area man nearly passes out due to heat

if you’re gonna croak, may as well do it in ridiculously tranquil japanese gardens in san marino

i was there yesterday with my boo who secured two tickets to the incredible huntington library botanical gardens. usually they charge you $29 on weekdays and $34 on weekends, but the first thursday of the month you can get in there for freeeeee.

since neither of us are made of money that fit in the budget perfectly.

tickets, by the way, go on sale the last thursday of the month at 9am.

but check the temperature because yesterday i nearly met my maker, because even though i knew it would be hot in the IE and the Valley, for some reason in my air conditioned car driving from hollywood to pasadena, i didn’t realize it would be close to 100 degrees when we arrived for our 1:30pm reservation.

we had plenty of water, i had shorts, a silly hawaiian shirt, and the expectations of enjoying the gardens for the first time and maybe seeing some of Charles Bukowski’s treasures.

after the docent informed us that the libraries are under construction for the next few years, we began our walk around the enormous grounds and that’s when the trouble started.

i felt like your iphone probably does when it finds itself at 6% battery.

i wasn’t myself.

rarely do i do this but i had the urge to sit my Black ass down.

im no gym rat, but i feel like im a healthy person. sure there was that night in the hospital six weeks ago over some abscess in my colon, but when youre a few months away from 60, if that’s the worst going on, then you’ve been very lucky.

the problem was even after a nice sit, a few swigs of water and some dabbing of sweat from my bald head, i was tired almost immediately when i got up and toured the rose garden.

things got worse when we headed to the impossibly gorgeous japanese garden. was i short of breath? was i dizzy? what even were those words?

i did not feel hotter than i had while in vegas or phoenix or the many saunas id been in, but keeling over into the thick grass was prominent in my mind.

thats when i saw an old man in a spot behind the outdoor bathrooms being attended to by four people who looked to be paramedics. they had a pack of ice on his head and it looked like one of them was taking his blood pressure.

as someone with high blood pressure, my special lady friend and i wound our way down the path to where that scene was, but the only door to that back area said staff only. so i walked to the security guard and asked if he could ask the medics if they could take my blood pressure too because i was feeling faint and i wanted to know if i was just koo koo.

the guy opened the door, chatted with someone back there, returned and said, they dont have any way to check blood pressure.

so we walked on a little, sat, drank, walked, and realized nothing was getting better, even with a cold wet paper towel on my head under my ball cap.

i felt terrible that i let my girl down. she had really wanted to see this place, as did i. neither of us had been before, but she was really into it.

when we got to the car i looked at the temperature and i couldn’t believe it said 98. sure i was sweaty. i even heard some teens ask each other earlier, do you feel really hot? and another saying, im sweating up a storm.

but i hadn’t realized it was that hot.

it reminded me of some weed i smoked in college back in the day. they called it creeper.

and if i had woken up in paradise, it would have been hard to have looked better than where i had passed.