Aylmer Express "MoHo" Extravaganza 2006

Today is a good day. I say this because I finally get to use a word that I have been dying to use for many, many weeks now. The down side is that I am the subject in the sentence which utilizes this particular adjective and I was hoping I could avoid that dubious honour. You may recall that I was going to expand on the festivities from the previous evening so, without further ado, here is the sentence showcasing the word in question. Although it was a gorgeous sunny, southern California day outside, I struggled to lift my head off the pillow as I woke to a particularly crapulous morning as a result of having been slightly “over served” the night before. There, how did you like that? From the first time I saw that word I couldn’t wait to use it. Don’t you think it sounds like something Dr. Suess might have made up? Perhaps he did. Anyway, I just managed to drag myself out of bed and get ready for the day. The plan was to take the kids to Beverly Hills and Hollywood and show them the sights. Brian had already pulled together a fabulous breakfast, complete with fresh fruit, for us so we ready and raring to go … with the exception of myself who was still suffering the effects of some rather poor decisions from the previous evening. Our first stop was Rodeo Drive in the heart of Beverly Hills. This street caters to the crème-de-la-crème and showcases the most exclusive boutiques including Yves St. Laurent, Versace, Louis Vuitton and many more. The kids are car lovers, like there dad, and I knew we would see some very exclusive automobiles there however, even I was not prepared for the seemingly unending stream of rare and exotic machinery cruising down that one street. For those of you who care, and hopefully there are a couple of you who do, we actually saw all of the cars below during our one-hour stroll that day:

- More BMWs and Mercedes than you can count
- The new Bentley (about 20 of these believe it or not)
- The brand new Rolls Royce
- A mint condition, early 70’s convertible Rolls Royce
- A BMW Z8 (a classic)
- A BMW M6 (the newcomer)
- A Porsche 911 Turbo S (not too shabby)
- A Porsche 911 GT3 (a sweet ride)
- A new Ford GT (the upstart of the exotics)
- A Maserati Quattroporte (more than one)
- A Maserati Coupe (Class with a bit of an edge)
- An Aston Martin DB-9 (order me one of these!)
- A Ferrari 575 Maranello (a timeless beauty)
- A Ferrari 360 Modena spyder (relegated to the old guard for this venue)
- A new Ferrari F430 (the latest in a long line of fabulous Ferraris)
- A Lamborgini Diablo (a little too old to be driving on Rodeo?)
- A Lamborgini Gallardo (two of these believe it or not!)
- A Mercedes Maclaren SLR (extremely rare … I may never see one of these on the road again!)
This stroll down Rodeo drive exposed me to more incredible cars than I have ever seen at a car show! Unbelieveable. And we were only there for less than 90 minutes! Anyway, while Morgan and I were drooling over these fabulous cars, Chantal was popping into the shops to critique their offerings. She tells me that the fashions on display were as enticing as the automotive fare we were drinking in outside. If that is true, it must have been a pretty sweet stroll for Chantal as well. Then we popped back in the car and made our way along Sunset Boulavard. This is were you get that real “Beverly Hills” feel with mansion after mansion along the palm tree-lined streets. You feel like you are in a movie. We continued all the way to Hollywood and then parked so that we could do the “Walk of Fame”. You know, where they have all the gold stars embedded in the sidewalk with the names of the most popular actors and musicians? We had fun but we didn’t have enough time to walk all the way to the Mann Chinese Theatre which is where I suspect the more recent stars exist which the kids would likely have been able to relate to a little better. So we decided to take a photo with Rich Little’s star since he is Canadian and my parents had dinner with him once. I remember them telling me that the dinner was at their friend’s place and after dinner Rich read a bedtime story to their kids while doing an impersonation of different famous people’s voices for all the characters in the story. Then we had to get going so that we could make it back to Louise and Brian’s place for our dinner engagement. On our way to their place we also got a chance to experience some classic LA traffic on the 101 and I-5 through downtown LA. We arrived to find an amazing meal awaiting us. Brian had been working all day and it was awesome. He started us off with an appetizer of specially prepared raw Ahi. I admit that, with the way my stomach had been feeling most of the day, I was not so sure uncooked fish was would be my first choice. But surprisingly enough, I loved it. Then came the main course of filet mignon which Brian had smoked for most of the day over oak. It was fantastic. It would just melt in your mouth. Then Lousie and Brian took the kids out to to a place called Dave and Busters which has tons of interactive and virtual video games ranging from car racing to surfing to helicopter piloting to golfing to horse racing to a 360 degree gun turret simutlator. While the kids went crazy there, it gave Chantal and I a chance to just be on our own for a while. That was a very nice change. Lousie and Brian are so thoughtful! Once we returned home we all decided to make it a relatively early night … and after last night’s shenanigans, I was thankful for that!

Today’s word:

crapulous \KRAP-yuh-lus\, adjective:
1. Suffering the effects of, or derived from, or suggestive of gross intemperance, especially in drinking; as, a crapulous stomach.
2. Marked by gross intemperance, especially in drinking; as, a crapulous old [1]reprobate.