Lido Isle says ‘Oh, deer’

Well, I’m back. Not tan, not fit, but I’m back. So what’s been going on around here?

I see the gas prices are going well. That all seems to be working.

A deer turned up in Bay Shores and on Lido Isle on Friday, which is interesting, no? Not quite a chicken on MacArthur, but interesting. The deer was strolling around Bay Shores around 6:30 a.m. Friday morning, prompting a number of calls to the Newport Beach Police Department, whose officers looked high and low for the happy wanderer ? an average-sized male deer ? but couldn’t find it.

About 20 minutes later, a frenzy of deer calls came in from Lido Isle. Police and California Fish and Game officers tracked the beast down and found him in a nearby backyard. Most deer are tense and tightly wound, but this one was calm and cool and generally unimpressed with the whole operation. A tranquilizer dart was dispatched to just the right spot and Bambi nodded off, dreaming about whatever it is that deer dream about.

He was carefully transported to Crystal Cove State Park, slowly came around, then bounded off toward El Moro Canyon without so much as a “see ya.”

Speaking of “Bambi,” this summer marks the 64th anniversary of the first release of the Disney classic. Did you know that Thumper’s original name was “Bobo” and that the voice of the adult flower was Sterling Holloway, who would later become the voice of the most famous honey-loving bear with no pants in the world?

A lot of people consider the death of Bambi’s mother one of the saddest moments in film. I know my wife does, although I lean toward “Big Night,” when Louis Prima never shows up for the big dinner that Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub throw in his honor at their struggling Italian restaurant. I cried like a baby.

Steven Spielberg sides with my wife though. In an interview with Newsweek magazine, Spielberg said he considers “Bambi” one of the saddest and scariest movies of all time and fashioned his big-mouthed, ill-tempered shark in “Jaws” after the hunter in Bambi ? a mostly unseen menace whose presence is tipped off by spooky music. Disney served up a little imitation of its own in the animated 1991 “Beauty and the Beast” when it turns out that Gaston, the hunter, is the person who killed Bambi’s mother. In the tavern scene, if you look closely you can see Mrs. Bambi hanging on the wall. Never trust anyone named Gaston.

What does any of this have to do with the deer on Lido Isle? Nothing that I can tell.

But speaking of Crystal Cove, with or without deer, how ‘bout them cottages? Talk about the Law of Little Supply and Big Demand. April 27 was the public’s first shot at renting one of the 13 refurbished cottages from June through October and the phone and Internet lines to the state parks’ reservations agent ? ReserveAmerica ? were jammed from the moment they opened at 8 a.m., with 900 reservations being taken in less than four hours.

According to ReserveAmerica’s website, at the stroke of 8 a.m., the service had “70 operators on the phones with 70 visitors waiting on hold. As of 8:46 am, there were 16,000 people on the internet trying to compete for 13 cottage rentals.”

I don’t know much about odds, but a 13 in 16,000 chance doesn’t sound good.

On Monday, reservations for November opened, which was even more intense, with everything selling out within minutes and most callers/ clickers never getting through. I guess that old saying that a cottage and a small deer in Crystal Cove are better than a big shark in Nantucket all day long and twice on Sunday is true.

My prediction? Unless those rental slots are nontransferable, they will start turning up on eBay soon and with jaw-dropping price tags.

Last Saturday was the 26th Annual Neighbors for Neighbors community cleanup in Canyon Park in Costa Mesa, with an army of volunteers ? some small, some fully grown ? weeding, pruning, planting and generally sprucing up.

Likewise, the Center for Spiritual Discovery and the Orange Coast Unitarian Universalist Church donated $4,000 to buy a clutch of sycamore and oak trees that will be planted along a new bike trail in Costa Mesa’s Fairview Park.

Did you know that sycamore trees can live to be 500 years old? Neither did I. Can you ever have enough trees? You cannot.

But one thing you can have enough of ? well I can anyway ? is reality TV. Is there no way to make it stop? Apparently not.

At Salon Gregorie’s in Newport Beach, a production crew is shooting a pilot on spec for a series about hairdressers. The series, if picked up, will feature Dusty Simington, Salon Gregorie’s artistic director, and follow the lives and loves, the trials and tribulations, the triumphs and failures of five of the salon’s student stylists as they try to earn a spot in the hair biz big leagues. Do you know what an artistic director at a hair salon does? Neither do I. But at least someone is finally doing a series about student stylists living la vida loca at a hair salon.

If you think I’m going to miss one episode of that, you are out of your mind.

I guess that’s it for now. It’s good to be back because no matter where you go in this world, there’s nothing like a deer on Lido Isle with a cute haircut.

I gotta go.