Good News!

Oh, it's not mine, but while I'm at work I thought I'd read the news because that's the thing to do - keep up on current events, right?

There was this article:

Girl returns $1,000 found in Richard Simmons tape

And it reminded me that people still do the right thing and that's good news.

It also reminded me that at one point I wanted to start two new news channels. Since there is the saying that it takes 20 good deeds to cancel out the one bad deed that someone does, you don't always get to hear about all the good that people do in the world and I think that is a sad thing. I thought that it would be a good idea to start two news channels = one for the good news and one for the bad news. So if I want to get bummed out and listen to all of the theft and violence against humanity, I'd tune into the bad news. If I wanted to feel uplifted by the good in the world, I'd happily tune into the good news.

Laundry Hell

About a month ago, I went out to the laundry room on my side of the condo complex and washed clothes only to find that three of the four dryers did not work. This pissed me off. I went to my home, got blue painter's tape and a Sharpie and taped up the machines and marked them all as "out of order". Later hat day, I not only wrote a letter to the HOA bard about the broken dryers, but also asking to fix the crater in the driveway as well as the driveway gates which were malfunctioning yet again in the wind.

That Sunday, I went to the local Laundromat for the first time in over ten years. It's located in the triangle next to a ton of eatting places about an eighth of a mile away from my home. It's so close, if I go out into my front yard I can almost see it.

It's nice and clean and secure. It's $2.25 a load to wash in the front loading machines and a quarter for 10 minutes to dry. What was difficult to tollerate was all of the spanish language telvision blaring at me while I was waiting for my clothes to finish. I got a headache after listening to the weather girl in spanish. I had to take an Advil to stop my head from pounding before I went to bed.

So when I was out in the parking structure trying to fix my headlights, I noticed some yahoo broke down the front of each of the dryers. I can tell you now, the heating element burned out so I'm pretty sure that happens to be located at the back of the unit and no where near the insrument plannel. And then when I went back to my condo, it wasn't fixed. Hrmmm. I don't know whether to write another letter telling the HOA they are losing money not having the machines available and they still need to fix them or just say screw it like they have with any of the non-regular maintenance.

I plan on not watching lousy game five of the world series tonight with spicy hot dogs for dinner in order to wash clothes at the landromat and avoid the crowds on the weekend.

Ridiculous

Out of my utter frustration with the contractors position I currently have, I look for jobs online while I'm at work because there is literally no other thing to do.

I maintain a directory of websites where I can find job postings. It's dismal. All these people out of work and all these job posts and I can't seem to find a match with anything in California. This frustrates me.

I tried searching in a new category today called "office manager". I found a cool job, but they want a BA and will only pay 29k. What single person in their right mind with a mortgage and car payments can live on 29k in Southern California after they've took the time to get a BA? It's ridiculous.

I feel like I've painted myself into a corner that I can't get out of and I don't know what to do.

Ewww, That Smell Part 2

O.K., this morning I was running the fresh air through the car and I smelled this hard boiled eggs smell on the N5/N10 split at the east LA interchange before Seventh Street. Not a horrible smell, but why hard boiled eggs? Weird.

And on the seventh day

On Sunday, it was as if the clouds in heaven parted, the sun shone down onto Tustin with it's brightest beam, a choir of angels began to sing in chorus and these things occured in my little world:

1. China West Express replaces American Pizza at the triangle

2. Arby's is almost ready to open

3. Regular gas at $2.99 a gallon at Thrifty Oil

4. My boyfriend got some qualified help at work

It's Funny

Last night, out of the blue, I was asked to come to dinner at my boyfriends house. He said he was fixing hot dogs and french fries and that the hot dogs were spicy which I probably wouldn't like, but I was welcome to watch the world series there with him anyway. He knows I like baseball. I could have easily did without these games tho. Tampa and Phili? Not teams in the western states like me, so I don't care so much who's playing or wins this year. He likes sports though, so it's something we can do together.

Usually we try to plan ahead for those things because of his work schedule and my commute, but this dinner idea was O.K. All I had planned to do last night was return the headlight bulbs I couldn't install by myself the night before after I discovered that my passenger side low beam was dead while driving home on the 101 freeway. I had taken "the back way" AKA 118 W, 23 S, 101E, 5S to get around my need to travel upon the 118 E because there was two traffic accidents that the CHP stopped traffic for to clear off of the freeway at about 4PM. I got home 3+ hours later, tired, road weary and mad that I had to deal with the light. I rousted my son to go with me to Kragen to buy the bulb once I looked up the model number in my owner's manual. I then got home, gathered my tools, and tried for over an hour and a half to install the sucker. After that ordeal decided I did not have the strength in my hands nor the proper tools to get the job done. The next day (thursday morning), I drove to work in the dark using my high beams almost all the way there.

I was going to ask Robert to help install the bulb for me or at least provide a tool that I did not have and his strong hands to get the trim piece off that runs over each headlight assembly. But I figured I was tired and he more so, so I didn't mind paying to get it fixed. First, I tried Jiffy Lube because I know they provide that service, but because of the dangnabit trim piece again, they said "no". They did confirmed with me that there was a Chevy dealer in town though. So I went to the Chevy dealer in Simi Valley (William Morris Chevrolet, at First Street and the 118) at lunch break. They were great and changed out my headlight bulb in like 20 minutes flat. So, happy my headlight is now fixed, I drove home with confidence that I wouldn't get a fix-it ticket. It took 2 hours and 15 minutes to get to Robert's house.

He made me a Cape Codder with so much liquor in it I couldn't drink it. I'm a tiny person, so it doesn't take me that much alcohol before I start to feel it. He dumps the drink and makes me another. This time - it's right and I tell him so. Robert, this one is good. I can taste the sting of the liquor but it still tastes like cranberries. Yum.

And so I try to calm my nerves by sitting down on the couch and then move to curl up in the chair and sipping my drink while playing with his little white fluff of a dog named Igloo and watching the game which is now in the 6th inning, but all I want to really do is eat. It's after 7PM and I'm hungry. So I interject myself into the dining area then the kitchen to see if there is anything I can do to speed this production up. I talked to him about accouterments to the hot dog on the phone earlier. Do you have relish? No. Do you have dill pickles? Yes. O.K., so dice up some dill pickles for me and that will be perfect - that's what I do at home. Do you have onions? Yes. Cut those up, too. Do you have mustard? Yes.

But when I go to get the condiments out of the refrigerator, there is no mustard. All I find is ketchup which is not allowed on my hot dogs, a ton of hot sauce which again is not allowed on my hot dogs, honey mustard, which only belongs in salad dressing and goes with chicken strips and an institutional sized jar of mayonnaise. I'm in hell. I had to go to the store to get mustard.

So I hopped into the go mobile and on the way decide where to acquire the mustard. Can I get it at Rod's Liquor Store? No, it's not a market. Do I know of any market within walking distance from his house? No. I could have gone to Fresh & Easy, but will they have the mustard I like? I don't know. I've only shopped there once and and really is only good for quick, fresh stuff. So the next store down the road, the one I actually am familiar with is Ralph's. Good old Ralph's. I grab a hand basket and go. I end up getting toothbrushes on sale 2 for 1 because the one I has put at Robert's needed to be tossed, two things of Eclipse gum for my purse, a jar of French's mustard, and a jar of Gulden's Golden spicy brown mustard. I also looked for kosher hot dogs to save myself from having to eat the spicy ones, but my luck, the only thing sold out in the deli section is the Hebrew National hot dogs I want.

I drove back to Robert's house, put away the mustard and helped him prepare the plates. After finishing the meal, I said to Robert...

It's funny, you know. If you go to my house right now and look in the refrigerator, you'll find probably 5 different kinds of mustard and no mayonnaise and here at your house you have the institutional sized jar of mayonnaise and no mustard. I'm glad I found this out.

After baseball ended with the Tampa Rays winning game two, we watched two shows on the speed channel and fell asleep.

I'll have to make sure I've got mayonnaise on hand when he cooks at my house.

The Early Girls

I noticed just this morning that there is this gaggle of women who make their way to their cars or to the bus stop in the morning between 5:30 and 5:45 AM. I have named these women "The Early Girls". Tricked out in their high heels, business, suits and whatever they wear at the workplace, in the dark they are walking around in my neighborhood before sunrise like a swarm of ants going this way and that. We all kind of keep an eye on eachother as we get to where we need to be and then shut and lock our car doors.

No, Sarah, no!

Please don't vote for McCane - here's why...

Sarah Palin thinks the vice president is in charge of the United States Senate.

Read: Palin Claims Vice President 'In Charge of the U.S. Senate'

Dear Govenor Palin... even Wikipedia got this one right and didn't attend the University of Idaho. What did they teach you in potatohead land? Did you pass minimum requirements to graduate from high school? Do you even remember U.S. History class or was that the period where you and your future husband passed notes back and forth to kill time?

Who was the first Vice President? The right answer from you may win back an ounce of my respect, but I'm still not going to vote for you.

And while I'm on the subject or no-no's, supposedly you made over $250,000 last year per your Public Financial Disclosure Report, so why is it that you need to have the RNC buy you and your family upwards of $150,000 of wardrobe and make-up using political donations?

Read: Sarah Palin went on some kind of RNC-financed shopping spree, Politico says

And then you're going to donate those clothes to charity? The "Everyday Working Class" people I know don't take public funds, buy clothes, wear them once, and give them away.

Read: Palin aide says candidate's clothing to be donated

That is a typical example of the wasteful spending I do not want to be associated with.

Not to mention that you billed the citizens of the great State of Alaska for your children's travel arrangements to political functions where they served no purpose but to be moral support for you and show that you're some kind of super mom but in reality you're too cheap to hire a nanny or to tell your husband he has to watch the kids?

Read: Palin Children Traveled On Alaska's Dime

I am so glad I don't declare to be a Republican. I bet Matt Gonzalez knows the role the Vice President plays in United States government.

Happy

I am so happy that my boyfriend is not sick anymore. I really missed him while he was ill. He was adamant about me not getting infected with what he had, so I stayed away. I had dinner with him for the past two nights. Pasta at his house and then sushi at our favorite place down the street. We were told the main sushi chef quit last Saturday because he moved to New York to be with his wife for breast cancer treatment. That's sad, but you do what you've got to do.

If...

For the lack of creativity I endure each day at work, I find myself seeking out creative people when I'm not there.

I was thinking about this on the way to work this morning. I know literally a ton of musicians. If I were to choose anyone of them to make a group, this is who it would be:

Sean Burgess - Drummer
Why? He's a music teacher. He not only can play well, but he's got the musical vocabulary to express what he's played and play it again and again. Very important when you're banging on drums all day.

Kenny Howes - Rhythm Guitar, backing vocals
Why? He's a players player. He's all Rickenbacker. He got chops, experience and can stand up to the competition.

Walter Ensign - Lead Guitar
Why? Not only can he cook a mean pot of Thai-anything for dinner, he can play his ass off as lead.

Pancho Francisco - Keyboards
Why? Low key, focused team player, university graduate with a degree in music. And another teacher as well as a professional musician.

Scott Halper - Bass
Why? This man can really, really, play the bass. I mean like Etwhistle-play the bass. He's amazing.

Who would be the vocalist? A tie again between Bleu or Steve Roberts.
Why? Both possess distinctive, smooth, expressive voices and have fun on stage when they sing.