freshly sharpened pencils...

we drove to LA yesterday, some journey - a whole 6 hours. staying in a plain hotel in pasadena - have family here - so easy access. well, actually, i met this cousin of my father last night. it wasn't hard picking him out of a crowd - like he had just got of a tshova from luveve - and he's been here for thirty years! jeepers, one would have thought that his s'khumba (skin) would have hlambuluka-ed. anyhoo, let me not diss fam! but then again wait for this....

this guy proposes to take to us out for dinner at this place which is open all night. me thinks, "oooh, an all night bar that serves food... kill two birds with one stone!" but nay, it was deep in this chinese ghetto with the most atrocious ambience. in fact, it had no ambience if you factor the guy with the stench from 3rd ave alley sat on the next table. that place was the pits! i'm sorry, i have a rep to maintain and thank heavens i know no-one in pasadena. so we sit at this table - sticky table and i decide to order a plain lemonade and something their 'buffet'. figured i'd rather pick and choose what i wanted to eat. now wait for this again.....

so this lovely cheery waitress, bubbly as a freshly opened bottle of champagne, brings the drinks over. that lemonade, ooooh, it tasted creamy! yeah, creamy strawberry lemonade. eeiuw! and it was in a pint glass and so there was no hiding the fact that i wasn't drinking it. so i had to stick the straw all the way to my throat to bypass the awful taste. that seemed to work well actually! now the food. it's 'buffet' right! now this one had a twist. bubbly princess actually brought a plate with hobos of fish, chicken and some meat dunked in dodgy sauce. and there were the cold fries and last week's salad on the side. hey, lady, i wanted to choose what to eat - not your whole bladdy menu! first after tasting the meat i thought it was lamb, then pork but after enquiring it was actually beef. what sort of cows i wonder? the chicken was just breaded rubber with lots of oil and the fish was somewhat edible after being dunked in tomato ketchup.

i really couldn't believe that we actually drove across town to this dump to eat this shit. my parents brought me up well and so i ate like a good little boy - besides my african stomach can handle anything! well........ so i thought. years living overseas have loosened my mathumbus and they aren't as agile as they used to be. my granny would feed us meat clearly green in colour (it adds to the flavour, she'd say) and we would survive comfortably. but today.....

i find myself the king of a tiny poorly lit cubicle. my porcelain throne is my crowning glory and my screams of absolute agony echo on the four walls and low ceiling. my LA adventure is full of promise - the promise of being coronated on my little white throne.