The Top 5 Reasons Why L.A. is Overrated

I found Ameena at Fancy That Fancy This through Kat at Tenaciously Yours and I am so glad I did! I love finding someone who is honest: sometimes, ya kind of get sick of your husband and your kid. Do you love them? OF COURSE! But do you sometimes want to smack them until they stop whining? OF COURSE! The thing is, there's never a post where you don't think she's an awesome mom and wife. Her writing is captivating and funny, self-deprecating and humble. Start with this post on being overwhelmed whether at home or on vacation. Something tells me I am sitting here relating right now as I return from my trip.

Those of you who are familiar with my blog www.fancythatfancythis.com know that I hate Los Angeles with a passion. You probably also know that I escape at every opportunity. I even welcomed a visit to Stephanie's home state of Minnesota during the depths of winter this past January! But what you may not know is why I detest L.A., so when Stephanie called for guest posts tackling Top 5 lists, I realized this was the perfect chance for me to explain myself.

The Top 5 Reasons Why L.A. is Overrated

1. L.A. is hard on the self-esteem. Some days I'll actually make an effort with my hair and clothes, maybe even slap on some blush if I'm feeling particularly energetic, and I'll feel pretty good about myself. Until I walk out of the house and run into Jessica Alba and/or Jennifer Aniston and/or one of the many other gorgeous stars that inhabit L.A., at which point I'll feel like a fat, hideous, unattractive mess.

2. The traffic is horrific. Since 99% of my day is spent sitting in gridlock traffic trying to get somewhere, there is little to no time left to enjoy what few attractions (the beach, Disneyland) L.A. has to offer.

3. L.A. is hard on the skin. You are probably thinking, "Ameena, must you complain about everything? Just put on some lotion." Trust me when I say that even a trough of Curel can't repair the damage that the dry and smoggy L.A. weather causes. I've tried. My skin still looks like crap.

4. Everything is fake. From fake body parts to fake people...L.A. is full of it. Literally.

5. The weather is overrated. Yes, I realize I am likely the only person who complains about the mild L.A. weather. But spend one Santa Ana wind-driven, fire-filled October and/or November here and you'll want to hightail it out of here as well. I guarantee it.

The beaches here are gorgeous. If only it didn’t take hours to get to them.

I hate to be so negative so I'll end this guest post with the one major perk Los Angeles offers: LAX is the second busiest airport in the country which means that if I can maneuver my dry-skinned self through the horrendous traffic and the sea of fake people surrounding me, I can hop on a flight out of here at the drop of a hat.

So I guess L.A. isn't so bad after all...

Guest Post: Lola's Fear of (Not) Flying

It's that time again! My good buddy Lola is taking over my blog. I have a month until my vacation when I get to fly with a toddler, so this is not the feel-good story of the year. And yet, totally relatable.

Hands up, who here has gotten seriously drunk on an airplane? Two weeks ago, I would have gasped in ladylike horror at such a notion. Maybe even clutched my pearls.

But not anymore.

I hope you will not judge me too harshly, I had a good excuse (old Lola: sure, that’s what they all say!). And in my defense, I did not start any arguments with the flight attendant, didn’t get the federal marshals involved, nor did I activate the inflatable escape slide, as giddy with drunken delight as I was. Come on, those things look like fun! Totally just one of those backyard slides, only with a freezing ocean at the end…

Really, Delta is to blame. Things started out innocently enough with my first flight landing on time. I casually strolled out, determined to hit a few duty-free shops during the four-hour layover. But first, I needed my boarding pass (for some stupid reason, I was only issued one for the first half of my trip).

So I casually moseyed up to the counter, even letting a nice elderly couple ahead of me, that’s how good of a mood I was in. Finally, it’s my turn. The check-in lady fiddles with my itinerary. But instead of handing me a boarding pass with a beaming smile and sending me on my way, she furrows her brow.

Wuh-oh.

But I’m telling myself to stay positive. Maybe all this means is that I won’t get a window seat. She keeps at the keyboard. Clickety-clack. Okay, now I’m getting REALLY nervous. Finally, she looks up and tells me with a nice Dutch accent that my flight is almost done boarding.

Um, excuse me?? I have four hours! Oh no, no, she tells me. My flight leaves in 20 minutes! Oh, and my bag is already on board.

I think I am going to throw up on her nice counter. She picks up the phone and starts chatting away to someone in Dutch, which is when I hear the following message over the PA system: “Lola, you are delaying the flight. Please board immediately, or we will proceed to offload your luggage.”

Dear God, this harkened me back to the time I was paged to the principle’s office over the intercom in sixth grade. Only now, my precious luggage is in just as much trouble, is probably getting suspected of containing a bomb, possibly getting sniffed by police dogs and getting rudely kicked off the plane. A plane it wasn’t even supposed to be on because THIS IS NOT MY FLIGHT!!

And the Check-in Lady of Doom? Still chatting. In Dutch.

Finally, FINALLY she hangs up after what felt like three hours. “Well, I managed to move you to the five o’clock flight,” she tells me wearily. Chatting in Dutch can wear one out, I hear. “It leaves in four hours.”

Yes, the flight I was SUPPOSED TO BE ON!

Of course now, my thoughts turn back to my bag. She assures me the bag was taken off the departing flight and will make it to the later one. I remain skeptical. I mean, if Delta can’t even keep their passengers on the right flights, what chance is there for humble luggage?! Even for pretty, dark burgundy luggage that’s probably getting abused by luggage handlers as we speak.

Still, I clutch onto my hard-earned boarding pass and walk away. The whole time, I feel like it’s going to get snatched away. I keep checking the boarding time over and over, afraid that I didn’t read it right or something. I even show up at the gate an hour early just to make sure I’m going to be on the right flight.

Finally, it’s time to board. The flight is, of course, full. And one row down from me, something ain’t right – an older woman in a cardigan is arguing about something with a young Asian guy. Then flight attendants get involved.

Apparently, both of them have a boarding pass for the exact same seat! Gulp.

A little while later, poor Cardigan Woman gets loaded off into nowhere – as much as I’m straining to hear the conversation, I can’t quite tell how they managed to mess up the flight manifest this time.

Of course, this throws me into total panic mode for a second time. I keep waiting for someone to show up and claim my seat.

Somehow, I don’t think “I was here first!” is going to cut it. So I eye each passenger walking up the aisle with psycho suspicion, chanting to myself: “keep walking, keep walking, keep walking.” The nice German gentleman next to me is probably thinking about switching seats. I can’t blame him.

And then, they finally close the doors.

Thank you, sweet Jesus! I’m GOING HOME! So yes, in celebration, I proceeded to get exceedingly tipsy. Can you blame a girl?

How about you, what’s your awful travel story?

I See San Fran, I see France!

I’m baaack! Pretend you all missed me for a moment. Done? Thanks. And special thanks to Kat, Amanda and Lola for filling in for me while I was gone.


So, there were a lot of interesting things that went down while I was in San Fran. There was a gay bar where heteros like Scott and I were extremely unwelcome. Seriously, I think the bartender used sanitizer after we left, not wanting to be affiliated with our straight-people money. There was the homeless man outside said bar who tried to convince me that they tried to use pigeons for military tactical missions, because of their “visual acuity.” It failed because “they weren’t very focused.”

But, by far, the most interesting thing that happened to us in San Francisco was the naked lady on the tour bus.

Allow me to set the scene. When we arrived on Saturday we walked eeeeverywhere. And seriously, guys? San Francisco is the only place in the world where you actually CAN walk uphill both ways. So by Sunday morning I insisted we take the tour bus that allowed us to get on and off as we saw fit. Sunday we spent the whole day going from town to town.

Monday we slept in, in homage to the fact that we could. We both woke up at our normal work time and kind of contentedly sighed and went back to sleep. Because we COULD, people! No baby, no dog, no work.

We got some coffee and some breakfast and we’re feeling pretty giddy. As we are turning the corner to the bus area, we see a cop car. Then we see three cops on top of the double-decker tour bus. It wasn’t our tour bus, it was a different company. We stretched our necks to see our bus, but no luck. So we sat back and watched the show.

So of course we watched the cops. We couldn’t see who was in the bus, but that person was clearly not leaving. And the cops didn’t seem overly anxious to get that person off, which seemed odd because this particular tour bus wasn’t touring. It was actually where people bought tickets, and the company reps were sort of wandering around looking oddly frantic.

Based on what we saw, and what we overheard, here’s what happened.

A homeless woman who, let’s say, had been more sober in her life than she was that day, climbed on to the top deck of the bus. The tour guides asked her to leave. She refused.

I am not sure in which order this happened, but two things occurred: the police were called and the homeless lady took her clothes off and threw them over the side of the bus.

So when we had arrived, the lady was bare-ass naked sitting in the seat with three cops pulling on gloves, but each refusing to touch her.

Why the wait? Well, you see, they couldn’t very well take her down all naked, right? Only they didn’t have on them a tarp big enough for this lady.

So they called the fire department.

You guys, TWO fire trucks and an ambulance turned up.

So now there is a cop car, an ambulance, two fire trucks, and one very naked lady with three very uncomfortable cops.

One fire truck? Had a cherry-picker attachment.

All we saw was the woman stand up with a huge blue tarp around her. How she got off was a bit of a mystery because our bus pulled up and there were so many people getting on and off and telling the story that all we saw was the cop closing the door to the ambulance.

I won't lie, I want to believe so very much that she had to be forklifted off. If only because then someone else lived my own nightmare, and what are the odds these things repeat?

So there you go. What was the most interesting thing that happened to you on vacation? If you’re a parent, did you do a baby-free vacay? I have to say, by day 5 I was missing her like crazy. But the first few days? Total recharge.