Lopez Blogs

December 24th 2009:

It's Christmas Eve! The eve of Christmas! Although as we will be in the air for most of the day after Christmas eve, monsieur pants and I decided to have a festive breakfast and open our presents this very morning as if it were in fact Christmas Day. Which possibly explains why Darren bounded into the bedroom at 5.46am like an exuberant puppy who has sneakily eaten the festive ham, puked it back up and then gobbled down the remains. Ie he looked all excited but sheepish too. I should think so too at this ridiculously early hour. So we opened presents and had a delicious bacon & stilton sandwich before heading off to the hotel near the airport for the night.

Darren remained overstimulated for the whole, reasonably traffic free drive down. He even let me put on my Christmas and Best of 2009 cds without batting an eyelid. We stopped off at a new service station on the way where I had the most delicious chicken stock soup ever. EVER! I mean it was neverending and filled with chunky breast. Unfortunately for the toothless old lady behind me in the queue, I had the last one and she quite literally could not keep the drool off her chin or the fury out of her eyes. I feared she would gum job me like the Drag Me To Hell woman!
Luckily, I (and the entire queue) was distracted by Darren shouting "ooo, i've found a newspaper on the discarded tray pile". Class act. He promptly dragged from beneath the dirty dishes and ran off tittering like a school girl. I reluctantly followed. I would have read the paper but the previous owner obviously had very greasy food and left the paper all stained. On the back page, David Beckham had obviously had a right good fingering...

We grabbed a Starbucks (of course) and don't even get me started on it being in a normal non-festive white cup. Scrooges. Darren bonded with the lesbian in front (how did we know? We read her text message while we were in line - something about her looking forward to ice cream later and was she making it with breast milk again!! This was when I declined cream in my White Chocolate Mocha!) - they both had OCD tendencies, something that became apparent as Darren tidied up the coffee bean display!

The hotel is lovely and the mattress so comfortable. I seduced Darren by reciting the lyrics to Justify My Love and snuggled down to sleep! Viva Las Vegas!

December 25th 2009:

Hurrah! It's Christmas Day! The day I slavishly wait for all the live long year! Though to be honest, once it's here I'm bored of it. It's all about the build up, the energy, the collective thrust, the excitement, the warm fuzzies... once the climax has been attained, I just want to roll over and go to sleep. But today is going to be the longest Christmas day on record as we have an 11 hour flight ahead of us and when we land, we will be 8 hours in the past. Kinda like the island skipping on Lost, but without (hopefully) the flashes, nosebleeds and death inducing headaches. Or Daniel Faraday. As we left our far too comfortable hotel suite, I remarked to Darren that he looked slightly army in his browns and greens. Most people would take this to mean "oh I look slightly army in my browns and greens" Darren drops to the floor, does an avoid-the-enemy-type gampbol and runs off down the hall with his fingers as guns. I guess I'll carry the suitcases then!

The airport is sort of full of Christmas cheer, though I am failing to find all the love (actually) that Prime Minister Hugh Grant espouses so passionately about. There is no Starbucks (bah humbug) so we make our way through the duty free shops. I must admit I'm a bit shallow when it comes to choosing nice smelling eau de parfum pour hommes. Instead of thinking "ooo what a frightfully pleasant aroma", I look at the men advertising them and think "ooo, whose essence would I like sprayed all over me chest?" Paco Rabanne Black XS it is then!

The V-Lounge at the airport was very nice (it's like the first class lounge only any peasant can buy a ticket. Aces) The young fella on the welcome desk was awfully pleasant - he practically rammed his festive treat down my throat. Still, it was a lovely mince pie. And while in the lounge, we decided on next year's December getaway - 3 days in LA, a 7 night mexican cruise, then 4 days in vegas. Um, just finding a way to pay for it now then...

The flight was largely uneventful. I watched a few movies (including of course The Holiday and Love Actually - to make me feel like i was nestled on Santa's sleigh and not a 747. Amandawoods? Is that all one word then? Where the fuck is my fucking coat? Amazing!)It was once we got off the plane that The Nightmare on Christmas began. Some loon had tried to blow up another flight so airport security was all ajitter. The luggage rack was faulty, so it would stop every couple of minutes, make an abrasive alarm sound and then start again. Joy. Then the line to pick up the rental car took over an hour to navigate. They did play The Chiffons Sweet Talking Guy which right cheered me up, but I must confess I was becoming increasingly grinch-like. 4 hours after stepping off the plane, we were at the 20 mins from the airport hotel! 22 hours of Christmas day and still some left! Still the girl on reception was a right perky little elf (in attitude and bosomal area) and I did laugh like a jester from jester camp who had just drunk some jester juice when Darren ended the day with his army gambol down the hall, only to land at the feet of a bemused Chinese business man. Ho ho ho.

More soon!