Thanksgiving 2023

It's the weekend before the holiday and I'm running a bit late this year so it's time to make plans for Thanksgiving 2023!

The Menu:

Roasted turkey legs

Stuffing

Roasted carrots in extra virgin olive oil and rosemary

Garlic mashed potatoes

Cranberry jelly

Turkey gravy

I'm making, for the second year in a row, this dairy-free pumpkin pie recipe for dessert --> https://myredrecipebook.blogspot.com/2022/11/dairy-free-pumpkin-pie-2022-version.html 

My son picked up turkey legs on sale at Aldi earlier in the week and put them in the freezer. I think turkey legs are the way to go for two people and especially because we like turkey, but we don't need a whole turkey to be able to enjoy it. I had to make a special trip to my local Ralph's Fresh Faire today to buy Country Crock Plant Creme to make the pie.

As of whenever I got back from shopping today, all of the ingredients have been gathered, so now I have to figure out the timing for the cooking. We usually eat Thanksgiving for lunch. And the only things that need to go into the oven are the turkey legs, the carrots and the pumpkin pie. I'll cook the potatoes in the instant pot and the stuffing on top of the stove.

The Timing:

• pie 325* for one hour
• the turkey legs will cook for an hour at 350* ( Oh, no! The turkey legs that we placed in the freezer when bought them did not thaw in 24 hours after being placed in the refrigerator, so now we have to extend the cooking time to make sure they thaw & cook thoroughly.) So probably 2 hours cooking time. These were cooked in a foil pocket until 30 minutes before the end time, then unsealed to brown. Delicious!
• the roasted carrots will be 30-35 minutes
• the potatoes in the instant pot will cook for 30 minutes we want to make sure those potatoes are good and done. The vegan butter will be placed in a saucepan, heated, and we'll toast the garlic before adding it to the cooked potatoes.
• We heated the rolls on the same sheet that was used for the pie.

Bye Bye November, Hello December!

There are three-four things I used to look forward to in November. Two holidays where I had the day off of work, my dad's birthday and black Friday.

Under the government contract I work for, I don't get Veteran's Day as a Federal holiday? Who screwed up that one? Not me. The building was closed and I had to either work at home or mark off one of my vacation days to get paid. I chose the later.

Thanksgiving was so weird this year. It was the first year in which my son was the one working in the day and I was working at night. And because of that, our schedules weren't synced up and when I got up the next day after working until midnight, I was hungry for breakfast at 10AM. So I made ham and eggs. And then I started cooking the Thanksgiving meal soon after so it was done at around 2PM. Neither I nor my son was hungry at that time, so I packed it up to be placed in the refrigerator. We grazed on Thanksgiving foodstuffs for about 4 days until it was all gone.

I had to work on black Friday and I wasn't really in the shopping mood. If there is actually a shopping mood. Whatever that's supposed to feel like. But still, I know that it is gift giving season so I need to buy something for someone.

At work, we organized two potlucks...one at Halloween and another right before Thanksgiving. The first one I ate some Vietnamese food and it did a number on my guts so I was running to the restroom for nearly half of the shift. I don't know if it was because it was greasy food, or just ingredients that my guys just don't digest any more or the fact that it sat out for hours before we ate. Maybe it was a combination of the three, but anyways, I felt horrible after that, so when Thanksgiving time rolled around and them the team were asking was it O.K. with me to have a potluck again, I was like yeah, it's OK, but it's too much food for me right before Thanksgiving, so you guys go ahead and I'll just eat my dinner (whatever I brought that day. I've been eating fruit for dinner because that's what I can tolerate.... like banana or orange or peach. Apples anymore are too fibrous.)

I had a somewhat strange conversation with my manager on Thursday. You see, each day I'm getting feedback to relay to the team and I'm supposed to be tracking all of it on a spreadsheet so we agreed on Thursday, but then she told me with the volume of work going through the team the number of problems is expected. But it just makes me feel bad that we are having any at all and I told her it felt like, "What now?" and a stab in the heart when she does it. Because maybe I expect more of myself and the team. But anyway, she asked me if I had any questions, and I said we get all these emails asking for help finding stuff and I don't know where to go or even start to look so I feel like the "dots are not connecting". And then she tells me that the first shift supervisors she leans on hard which is kinda baffling to me because the manager has been there for over 10 years and the supervisor has been there for just 5. So what is really going on here and how is it that a clerk turned supervisor gets all these knowledge and not the manager? Blah Blah Blah work, right? Anyway, I'm supposed to have yet another scheduled training session with the first shift supervisor for a week this time to see if I can get the dots that I'm missing. But now I'm thinking that if I'm missing this training, that they didn't follow through with the last training plan, that maybe I should be putting the trainer on notice instead. Otherwise, my relationship with the first shift supervisor might deteriorate.

And now it's December. So I went on Facebook this weekend, the first weekend of December to find out that The Alley is closing. And it's not an unexpected closing, because the pattern of what was happening with the store, but it's sad. The two generation family that ran it once, is retiring, so it's going away. The last store is in Indio or Palms Springs. And it made me thought of the fact that when I went to their store when the closest one to me as in Rancho Cucamonga, I picked up a business card while I was making a purchase. And I had that business card in a pile of other business cards in one of the desk drawers where I have my computer stationed. So I pulled out the pile of cards and went through them because it was OK that I threw away the card to The Alley because that was a store that was going out of business. I actually threw a bunch of them away until I came to one from Peer Development.

I acquired that business card from a guy I dated briefly in 2005? His life was in flux after a divorce, I remember mine was in flux, but don't remember the event other than I thought it was around the same time when my dad died. I googled his name from time to time thinking he died because the excuse he gave me to get out of our relationship was that his lung cancer metastasized and he was selling his house and moving after a nasty divorce, blah blah blah his drama. But I remember years later he calls up at home and I said I thought you were dead, and he asks me about a 3-some out of the blue says his receptionist is a fat slob and doesn't look as good as me. What? Yeah, that's men in a nutshell right there. Women want substance and to be taken care of and to get a feeling of security and men want good looks and somewhere in the process time, aging and the lack of motivation and energy fucks that all up. And at that time I told him to lose my number and never call me again. So yeah, I find his business card and I googled his name and low and behold he didn't die (so was his cancer story all a lie?). It seems he may have burned his bridge in the commercial restaurant remodeling biz, as well as mine, and moved on to people's homes and did a crap ass job of that because there are these reports online that people want to sue him for the lack of quality in the jobs that were performed. I had to laugh because he never did any of the work himself. He had a group of Mexicans working for him for cash probably, I don't know for sure. They painted his home before it was sold and rented back to him. Years later, I remember seeing that someone was shot dead at the same address he used to live at. And I'm thinking that place had bad karma - juju. It just always felt cold and never homey. Maybe that was just the bad energy left over from his divorce in the house. So do I want to track this guy down? No, not in the least seeing all the stuff written about him after I gave him up for dead but isn't it interesting to see the wormhole you can go down just by one doing inquiry on the internet from finding an old business card.

You know the good thing about December, besides Christmas and New Years Day? December 21st or there abouts is the Winter Equinox. The day with the shortest daylight. It only gets brighter longer from there, baby. It's the upswing for spring and summer. And that day is almost exciting to me as Christmas. 19 dark days and counting.

Mother's Day again?

It's the Saturday before Mother's Day, a much maligned "holiday" made up by the greeting card producers of America so many years ago. Then the flower growers and candy makers hopped on the bandwagon and bing-bang-boom - Mother's Day as we know it today.

And Mother's Day stirs up so many emotions for people. Gratitude mostly. Mine are probably not those of most. And this is something that I've been aware of since about nine years old and has somewhat bothered me later in life. While in 4th grade when the other little girls in my class would go around the table declaring that they love their mother, but I could not.

And I feel for those kids who were neglected and ignored today. My adult realization is that I grew up in a household ran by a mother who was depressed. I was raised by a caretaker and not a mother. And it maybe because she was older than most at the time she started to have children, or even combined with the fact that she was the youngest of four herself.

But for whatever reason she behaved the way she did towards me and my brother, even the hatred towards my father that she divorced,  we will never know because she took it to the grave.

What I do know for a fact that is I'm not my mother. I have done things in my life and accomplished things that she never did and most things I'm glad that I did. I had my son at age 21. I own my home. I own two cars.

Despite the fact that both of my parents were neglectful to a degree, I somehow ended up not being a huge detriment on society.

I learned that there are three types of people in this world:
1) those who follow the rules
2) those who acknowledge there are rules but think they don't apply to them
3) those who just do what they want with reckless abandon.

... guess which lane I swim in?

Santa Ana 12/09

I couldn't bring myself to drive further than home after having a sneezing/farting fit in my car at the Santa Ana Main Place Mall after dropping off my last pax.

As I was leaving the mall after relieving myself, I felt like my holiday sensibilities were assaulted. Too many different Christmas songs were playing and blending into each other as I walked through the southend. Too many sales signs, too much fake snow in the windows advertising cold weather gear in style for the next two minutes. All this marketing for 20-30 somethings with their kids. After all, Christmas is a commercial holiday for kids first and foremost.

Orange Julius is gone. Whatever restaurant I wrote about that used to be next to the restroom hall was gone. the FYE is now a Chico's. Change is good, right? If it's for the better, but change for change's sake may not be. We'll see.

I drove myself home and put myself to bed, but not after noting that I'm out of canned cat food and having some throat thing to the degree that my son was in my room asking how he could help. I drank the last of the lemonade I made earlier by the glass and fell fast asleep.

It's 2 AM and the cat is stirring. I watched the end of whatever Carson Daily show music something Bare Hand - shocked I even recognize who is playing but it's only due to the fact that one of the three XM Satellite radio stations I play frequently throughout my travels is an alternative station that plays this same band.

It's 3AM and now I'm stirring. Trying to find fresh meat and vegetables on sale in the digital ad that I clicked on from Grocery Outlet. And I can't. Not to the degree that I'm accustomed to in a full service supermarket. I look, again, and the two products that are most attractive in this ad are Pacific Natural Food Beef Broth and Amy's Chunky Vegetable soup with a runner up of maybe the Del Monte Whole Kernel Corn, but at $.69, that seems high. This Pacific brand I've seen for sale at my local Sprouts. I already bought two cans of the soup from my run there prior to Thanksgiving. That was 20 some-odd days ago?

It's 4AM and now the cat is giving me all of the tell tail signals that she is hungry and wants me to feel her canned cat food and we're out. The signal is the tongue to the upper lip. We trained her to do that and respond to the term numnums. And the stores around here don't open until 6AM. So I'm searching the internet trying to figure out where is the closest store to be that's open at this ungodly hour that would actually have the one and only variety of canned cat food she eats. I was sorely disappointed at the Walmart on Technology the other day because: 1) no canned car food she eats, and 2) I had to wait to go to the one restroom they have in the front. So I drove away feeling lighter, but with no cat food which was the day I should have bought it.

By 5AM, it's still darks but I'm resolved to obtain canned cat food before I turn into can food myself in the eyes of my cat. I have decided that the Anaheim Walmart that's open 24 hours is more attractive than anything else right now so I get ready and go. And I locate the pet aisle and the variety of canned cat food she eats and I purchase every can they have on the shelf. I am certainly not the cat lady of Tustin as my son likes to tease me about, because I only have one cat, but I feel like it buying all of these cans all at once. Screw what other people think.

There are very few times in your life where what other people think really matter. When you're tested, when you screw up, when someone is paying you to do something and maybe your parents to verify they've produced a compassionate, relatively happy, productive human being. I'm wearing denim jeans, sneakers, a grey v-neck t shirt and my big winter coat because that's what I feel a 5AM store run is supposed to look like from my perspective. And I drive in silence and I get home, grab the mail from the week and go feed the cat and them make me some tea to start my day.

I have to somehow make up for a shitty Friday night's pay for getting ill at around 6PM.

Happy Christmas 2015

As a result of my son working black Friday, he received a 25% off voucher so I decided to take advantage of that discount and bought an xbox with Kinect, a year games with gold subscription for xbox, ooma, new cable modem so I don't have to rent one from TimeWarner Cable anymore, and a mattress topper. Merry Christmas to me.

I also switched out the cable box with dvr because it had an issue with turning on we were struggling with for awhile. Now, maybe it was just us moving the remote too soon to the coffee table before it was switched on fully or maybe it was the level of crap on the coffee table preventing the signal from getting to the cable box in the first place, but anyway, the new box is smaller and sleeker and comes with a better menu. Last weekend, I was able to turn in the two cable modems and turn off the phone with TimeWarner since my number porting operation was completed with ooma earlier that week.

Wednesday, we had a pot luck at work. I brought in a 4-flavor variety cake from the Walmart bakery and picked up a dozen tamales from a local mexican bakery (Yelp Review #1026 & First Review #147) because someone who was let go from another team had noted those on the pot luck sign-up sheet. I also brought in a bag of mandarin oranges for my team for an extra shot of vitamin C to stave off the colds and flu we have been passing around the office. Way too many people have been sneezing and sniffling this season. I need to get a jumbo bottle of hand sanitizer going again on my team since we handle the files after at least five other groups handle them (set-up, processing, funding, closer, underwriter) and it's a proven fact that paper harbors germies, especially paper money.

I was let off work at 3PM yesterday, forgot the gifts I received on my desk (santa bear, itunes gift card, Starbucks gift card, snack container, tea cup and saucer and a bunch of candy canes) and the leftover cake when security was doing their sweep of the building, and made my way to the local Albertson's before heading home where there were a ton of shoppers gathering foodstuffs for the holiday. I don't remember the parking lot being so full since... probably Thanksgiving. My own shopping basket held a Foster Farms turkey breast, chicken strips, corned beef, crescent rolls, biscuits, pie crusts and sage sausage.

Breaking tradition, I actually prepared Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve. Roasted Turkey breast, roasted rosemary carrots, mashed potatoes and gravy. Banana Bread for dessert.

When I got home, I checked the freezer while putting away the groceries for the mixed vegetables and found none. It appears my son is the human vegetable vacuum. So it seems I need turkey gravy, said mixed vegetables and mayo (it's expired 11 days ago) to get through the weekend.

A side note: I love the fact that I earn enough to not worry about paying my bills, but especially not having to worry about what I spend at the grocery store. I basically get what I want when I want it. I guess that helps to satisfy, on some level in my life, my need for spontaneity.  

So my Christmas morning started with me turning on BBC America to watch the Dr Who marathon and working on some crochet.

I'm thinking about making monkey bread this morning while the Disney xmas parade is on.

Happy New Year!

I took time off of work since the 1st hoping that my wrist would feel good enough in order for me to complete the flooring project, but that thought seems like the joke's on me to get that project done. I'm still wearing the splint all the time (except in the shower) and I have a follow-up appointment with the orthopedist on 01/06.

On 01/05, I'm renewing my notary commission. It's an all day affair with state mandated education seminar and then a proctored exam immediately afterwards.

I stayed up New Years Eve and watched the ball drop on tv trying to stay warm. It actually snowed in Southern California the night before so I had to crank up the heat to be comfortable.

Stephen decided to walk home from work in the worst storm of the year and he's been sick ever since.They've been passing around the flu at his work for weeks.

For Christmas, while running Stephen to work and then picking him up at the wee hours of the morning because Walmart was open 24 hours a day between Thanksgiving and Christmas ans he was working graveyard, I bought a Sam ham fir the first time. And I'm happy to say it was pretty good. After eating on it for three days, Stephen made 16 bean soup out of the rest of it in the crock pot.

Before Christmas, I sent my couch, club chair and ottoman to the upholsterers because I couldn't stand the peeling top grain leather anymore. The set was in good shape otherwise. The fabric choice I made from their swatch book turned out to be discontinued and I really didn't like their alternate suggestions (not to mention the $18 per yard price tag), so I took it upon myself to locate and buy upholstery fabric I liked. It was something I've never had to do before, so I did some research online and found three of the biggest, oldest places to investigate. On my first try, I went to Dorrel Fabrics and found a great one for $15 a yard and bought the whole roll and dropped it off at Pete's a week ago at my lunch hour. A few days later, Eddie texts says the are working on the sofa asking me asking about the side details, and I said forget them. I can't wait to get it back.

Thanksgiving 2013

It feels like the longest short week ever. So much to do and so little time. I ran around town last weekend with my list of things to buy before the big cooking day tomorrow, Thursday. People who don't know or live in the US... Thanksgiving is a feast, a meal to share with family and friends of supposedly traditional foodstuffs the Pilgrims consumed in celebration of life in the new world after their 1st year.

This Year's Menu:

Roasted turkey breast (because it's not worth getting a skinny bird. There's hardly any meat on them!)
stuffing ( go go Mrs. Cubbinson's traditional variety. I make it with extra poultry seasoning. Yum.)
cranberry sauce (sometimes sauce, sometimes gel. I like mine with bits of tangerine in it. It's a sweet/sour juxtaposition my taste buds go nuts over against the stuffing's savory contrast.)
turkey gravy (Cambell's makes it with no dairy, thank you)
yams (I usually omit yams, but this year I felt like having them. I'll serve them with brown sugar, cinnamon and margarine.)
roasted carrots (in olive oil with rosemary. I already bought a rosemary plant and killed it. So sad.)
scalloped potatoes (specifically for Stephen because I don't consume dairy)
Brown Irish Soda Bread (making this recipe for the first time this year instead of going the easy route buying brown and serve pull-a-part rolls)
spiced pumpkin & carrot cake (because it's a must to have pumpkin flavored something at Thanksgiving.)

Recipes for the Brown Irish Soda Bread and Spiced Pumpkin and Carrot Cake can be found on my recipe website My Red Recipe Book .

Merry Christmas 2012

Even though I've been dropping hints for months, somehow I didn't get the money clip I wanted from Santa. And the one from Kohl's was just not going to cut it.  So I went online and bought one for myself from Overstock.com. Amazon, in this case, was actually priced higher!

On Christmas day, I went to the movies. I saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in HFR 3D. What a glorious way to watch a movie. It's like you're in the same room with the characters.

This Halloween is not like all the others

My thoughts and prayers go out to all those on the East coast dealing with the effects of Hurricane Sandy.

The greater tri-state area was hit hard. Some places harder than hard. Some people lost everything. The NYC MTA was crippled by the flooding. The stock market was closed for two days.

Oh, so now it's summer...

Mr. Sunshine finally decided to get off his ass and show up to the party this week in the Golden state. I don't know why the weather is so damn screwed up this year, but it's off and everyone's allergies are acting up. There is not one day that goes by without sneezes, sniffles or noses being blown in my office. That is one thing I hate about working in a cubicle farm - close proximity to sick people I cannot escape.

I went to see "Magic Mike" a couple of weeks ago with a couple of ladies from work. It was OK, not as much skin as I thought a male stripper movie would have and too much love story. It had a lot of hype the weekend it opened, and now- nothing. I was shot in Tampa... there is a distinct look about a Florida sky. I think a few of the scenes in the movie... like partying out on a sandbar and throwing a hurricane party are kind of lost on those people that don't know that is what it's like in Florida.

Having July 4th in the middle of the week this year sucked.

This past weekend, someone else rear-ended my SUV on the freeway. Nice, huh? My car's not even a year old and I get hit again. I'm starting to feel like I've got a target on my back. The other vehicle? Crumpled. Mine? A trim panel fell off of the bumper and that bumper it also scratched up.

What else??

Easter 2012

Happy Easter 2012

My Easter Sunday was filled with watching Oliver Twist on PBS until I decided I was hungry and then got ready, hopped in the car and drove to Von's to pick-up whatever I felt like for Easter Dinner. Because that's what you do on American religions holidays when you're not a church going person - ya feast.

Menu:
Ham
Green beans
Boiled new potatoes with onion
...and for dessert, a simple strawberry shortcake using angel food cake, prepared strawberries in a simple syrup and cool whip.

I don't eat chocolate because of the milk, so all of the candy received from people at work I gave to my son.

The detours of life

It's the end of summer and a few days away from Labor Day weekend. It was hardly a summer at all. No sweltering, sweaty days and balmy nights in 2010, my friend. It's my opinion volcanic ash is preventing that from happening for awhile. I just wonder what's in store for winter. The warmest winter ever perhaps?

I went to the Pasadena Jazz & Blues Fest for a good chunk of the day last Saturday which was about the most summery thing I've done to date besides maybe BBQ.

I'm in Santa Monica again. And I say "again" within the notion that I was here before for love and now, yes, again, I think. The last time was about 15 years ago.

All this getting to know each other better business has been pretty smooth, really. Surprisingly smooth. I guess part of that is with age comes wisdom. Mostly is compatibility which was very hard for me to to find. But then he found me when I was looking elsewhere. It's almost a relief to find someone who mostly thinks about things in a similarity vein as I do. We are not very careful with our words with each other and most of the time that's o.k., too.

As I'm writing this blog entry, he's over to my left beyond the keyboard serenading me, sort of, playing licks on his Ibanez. Coincidentally, I also own an Ibanez, but when I play it doesn't sound anything like what comes out of his amp. Listening to him play makes me want to trade to get a bass.

I hate Mother's Day...

Over time, I have gained a keen lack of appreciation for certain pseudo holidays that requires one to buy and give gifts or dress up in order to celebrate. Namely Mother's Day, Father's Day, Halloween and Valentine's Day. Let's take a look at them statistically:

Candy = 3:4
Flowers = 2:4
Perfume/Cologne = 3:4
Eating out = 3:4
Cards = 4:4
Clothing = 2:4

...but even I succumbed to 2:4 this weekend, thanks to Mom.

I woke up at my usual 5:05AM and by 6:30AM, I was traveling on Interstate 5 South to drive to El Cajon for Mother's Day. I took my mom out to breakfast to a place called Country Waffle. It's not as good at Waffle House, but the location and price were right. You can read my Yelp review about it. There is a widget on the left hand side of the screen to take you there.

It's been a month since the last time I visited. After her triple bypass, she seemed to struggle less with the fatigue and be more "in the moment" that she had been before the surgery. I bought her two mangevilla plants to replace the sad grape vine that I took to her bff's home in Lakeside. I planted those and monitored her while she did her laundry by herself for the first time in a month. She says she needs the wheeled walker, but I don't know. It's use is more of a dolly for her... a place to put her purse and coat between my car and the restaurant or a way for her to get her clothes to the laundry room in her apartment complex.

After planting and watering her patio, she gave me a waffle maker and I drove home at about Noon. Since I pass by an outlet mall on the way home, I decided to stop by, but since there was a mob scene at Carlsbad due to Mother's Day sales, I just drove through the parking lot and got back onto the freeway to go home. It was medium-heavy traffic from that point on all the way home.

I did not cook or clean today one bit. I got home, took a nap, got up and made myself a turkey sandwich on garlic rosemary sourdough I picked up from the Farmer's Market in El Segundo last Thursday. Turkey, mayo, mustard, soy cheddar, chopped sweet onion and spinach leaves. That how my sandwich goes.

Happy New Year!

It's 6:30AM and I'm up watching KTLA channel 5 in Los Angeles in HD in my warm bed waiting for the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade to start. I already watched the rerun of the 2009 parade this morning and now the preview of this year's parade is on.

The nice part about working for a financial institution is having the day off.

Later this evening, I'll be going to a bbq joint in Corona to watch a friend's band.

It's the most wonderful time of the year... yeah right.

I wish 30 days before a holiday was the limit on decor, hype and such. It's just way too over commercialized for my taste anymore. Xmas trees in the shops before Halloween... It's as though the holiday "season" starts right after Labor day and doesn't quit until the after new years sales events are over.

And how dare you call the holidays a "season". A season is when the weather has distinct changes, not when a date on the calendar guilts you into buying things for people that they probably don't need or want in the first place.

Bleak

It's not the most wonderful time of the year. It's the bleak dating season. Ever since November hit, no man is choosing to communicate with me. ACK. I know it's the holidays that's doing it and it will probably continue like this until Christmas is over. Why? There's nothing worse than having to spend time with someone you don't like all that much or even to have to buy a present for them. Yeah, I get that. And then once NYE rolls around, it's you're choice to either sleep through it or share it with someone.What am I feeling now? Just cold and lonely, but I won't settle for anything less than someone who is worthy of my love and affections. So stop messaging me Spaniard. It just ain't gonna happen. Nor with your freaky footie friend either.

A Memorial Weekend

It's 6-something in the morning on Sunday and I was up before the dawn watering my tomato plant which looks successful up to this point, checking the cat water and food and brushing my teeth. I am sick of my clutter which I am coming to find out is so much less than what it could be compared to what other people's ideas of what clutter is but yet unacceptable to me because it's an in-my-face example of disorganization and I don't consider myself to be a disorganized person. I usually have things put in their special place so I can find them again and my clutter breaks that trend and creates a certain amount of havoc and frustration in my life. Once, I was trying to cope with my clutter by saying I was out growing my condo since I have lived here for ten years as of March. Once even, I tried to justify that I was just too tired to deal with it due to me dealing with a cronic disease let alone my daily grid. But after watching an episode of Clean House from St. Louis, I felt like, yeah, I could kind of relate as well as agree to the fact that I'll do things to make myself feel good and not necessarily the things that need to be done because they are not fun and considered chores. And so my slightly cluttered ways continue to a degree.

I'd decided that I need to locate my paperwork from the last time I put together a loan submission package while applying for a refi and I need to locate my notary certificate. I think these documents are located within two plastic gray trays of assorted clutter that at one time landed on my desk, but now that the desk has been changed and organized, have been relocated into my gray trays. These gray trays were once considered under the bed storage when I first moved into my condo. They are actually trays from Smart and Final like the ones bus boys use to clear your table after having eaten in a restaurant. They were cheaper than plastic bins specially made to be under the bed storage and I'll go cheap if it's functional so that's why I bought them. I think there are 6-8 floating around in various areas of my condo, but for the most part I believe they have been retired to the right corner stacked up in the bottom of my closet waiting to be utilised again.

I am determined to create a save or throw pile comprised of the things in my two clutter bins before I go and read the newspaper this morning. I don't actually read the entire paper. I don't think anyone does these days. I rather skim for what I find as interesting and then read that article and then continue skimming again to the next subject that sparks my mind. I love to go through the ads. I think it's for the color but moreover to find a bargain. I love the Target ads, even though we know that Walmart has better prices and for this reason, rarely produces a paper ad.

I'm procrastinating now about going through the rest of the bins since I have found my loan submission package and have calculated my interest rate change. I'm looking forward to the rate drop as I have a hybrid note that I don't even think they offer anymore and will adjust to be lower than my start rate, or so I hope. Now on to locate that certificate.

I barbecued hamburgers yesterday which came out excellent. I also made homemade salsa as well. Yum. Even though I went to Sprouts and Ralph's and spent $95, I need to go to the grocery store again because my pantry has been depleted and I need cereal and milk.

My neighbors are entirely too noisy for this time of day.

New Years Resolutions

I think New Years resolutions are a waste of your time. If you want to make a change, whatever it may be, you are going to do it no matter what time of the year it is. You don't have to wait until January 1st rolls around to get you to make a change. Change ultimately comes from within. When you are ready and willing as well as mentally and physically prepared, and hopefully with a support system in place to reinforce your decision in wanting to change, you will make it happen for yourself.

Everyone is so into the quick fix and the easy way to do things, but I've found that most of the time, you are going to be let down by instant success with little to no effort on your part. It's hollow and it's short lived.

Sometimes, the more difficult road can be the most rewarding.

130 Days

This is the letter I wrote in response to being dumped on voicemail after the holidays. The lesson I learned dating this guy is listen to your gut feeling and don't let things drag on longer than they need to. There are bigger, better and more fish in the sea.

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I don’t imagine you will read this email at all. You’ll probably delete it to spare your feelings and diminish mine because that’s just the way you are with your ego. But if you do find the courage to read this, I have to tell you I’m sorry for getting so involved so fast if at all. Having a relationship with you seemed promising, but it just was not in the cards. Your life simply has very little room in it for me and I allowed my involvement to go on far too long.

My roughly 130 day relationship with you was punctuated in the beginning with the death of your neighbor and you calling me about every ten minutes while I was dealing with a business client and then the death of your guinea pig. I watched you coil into a fetal position and cry “your mom and everyone only wants you for your how much money you can make for them”, after the animal died which was clearly not the case with me because I could care less how well-off you think you are. I’ve dated men richer than you and I’ve dated men poorer than me and as long as they can pay their bills and I’m not paying for them all the time, I really don’t care what you make. And in the end with the announcement of your father’s heart attack, probably awaking the feelings of your own mortality more than ever because you talked about giving my son your personal property?, as well as the death of your cousin, which you didn’t even bother to tell me about until you were almost on your way home but conveniently got stuck in Seattle over New Years Eve and then we had that mishap with the airport. I mean, I called you and even texted you, too, for three hours while I waited for you to land, but you ignored me and never replied. You said you’d call when you got to the airport and you never did.

In between was approximately 12 days of you and me in bed and/or on dinner dates, one dedication ceremony for work and a few times at the lake. All the rest of the time, you seemed to be busy and working, exhausted, sick and even in the hospital and if you had the time, you weren’t interested in what I wanted to do. For instance, when I told you I thought It would be cool for us to go and kayak on the Newport Back Bay after watching a show on PBS, you thought it would be funny to run the jet ski through it and my idea was never brought up again. When you put parameters around me talking to you on the phone (remember when you said, “I talk all day on the phone at work so I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking to you on the phone, I rather talk to you in person”), to use a baseball analogy… was strike one. In person, exhausted from your long work day you wanted to eat then frequently fell asleep on the couch or in the club chair. Keeping the schedule that you do, whatever it is you make up for yourself, must be maintained for the benefit of the project and I understand that. With it out of control, it also wears on your health and runs you into the ground so much so you have no time or energy for me. Although there were other glaring instances I could mention, strike two was the three times I invited you to dinner either out or at my house thinking that you not having to cooking would be less of a strain on you but you didn’t even acknowledge that. I guess my choices are not good enough for you, so they were dismissed. No one had ever died from my cooking and my friends seem to like the places I eat out at, so maybe that was just your own personal hang-up.

The third strike was the level of communication you had with me versus your construction friends. It was clearly different… like when you slipped and said you told one of then that ‘she likes to fuck, she’d never say no to that’ or how you said that you couldn’t wait to tell them and so they would laugh their head off about me yelling ‘no’ a million times on the back of the jet ski, something I had never did before in my life and was absolutely terrified about because I’m not a fan of deep water. It wasn’t funny, it was cruel. Or the email you sent bout how stockbrokers should jump out of the windows of the NYSE because the market got so bad due to the housing crisis. You knew I worked in the financial field for years and I felt that was totally insensitive of you. I can only imagine what else you told them about making me out to be the butt of your jokes.

I’m not going to even get into your random acts of drunkenness, public or otherwise. You know what those were because even you said you drink too much and it’s because of the stress level you deal with at work. That moment of personal clarity and your ability to self-correct on that one element gave me a glimmer of hope things might get better about the other aspects of your life, too, but I guess that was too much to wish for. Oh yeah, you’re scratchy eyes were caused by you drinking too much wine all the time – nothing more and nothing less. Your eyes need to be hydrated with something other than wine, so on a wine drinking binge when your liver and kidneys get overloaded with it, that’s what happens – that sand in your eyes feeling. That and the onset of adult acne. Now I understand part of the reason what the witch hazel was used for.

But to top it off, the holiday season, November and December, was the worst and it was the most lonely and depressing time for me ever. On Thanksgiving, you were sick yet again and so into your own incapacity, you never picked up the phone when I called and then failed to call me and let me know you having my son and I over for Thanksgiving dinner was cancelled. When I showed up on your doorstep, I’m sorry I even gave my son the opportunity to shake your hand because up until that point he thought you were just a figment of my imagination when I talked about you. I ended up salvaging the meal and we had turkey after all that weekend, but you never bothered to ask what I did or to reschedule. After that, we never seemed to get back on track. I put together a gift basket for you for Christmas of Asian food from your favorite store and two different cook books with the thought that you enjoy cooking so much, told you I wanted to deliver it, but you never found the time to accept it in person. I just left it on your doorstep and you didn’t even bother to say ‘thank you’ later.

The last time I talked to you on the phone, and I had not seen you in 5 weeks by then, you informed me that it was my job to interrogate you so that I could learn the details of what is going on in your life. I stood there dumbfounded because, hey, isn’t sharing your feelings and the details of your life however mundane they may be just simple human communication?

You have been through some of the most stressful times in your life since we met in August and it took its toll on whatever relationship was eked out in between. Thanks for leaving me a message on voicemail that you are not going to be calling me anymore.

We need a little Christmas

Work is so cold today (there was a freeze warning in Simi Valley last night and some co-workers actually had to hose off their vehicles before driving to work this morning) and so slow with nothing much to do that I have cranked up the XM internet radio in my office today and I'm playing christmas tunes until we get into the Christmas spirit and can't stand them anymore, which ever comes first.

We ordered pizza for lunch for the staff today because it's Friday and why not..