ceiling. Most of us were too sick to have the reflexes to duck, so we were pelted with raining crayons. After crawling through our feet to pick them all back up, she jumped on chairs, leaned into people’s faces to say hi (while coughing), grabbed their stuff and squealed with delight. It wasn’t until she tried to reach over the chair to grab my Blackberry (I was about to dial 911 for help at this point), that her mother finally told sweet little Sophie to sit her ass down NOW! Actually, I was e-mailing a friend of mine who wondered if death was preferable to the emergency room.

Meanwhile, in the middle of one of my horrendous coughing fits (during which I was struggling to breathe) the woman next to me what diagnosing my cough and telling me that all I needed was a little Vicks Vapo Rub. But I knew better. Bitch was just trying to get me out of there so she could move up a place in line.

Finally, 2 1/2 hours later I got to see a real, live actual doctor. I was in and out of the exam room in 5 minutes.

If I wasn’t sick going into that place I was definitely going to be by the time I left. I was going to demand antibiotics if they didn’t give me something. Anything.

Diagnosis? A cold that turned into a “wicked sinus infection.” Yes, that was the technical diagnosis. He called a prescription over to my pharmacy and I was sent on my way. Of course, nothing should be easy at this point, right? The pharmacy had some problem last night and closed an hour early and I couldn’t get my drugs until this morning.

I’m finally starting to feel better, thank god. But if I take a turn for the worse, I’ll blame it on Urgent Care.

But I did learn one valuable lesson: Monday nights are notoriously the worst days to go to Urgent Care. Apparently, people don’t let sickness interfere with their weekend plans so they save it all up for Mondays.

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired

I think it’s time to get serious about my health. This is the second time in two months that I’ve gotten sick. I’m not talking about a cold here and there; I’ve been down-and-out sick.

In December I got a cold that turned into bronchitis and a nasty viral infection. I was totally out of commission for two weeks. I missed Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

Two months later—almost to the day—I’m sick again. My cold has turned into a nasty, flu-like thing full of snot and aches. My throat fees like I swallowed a glass of razor blades, and I’m coughing up junk from my lungs again. In other words, I have bronchitis.

I don’t think I ever fully got rid of it the last time, and long work hours, not enough sleep and too many social obligations have sunk me. The good news is, after this weekend, my job will be slowing down and I can return to regular hours. Beyond that, though, I think I have to make some major lifestyle changes.

I don’t eat a lot of fast food, but I do eat out a lot. I try to make good choices—I do eat lots of chicken and some fish and none of it is slathered in heavy sauce—but sometimes I push the salad aside when the french fries beckon. I don’t eat enough fruit and veggies, I drink too much coffee and not enough water.

I’ve been too busy to hit the gym for the last four months and that has had a major impact on my health. I’m not as strong as I used to be, and I think it has affected my immunity. I’ve tried to run when I have the time, but getting sweaty at 10:00 p.m. when it’s 40 degrees outside isn’t the wisest thing I can do.

Priority Number 1 is getting over this thing. Then I’m going to start taking my vitamins, getting more sleep, eating better and working out.

My mom called while I was writing this, and she got all up in my business about being sick again. She even threatened to drive up here to take care of me. If that’s not reason enough to get healthy, then I don’t know what is.

Now I’m going to take some Mucinex, my cough syrup and a shot of tequila and I’m going back to bed.

Santa Hates Me

Santa must hate me because I am sick as a dog. Except this dog is way cuter than I am right now.

I have a sore throat that feels like someone is scraping and stabbing it with little bitty knives. My nose is getting congested and I feel like I have a bag of cotton balls stuck in there—you know that nasty itchy, dry, full but can’t blow or sneeze feeling? That’s it. But probably by tomorrow morning it’ll turn into that gross, runny, red-faced mess. (Merry Christmas, Bill. Wanna smooch?) My muscles ache. Apparently, last night in my sleep I ran a marathon. Uphill. On my knees. Backwards. My neck muscles are so tight that my shoulders can barely hold my head upright.

I was afraid this was going to happen, so I tried to prevent it by getting enough rest and trying to lay low on the weekends—I even took some preventative NyQuil shots for a few nights—but it’s been a rough couple of weeks. After a couple of pre-dawn 15-hour days at work, I put off the bulk of my Christmas shopping until this weekend. Running around the malls stuffed with infected people? Not my idea of fun. And there was nothing merry about it.

I did manage to finish off my shopping on Saturday, but wrapping everything is going to be another story. I’m thinking about handing everything over in the bags I bought it in. Would that be rude? (Lesley, you’re lucky—I did wrap yours.)

Not sure if I’ll be dead in the next couple of days (did I ever mention I’m sort of dramatic?!) from the Black Death flu, so I will wish you all a very Merry Christmahanuakwanzaa now—just in case I don’t pop in!

Have a wonderful holiday.

xoxo