A Giraffe Landing

When Cynthia, the runaway giraffe, and I got back to LaLaLand - she had been allowed to fly coach with me and took up all of three seats usually used by the air hostesses - I took her home and put her out to graze in the garden. She spent her first night in America sleeping in my sleeping bag with Harriet, a soft-toy version of that Babe Pig in the City character who I usually slept with. They got along swimmingly. The next morning, I gave her breakfast and put her back on the lawn and headed over to the Jacuzzi to catch up on the latest news.

I had been thinking lots about newspapers recently and figured they were only for people without a local hot tub. After all, that was where I now got all of my information. When I got there, Ethel was still sitting in the corner reading The New Yorker through some brown-shaded specs which looked like something a workman would wear to drill a hole. Maybe they were diving goggles from back when, I thought. I daren’t ask her what she was reading about in case she read me all twelve pages of a New Yorker article. Some mothers do have them, I thought. Who on earth reads the New Yorker in LaLaLand? She must be one of those Big Apples that refuse to like Los Angeles, just like half the dancers at dance class who sit there musing about their days on Broadway. Thankfully Jimmy the handy man arrived and filled me in on the coolest performer from San Francisco. (I don’t go there any more ‘cos I don’t like cloud-dwelling intellectuals.). It was a singer by the name of James Green. And then came Sandra who told me about all the best places to buy Italian cashmere. Why on earth would I read a paper, I thought, as I was still in a huff with newspapers. When I got back home, there were two men in orange outfits standing in front of my door. Aside from eating my neighbor’s surfboard, as it had a green stripe down the middle of it, Cynthia had been nibbling on the palm trees which lined the beach in front of my garden. The palm tree cutters wanted to know if they could borrow her for an afternoon? So off she went, a full-time employee within 24 hours of landing. That’s my girl, I thought. Then I called Jim to ask how his surf watch was going and to see if he could look after my giraffe on the weekends. He said he could gladly take her and tie her to the pier so she could swim a little.

Everything was working out all rosie. That night, I decided Cynthia should probably sleep in the garden so she had her own space. I was glad that I had found a good use for my tent. Her neck and head fitted perfectly inside and I laid her legs on some cushions and covered them in a blanket, and went in to sleep. I had a big day ahead of me tomorrow. I had to learn to chant like the guru had told me, and I was still determined to seduce him. I was also expecting my letter to arrive any day from Mrs. Clinton, and wanted to be ready and waiting to go to Africa to liberate the women of the third world. Before I went to sleep, I went online to order the closest thing to broccoli that I could find on Alexi’s websites, as he had insisted in a text message that I await his return before going to the Farmer’s Market again. I found green and black stripped shoes and ordered them instead. Then I looked up a few sites of my own. I was going to be an online shopper too, and so was Cynthia. I would show her the ropes tomorrow.