Cosima Underwater

Sorry to keep you waiting for so long for the third part of the fairytale. Life caught up with me, and the photos have not magically reappeared… real life can be sooooo frustrating.

Luckily, I found copies of them in the recesses of my computer. Of course they had to be resized and uploaded once more.

So where were we? Aah yes, beautiful Fresnian princesses and other magical people…

The first princess the beanstalk met in Fresno was the wonderful Rachel, who had kept watch at the pirate’s den while he was away. She reminded me more of a faerie though. Beautiful, kind hearted, and with just the right amount of quirkiness. No photos of her yet, they will follow later.

Next a very famous movie star stopped by. You may know him from the Zonthar in the classics series.

Obviously, we had to shoot the next installment. With the washing in the background, which movie could it be? A gritty adaption of one of Brecht’s plays… Low-dive Jenny and Mack the Knife?

You may know this already, but let me point out the obvious, Fresno is hot in summer and this year it was already very hot in May. Perfect excuse to go to the neighborhood’s watering hole for rehydration. Where we interrupted Solitaire’s studies for her new role as the male (?!?) lead. She showed us her newly short-cut hair and very convincing machismo. Which is no small feat for a beautiful Fresnian princess.

They pour very stiff drinks at the watering hole. Which didn’t stop us from wandering on to the newly opened “English pub” to meet even more Fresnian princesses.

Well, it was an American version of an English pub, much bigger and with ample parking spaces right in front of the entrance. Which is ok with me. Who wants to drive around for hours to find parking? That would be much too much realism. I only have to nitpick a little. A “real” English pub always has a beer-soaked carpet, gone brown and musty. And that they had run out of the locally brewed “Cluster Fuggle Cream Ale” was a big disappointment too (But yes, APJ, it was great to say it!).

I got to meet two wonderful ladies, Joy and APJ, and they graciously oversaw that jet lag was beginning to hit me, and I was speaking in monosyllables. We were trying to do the Zonthar-look, and they are so much better at it than me.

The next day, the pirate got the Bonnie-and-Clyde car ready for a foray into the country-side.

The pirate wanted to show me enchanted nature, I was more interested in golden booty. Along the way, I was pointing out fruit-laden orange trees, ripe for the picking. The straight-laced pirate did not stop the car. Then came a post office, alone in the middle of nowhere. Dismissed as too small.

The river bed was full of gold… all sparkly. “Hooray!” I shouted. “We are rich!”

“Do you know how cold the water is?”

“Well, let me test it.”

Dismissed as too icy. Great spot to sell woolen socks to stupid tourists though.

On the way back we picked up groceries at the “Super Oriental” and the little shop across from it. “Super Oriental” puts any supermarket in Hong Kong to shame. They have a great selection of Asian foodstuffs, and because it is run by people from Laos or Vietnam, you find lots of things for Indochina dishes that are not commonly available in a Chinese supermarket. It was great fun to look around.

In the evening, the pirate spoiled me by taking me out for dinner to Veni Vidi Vici, where we met by chance Mustang and his sister-in-law. Mustang was sharing stories of his European travels, and they sounded a bit like Gulliver’s tales… lol.

We were also discussing if people in normal life are anything like their blog persona. Mustang thought that the woman in front of him was like Cosima. I think it’s also nice that people can share sides of them in their blogs that are not always obvious in daily life. Mustang does that with his blog, and I enjoy his posts very much.

Then my giant pork chop arrived, and I felt like a dwarf.

Not to be outdone, the Malay pirate had ordered half a cow.

After the beanstalk ate half of the giant pork chop and the pirate half of the steak, they looked at each other and had the same thought “No more!” … such loosers. They came, they saw, but they didn’t conquer.

The next day, Joy came and took us for a “Costco run” in preparation for the party later in the evening at the pirate’s den. Yes, Costco gave me culture shock… lol. I don’t think it would work in Hong Kong though. Where do you store “packs of twenty” in a tiny kitchen?

Then the pirate took us to his favorite Indian restaurant, which turned out to be inside an Indian convenience store. It’s a winning combination. While you wait for your meal, you can browse around the aisles for Indian spice mixes, sweets and snacks, and natural cosmetics and toiletries. We did that for a while, but then sat down and were captivated by Bollywood music videos that were playing on two TV screens. Our favorite was a very, very long music video by a girl group in skimpy Britney Spear’s school uniform outfits. They sang and danced around St. Petersburg for half an hour. Why they were in Russia remained a mystery.

In the next episode: A gnarly head, a cuddly seal, and other strange creatures.