Sorry, I got distracted for a while. I’m a bad finisher. Good thing I’m not a man or I would really suck in the sack. I’ve been busy uploading a ton of old photos on Flickr, watching The Wire and Dexter, playing Super Mario Galaxy and spending long stretches of time in either my computer chair, my TV room or my bed. Also I’ve been going to work, but who cares about that.
But, finally, here’s the entry for my last day in San Diego. It’s a win-win: people who enjoyed the story can read one more entry, and people who got bored don’t have to deal with it anymore.
Included: Sea World. A broken camera.
Steven works at a non-profit group home for developmentally disabled adults. He wanted me to meet his ‘clients,’ plus he had to work on Sunday, so in a stroke of genius, he planned a trip for us and two clients to go to Sea World together. Free admission for us, a hopefully fun time for them. We got to the home around 8. Steven was on the clock, so he did some work duties while I helped set up for breakfast and met his co-workers and clients. I don’t really feel comfortable sharing many details of the home and its residents, simply because I only met them once and don’t feel like I’ve earned the right to write about them. But, I will say that they are six fascinating people. I probably could have spent a whole day there just hanging out, listening and watching them do their thing. But, we had some sightseeing to do.
Gina and Bradley were our Sea World companions. Gina’s schizophrenic, Bradley has severe autism. They are also both severely mentally disabled. Gina talks nonstop, Bradley never says a word. The conversation was lopsided, to be sure, but we did communicate. At least as much as we needed to. We got to Sea World early, right when the gates opened. The upside was there were very few people. The downside was, nothing was open. So we shuffled from closed exhibit to closed exhibit, trying to see what we could. Gina got a huge bag of popcorn early on, which she ate entirely (it took her like an hour). We saw dolphins, a tiny aquarium, and seals. Annnnnd, a loose flock of flamingos walked all around us, squawking and flapping their wings and making a whole hell of a lot of racket. Understandably, all the noise scared Gina. And it might have freaked Bradley out too, but he made no sign of discomfort. Right after being caught in the flamingo stampede, we went to the shark exhibit looking for a calm place. Now, we had already been warned that Gina was scared of hills and of going up or down stairs. But how we were supposed to know that the shark exhibit included a dark, hairpin tunnel sloping sharply downward. Even I had a hard time negotiating it. It took us a while, and we knew Gina was getting agitated, but we made it to the bottom. Sweet relief….nope! The bottom was a moving sidewalk inside a glass tunnel, surrounded by water and sharks, and bright and full of people and commotion. Gina, poor thing, yelled “NO!” when she saw it, and shoomp, we slid out an emergency exit right then and there. Steven knew she wouldn’t recover from the scare, so we skedaddled back to the home (but first stopping at McDonalds, which he’d promised them for lunch).
Steven and I had re-entry stamps though. So after making sure they were settled back in at the house, we went for Sea World Round 2. By the time we got back, the place was crowded and hopping. Long lines everywhere. We figured we’d see the biggest attraction first — Shamu. We sat in the splash zone, right up front. Oh won’t it be cute if we get a little wet, we thought. I took a photo of the tank and stage. It was the last picture my camera would ever take. For those of you who don’t know, sitting in the splash zone at the Shamu show is like jumping into a pool with your clothes on. And with your wallet, cellphone, camera and iPod in your pockets. I was laughing so hard, and I didn’t have time to wipe off my sunglasses or even catch a breath before I got pounded again by a massive wave of water splashed over the tank’s edge by an orca’s tail. So, the first thing I do when the show’s over is open my messenger bag to see if everything survived. Yep, looks OK. I take my camera out to get a picture of our sopping wet dumb selves, and pposgjkggghh, fizz. Barrrroooo. Camera’s dead. I got the dreaded “lens error” so infamous with Canon’s cameras. It’s kaput. But hey, now I’m in the market for a new one… a digital SLR? A newer Canon Powershot? The mind boggles with possibilities!
We walked away from the Shamu show so wet that people asked us where we’d been. Haha. From there we wandered, visiting the sharks (and seeing the whole exhibit this time), the seals, the beluga whales, polar bears and penguins. We drank a beer (sheerly for the novelty) while we fed the flamingos. And we saw the Sea Lions & Otter show. I was totally not prepared for how cute and awesome that show was. Trained animals doing impossibly cute things that you have no idea how they learned! A sea lion loading a cannon! An otter carrying a can of Pepsi! A surprise appearance by a trained manatee! OK so maybe it doesn’t sound awesome, but take my word for it. It was.
Sea World took up most of the day. And frankly, all I remember about the rest of the last day was eating nachos at a cool Mexican place and being really exhausted. And I got a sunburn. And I was trying to make every minute last an hour because I didn’t want the day to end, for so many reasons.
Like I said, I’m a bad finisher. So, instead of awkwardly trying to close this up in some witty fashion, I will just stop.
And that, my friends and loyal readers, is The End.
