Month: December 2013

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Good Day, Hotel Room, Snow and Broken forks.

Got a Haircut & spent the day with a good friend. We had a great lunch and started our shopping with drinks. 

We managed to get our Christmas shopping done.

I wasn’t able to get home with my bootie though.

Who could have foreseen accidents that would delay my arrival home until there was enough snow and ice on the streets at home that I couldn’t get up the street to the house.

Had there been somewhere to park, I’d have just walked up the hill but all the places to park that were available I couldn’t get into.

I was annoyed, tired, and cranky.

It took me about 3.5 maybe 4 hours to get home. Rather, near home. After several tries to get up the street; failing at finding a parking place and nearly being T-Boned by a moron in a truck. I basically said,

Enough!

I drove to a local hotel, got a room and am now sitting naked in bed watching Futurama.

That’s about all I could ask for. I was so tired I couldn’t take going anywhere else. I’m planning to sleep until at least 9am

After all it’s my room until noon.

I walked to a taco place ordered take out and came back here. I’m eating and then I broke my fork. Ever tried to eat a messy, saucy, sour creamy Mexican meal with a fork that has only two tines? 

It’s interesting!

After eating I tried logging onto the free wifi. LOL!!!!

There is some Hollyweird production company staying here at the hotel and they are sucking up the bandwidth of the entire hotel. I have no clue what they’re doing but after 10 minutes my email finally finished downloading.

I’m figuring this is another one of those movies that will get one check and go direct to video. Can you tell I have little faith in Hollywood?

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I’m over being in the middle of a construction zone

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I’m tired of being trapped in the house.

I’m tired of the house shaking and the dust.

I’m over the constant growling and “Beep”,  “Beep”,  “Beep”,  “Beep”, “Beep”, “Beep”,  “Beep” of the trucks, steam shovels, and bulldozers.

I’m sick of all of this and I swear to you I think this is all because some people in the town council were inconvenienced one summer by the road washing out. So they whined at the county and sentenced ALL of us on the “low rent side of town” to having our summer, our fall, and now the holidays disrupted.

After all why should they care? This construction isn’t in their back yards. Well you bastards… it IS in my back yard, literally!

I’ve given up straightening the pictures on the walls. I’m spending a large portion of my day comforting the dogs who freak out when the house shakes like we’re having a 2.0 or better earthquakes.

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And then there’s the pure annoyance factor!

I didn’t move 80 miles OUT of the big cities of LA and Orange counties so that my house could be smack in the center of a construction zone.

They said they’d be done by Thanksgiving…

It’s damn near Christmas and they’re showing no signs of being near done.

6 days a week, 10 hours a day. Dawn to dark, they’re not even leaving enough time to walk the dogs (or myself).

This is really starting to get to me! I keep thinking it might be more quiet in a one hour hotel room with a crack den next door in the middle of Hollywood.

Plus the fact that these guys have no clue about how to deal with snow or ice. Hint: Clear the snow off the road before you drive 20 ton trucks on it. Then you won’t need the thing that looks like a blowtorch to melt the compressed ice so that your trucks can keep going without slipping.

We won’t even talk about the damage done to the road.

You know, the road that residents ponied up the cash to install, the one the county demands use of, but will not maintain, repair, or send a snow plow up?

Yeah, that road!

All the damage is new and caused by these folks driving vehicles they know are too heavy up and down in front of my house.

Yeah, I’m sick of all this crap!

I wake up every single day and wonder if this is that day I list this house for sale and leave!

This shit has completely destroyed the quality of life up here.

Saturday and today are the worst in a long time.

It’s hard to concentrate. You can’t watch TV or a movie because the noise is so loud you have to have the sound so high it’s uncomfortable just to hear a show over the noise outside.

Try doing a telephone job interview!

It sounds like you’re homeless, living on the streets because you can’t find a quiet place ANYWHERE in your own home to have a conversation.

I understand now why people snap!

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Time for the Christmas Tree

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Today is the traditional date of the Christmas Tree decoration.

As I work on this today, I’m thinking of my Mom and all the fun she & I used to have at this time of year.

Sugar Cookies, in happy holiday shapes. The infamously alcoholic fruitcakes that Mom always made. 

Popcorn and construction paper chains for decorations around the tree and the house.

The joy when a new package materialized under the tree and wondering what to get Mom. 

See for a number of years it was just Mom & I. Sure on Thanksgiving or Christmas we’d have the relatives over but mostly it was about us. 

We had a ball!

Ornaments, memories, Black & White TV. 

I remember the address to the first house I lived in.

When I google it, it’s all different. The house got modified at some point in the past 35 years the owners enclosed the carport making it a small one car garage. The trees that I remember tending as saplings are all gone, as is a larger tree that used to be in the front yard. The grand old oak in the backyard is still standing. From the Street view I can see the room that my parents occupied for a time.

The neighborhood is, of course all different now.

One constant is that I can find using Google is the elementary and the middle school. Both were attached to each other via a common lunchroom facility so they occupy a large chunk of space that’s easily visible. 

I remember navigating home from both of them. I walked across a golf course and usually with a group of friends. Unless I got detention. Then I’d be walking alone. 

Both the schools look the same as they do in my memory.

There’s something comforting in that.