Everything You Never Wanted to Know about...

...Tomatoes.

Last year, I bought three plants at a TOMATOMANIA! (http://tomatomania.com) event at Descanco Gardens (http://www.descansogardens.org/) in La Canada-Flintridge. If you view the map below, you can see that's about 46 miles away from my home. This year, I found that same tomato crazy event is going to be held at Roger's Garden's (http://rogersgardens.com/) in Corona Del Mar, which is so much closer.

But, hearing about how my Rideshare buddy just planted strawberries in her grandmother's community garden, I thought I might try to grow some this year in a container.

So, I went container shopping last weekend at this place called Pottery Manufacturing and Distributing (http://potterymfg.com/) Their name says it all. And it's all they do. The place is chock full of pottery. It's great. It's right off the 110 Freeway in Gardena. I found it because I drive that way home from work sometimes.

I was able to locate a beautiful 14 plant container in cobalt blue. Then I trotted over to my local Armstrong Garden Center and found enough strawberry plants to fill my new container. Fast forward to an impending storm, and by the time I got all of my purchases home, it was too cold to plant. I pulled the plants inside last night to prevent them from freezing. Yes, it was that cold. On the news, the snow levels were reported at 3000 feet. That makes Orange County a mighty cold place to be. How cold? As I type this blog, it's 43 degrees. That's cold enough to set off my car's road ice warning.

O.K., so back to the tomatoes. So my three tomato plants from last year died this past weekend. I wasn't sad about loosing the Beefsteak or the Pink lady because, to be honest, they just didn't perform like I thought they should have. Maybe I was giving them too much water because they were planted in a Topsy Turvy, or maybe I didn't feed them enough high test chicken poop AKA Tomato Tone (http://www.espoma.com/p_consumer/tones_tomato.html). I don't know. But the star of the three plants was the Chika Japanese Cherry Tomato plant. That thing grew like gangbusters and had a good amount of fruit. In a last ditch effort, I harvested all of the green and semi green cherry tomatoes and seeded them. Then I read this:
http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/grow-tomato.htm

So now I have a glass bowl of unplanted tomato seeds.

Dating Sucks, Part 2,364

Two weekends ago, I went out on another date. This one was a coffee date, too, but it ended up being a late lunch as well. He's a few years older than me, a plumber. There wasn't anything particularly offensive about him, but he seems to be a little rough around the edges and maybe lacks some of the social graces. Like using a napkin on his lap when he eats. If you're not taught or even care about whats right, wrong or the expected behavior, then how do you know?

Anyway, I'm getting a bunch of disconnects between his photo, what his writes and then with the way he communicates with me on the phone. These things are not consistent with this man. And then he made an appointment with me last Saturday to fix a laundry room plumbing problem, but conveniently forgot about it and later told he he decided to go snowboarding with his nephew instead. After, he said he was not in contact via email because his cell phone went dead after his car hit a boulder and busted his oil pan and a piece of his suspension.

His drama is not attractive. Maybe that's just my gut feeling trying to tell me "El Flake-o" and move on. He said he would call yesterday, but he didn't. I'm on radio silence.

Dating Sucks

I am a 45 yo single white female in the dating scene once again because I'm bored to hell with my life as I know it. I've thrown caution to the wind and made up a profile on POF.com. I've had one date. I chose him. And this has again proven to me that I constantly and consistently choose bad. Let's say "God of the Geeks" had a back story that you could use to write a sitcom and leave it at that. Three hours later and a maybe a handful of emails over the following few days convinced me that his schedule to fit me into his life was cramping mine and then I told him, "I don't think this is gonna work". Next!

I'm not so perfect after all

To be honest I never was perfect. Nobody is. Perfect is subjective. At work, I have been auditing the data that goes into a database and it was hell as well as heart wrenching to find out that even with all my diligence, it's not right. I am but a conduit to the errors that come from other people in other departments. As my boss would say, "garbage in / garbage out". I suspected there was a problem. My mood was down-to-work and focused as much as I could bear without literary wanting to scream at the top of my lungs in order to release my frustration. Once it was turned in, I couldn't get it to signed off quick enough and then the client started calling me.

And then after I could clear my head of the most important self-audit I performed for work, then that's when I decided that there was no qualified candidate applying for the vacant supervisors position and dreading that I would have to either train a co-worker or someone from the outside who has had supervisor experience but that would be useless to the 'processors' in the department, I applied.

My interview was Thursday with HR. I left my competition in the dust. My resume is so linear and focused, pretty much any company who was looking for what I do would at least take a look at it. There is good and bad with any job that you do, but in this new role, I bring more knowledge, technique and experience than the sum of my competition. Besides, it would be easier to hire a business analyst to do what I do with that database  than clone me.

It could be considered mid to late January and now it finally feels like winter in Southern California. Supposedly, it's another "La Nina" year, so we are anticipating a lot of rain. Well, at least there were showers for the past two days.

2012 also has brought me a new role with the HOA... that of the Treasurer. Our past one just turned 90. 90! She was still making deposits of laundry money... rolls of quarters. If you don't do it once a week, that damn bag gets heavy. I have a canvas bag I sling over my shoulder for the task. Paying the bills are entirely another story. The president is a bore. Blah blah blah, no action, blah blah, rule breaker, blah blah blah. He doesn't do the walk throughs. He doesn't fix anything. The budget is screwed up because of the foreclosures. It's frustrating. I need to figure out ways to cut back because he surly isn't doing it.

More later.

Mortgage settlement between banks, states 'close' - Yahoo! News

Your friend annazzz1966@yahoo.com has shared a link with you. Mortgage settlement between banks, states 'close' - Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/mortgage-settlement-between-banks-states-close-234645721.html A $25 billion settlement between the nation's major banks and U.S. states over deceptive foreclosure practices during the housing crisis is nearing completion. Read the full story

Share : Modification blunders bedevil U.S. housing recovery - Yahoo! News

http://yhoo.it/rJYqhh
Sent from my Kindle Fire

Fed nearing a plan to clarify direction of rates - Yahoo! News

http://news.yahoo.com/fed-nearing-plan-clarify-direction-rates-080201555.html The Federal Reserve under Ben Bernanke has gone further than ever to explain its policies to the public. It's ready to go further still. Read the full story

Fall fell and now winter is creeping in

I don't like waking up in the dark and going home in the dark. I can't wait for December 21st because then I know the days will be getting longer until June.

Ever since I got back from my vacation, it's been work-work-work. I took a half day off to get a recall notice taken care of on my car, but that was it. My supervisor took off to Oregon for Thanksgiving, so I worked her desk as well as mine. And I was appointed the Treasurer of my HOA and I'm not liking it so much. A few years ago, I used to be the Secretary, but I resigned because I got tired of listening to eveyones complaints. Now, I have to listen to the president complain. And I don't have the information I need to do the job. I half repaired the doors in the laundry rooms, the demo anyway. They were both kicked in due to vandalism I don't know when.  I also changed the locks on the storage rooms. Now that it's December, I'm preparing for a MERS annual audit at work. And after working at the CU for 2 years, I finally got connected with someone from the ride share website. We met up on Friday for a few minutes to talk. She works in the building in front of mine and we park in the same structure. Traveling in the HOV lanes for my commute starts tomorrow.

And then Friday rolls around and at the end of the day, I was so busy, I didn't even see the meeting notice my supervisor sent out. She announced she's leaving as of the 14th. All I could do was smile and kid with her like I was going to cry but I wasn't. She already talked to me about her moving to Oregon with her daughter so I wasn't that surprised about her decision. Now, it's just a wait and see what my manager wants to do. The company is in a holding pattern prior to a merger. This could go many different ways.

2011 LA Auto Show

I went to the 2011 LA Auto Show. I got fee tickets while I was at Guaranty Chevrolet getting some recall work done on my new car.

There were about a handful of Hot Wheels inspired cars at the show this year. This green Camero with the custom paint job caught my attention.

You rarely see brown Mini Coopers.

This is the Chevy Cruze - stylized for racing.

This is the 2012 Chevy Cruze - street legal version.

This is the European version of the Chevy Spark. It comes is cute colors like this blue or the lime in the background.

This is a head on view of the Chevy Spark in champagne color. Such an aggressive look for a commuter car!

Vacation day 14, October 21st

It's Friday and I'm going to have a full day at DisneyWorld today. I'm getting better situated with what attractions are where finally by using this map:

At 7AM, I was toying with the idea of going off site for breakfast, but I really don't want to hop into my car until it's time to go tomorrow morning.

I ended up skipping breakfast and buying a lunch of fried shrimp with fries and a large light lemonade. Then I made my way over to the other side of Epcot.

On the schedule today, The Orchestra ( http://www.theorchestra.net/ ) starring former members of ELO (Parthenon Huxley [in a black "former member" tee-shirt on guitar and Mik Kaminski on violin) were performing as a part of the "Eat to the Beat" series at the American... They played for exactly 30 minutes.

Set List:

Don't bring me down
Can't get it out of my head
Tightrope
Hold on tight
Telephone Line
Do Ya

Seeing that performance pretty much was the 'cherry on top' to my entire trip.