Ribbon Cutting

Monday, I was invited to go with my boyfriend to the reception and ribbon cutting ceremony for the newly renovated Ronald McDonald Family Rooms at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo. He was the superintendent over all of the subcontractors that worked upon this volunteer effort.

I learned a new acronym - OSHPD pronounced 'oshpod'. Basically, it's the State of California's governing entity over planning and development of hospitals.

Thank you, Germany

To top off an already bad employment situation here in the U.S., Deutsche Post will close DHL effectively eliminating 9500 jobs. Merry f*cking Christmas.

Read: Deutsche Post to cut 9,500 jobs in US

The whole idea about existing in a free market society is to have competition and options. Since this one will be gone, you'll be stuck with FedEx or USPS. Pay thorough the nose or pay with your time. Not much if a choice now is it?

This, already on top of the grim news California is facing...

Read: California's Unemployment Rate Over 7.7% - a 14-year High

All I know is I'm happy I'm working and I don't know where I'd be now if I didn't take this contract position back in March. I know people that have been out of work for over a year now.

My Pleasure

My son and I were invited to Thanksgiving dinner at the boyfriends house. The deal is the boyfriend will be in charge of the turkey and I will be in charge of everything else. Cool.

Then I shared my stories of past Thanksgivings feasts. Like last year with the anorexic organic 7 pound bird I got from Trader Joe's that was more suitable for making soup than it was any sort of a roasted meat meal I was dreaming about. Don't waste your money on a 7 pound bird - ever. That was a bad one.

A good one was the brined turkey breast roll with stuffing inside.

Or the one my son remembers the most - when I made garlic mashed potatoes and I somehow did not cook the potatoes enough. It was extremely starchy, and he got sick on it for hours.

So anyway, the boyfriend likes to cook restaurant style cuisine, so I'm thinking roasted root vegetable medley.

Brick, brick, where's the brick?

I'm sick to death of looking at the flower bed full of weeds located in my back patio area of my condominium. It sits under my neighbor's awning, so it's questionable what will grow there and what will mock me and die a slow agonizing death.

I decided three things:

1) I need a fuller landing near the gate on the back patio. The concrete step is an inadequate size.

2) I need brick to fix #1 and possibly create some sort of cover over the said flower bed after I install a week control blanket over it.

3) I'm thinking them maybe installing a fountain and a few potted plants to make it look nicer.

And so I'm on a quest to find free bricks on Craigslist this weekend. Why pay for something like that when people give them away? I happened to mention this project to a guy at work and he told me he had bricks he wasn't using, so he brought those in today and they are now sitting in the back of my car waiting to come home with me. I'm just excited that at least my landing will be better than it has been for years.

It's a good thing for McDonald's

Friday in Simi Valley at lunch time and I'm hungry, so I head on over to the local McDonalds and they were serving samples of their new cherry pie. They were also on sale 2 for $1.00. Yeah and yeah- I bought two.

Nice, but...

So I went to dinner over my boyfriends house last night - first time in three weeks mind you because his work schedule got so damn crazy with the bad weather and anything else that could go wrong. It's just one of those projects... So... After I gave him an earful of the stupid stuff I've have to endure to keep a job in the field I've worked in for the past 15 years... this is what he told me.

I was having to lay off people and you know it's not something anyone likes to do. So I'm handing these guys their final pay checks and one of those wooden boxes over there on the table. I walk over to the dining room table which is steps from the stool I'm sitting at the bar, and I open it.

It's a box stamped with the company name and inside is a nice carving set with knife and fork. And these are the things he's having to handing out to people he's laying off? I said, "What kind of sick fucks do you work for over there? They are making you had out knives to guys who just lost there job? You might want to tell these guys you're laying off to kindly open the box AFTER they get home."

Dinner

Boyfriend cooked:
BBQ steak
BBQ herbed red potatoes
...and something on the side I don't know what it's called but it was sauted bacon with mushrooms and brocoli. Rabe? Scramble? Whatchamcallit? Edible, but still working on the technique for that particular dish, too.

Laundry Hell, Part 2

Laundry Hell, Part 2, the return of the dirty laundry.

After, what, like two weeks, I decided I'd better wash again since I was running out of underwear and work clothes. I was trying to wait it out for the maintenance guy to fix the dryers. I mean, I saw him out there working on something, but they didn't work so now I don't know what is going on with the machines other than I'm really pissed off at the HOA board for not taking care of this sooner.

So it turns out it's not so bad washing clothes right after work on a Monday night. It's a steady pace of people in and out of the Super Wash, but nothing like the crowd I experienced Sunday night. I was able to walk in and load up my three loads into the $1.25 machines with no issues.

Next, I walked down to the Jalisco Restaurant and ordered two chicken tacos to go and a Pepsi. The tacos were fresh and good, but I can't say the same for the pickled veggies. I don't like anything spicy and these were. Eww. I noticed that there were cartoons on the tv at the front of the room, so sat at the bench near the front where I could try and tune out all of the noise.

Ultimately, I was in and out by 9PM for under $10 this time.

Which is more likely?

I love Yahoo!s News section. After reading an article that peaked my interest, I always scroll down to the bottom of the page and see what else is going on in their "Most" and "Elsewhere on the Web" sections.

So today, I followed that same routine and saw something weird. After reading about how some moron thinks rainy climates in the west produce more autistic children (you think maybe it's the mold that grows in those rainy climates, sir?), I looked again and there was an article which said women's hands are more germy than men's. O.K., that makes sense, too. Women do the majority of the food preparation and cooking as well as the cleaning with harsh chemicals, so they are helping to contaminate themselves and their loved ones. I also think it's got something to do with the vitality of the egg and the sperm. Women are most fertile between the ages of 18-24. But that window closes fast when they put school and career first over having a family. Add a nutritional deficient to the mix with everyone drinking alcohol and dieting and you've got a problem waiting to happen. In My opinion.

Read:

Autism linked to rain

Women's Dirty Hands

Infertility

Face The Nation: Nov 2, 2008

I was watching Face the Nation on my local CBS station just because I wanted to see what the politicos had to say this morning two days before the most historic presidential election ever.

One man, Senator John Ensign, a Republican from Nevada, who sided clearly with McCane, made me take notice when he said, as I too think, that it was the CRA in the 1970's that started the need for alternative financial vehicles, i.e. interest only notes, because financial institutions were forced into lending to consumers that has less than stellar credit and could not afford the monthly mortgage payment plus taxes and insurance on a thirty year note.

Earlier in my blog, I began to write how the United States got into this big of a financial mess in the first place, but it became too preachy and a diatribe really, so I decided not to publish it to allow more scholarly peoples put the pieces of the puzzle together for themselves or to atleast see if they came to a similiar conclustion as I did. I was happy to hear what I heard this morning from this senator, but saddened that he was an avid supporter of McCane.

On a side note, I cannot support McCane, a man who is older than my mom and so senile he doesn't even know how many houses he owns. Maybe he needs some Ritalin... or a retirement home. He reminds me of the lifetime politicians of yesteryear when almost at the end of their term in office, they would run for yet another position to continue their legacy, err, government funded their way of life they aren't yet comfortable giving up without a fight.