It's The Little Things

The boyfriend isn't really a fan of the blog. He hasn't said as much, but I know he rarely reads it. I believe he views it as being too negative and harsh, a valid point I suppose. He generally takes a more fatalistic view of our situation - however the hell we ended up here, we're here now and we might as well try and make the best of it.

But that may have changed over the weekend.

The boyfriend has one great passion... classic cars.

From the day I met him he's always driven an older, stylish import. He'd buy them, restore them, drive them a while, sell them and start all over again. He absolutely loved it. Mostly Mercedes and Jaguars and the like. When times were good, he also bought a '77 Corvette and '84 Cadillac, which he was lovingly restoring on the side. They're both gone now, sadly.

When things started going bad and he sold his last car, he realized that we could no longer afford the cost and unpredictability of an older car. So for the first time in his life, he leased a new one. Lost amid all the chaos of the new house, the move and my unstable career was the fact that the lease was running out.

Soon.

Like in a matter of weeks.

So over the weekend he went out car shopping.

He went out solo. He's the car authority and all I can really offer is moral support, and eight hours of that gets a little tedious. He was gone several hours and I heard him return.

"Hey, come out and look at something" he said.

Sitting in the driveway was a VW Golf. Cute, stylish, not his usual taste, but then again, we can no longer afford that. I have to say I was impressed. I couldn't help but notice it was a stick shift.

I never learned to drive a stick.

I guess I won't be driving it. Then again, perhaps that's the plan, since I'm the one who rear-ended his last car.

"It was between this and a Jetta, but I really think this is the car for me" he said. "All the same, I'd still like you to come down to the dealer and check out the other car just to get your opinion."

It was the least I could do.

Once at the dealer I checked out both cars, heard his pitch and agreed with him that, knowing him, the Golf was the way to go. I left him to haggle out the money and went home.

About an hour later, he returned home.

With the Jetta.

THAT'S why I've learned not to tag along when he shops for cars.

At any rate, he walked in the door and looked pissed. He just got a new car, what could he be pissed about?

"My car smells like a cow!" he said

Huh?

"One of the simple joys in life is buying a new car and getting to smell that 'New Car' smell for the first week or so. But my car doesn't smell like that, it smells like a cow. It has 'New Cow' smell! Fucking Bakersfield!"

I felt his pain. That's the thing about this place, it's "death by a thousand paper cuts", robbed of even the little things in life.

Later that evening we were sitting on the couch, watching TV and he turned to me, still obviously perturbed.

"You need to write about that in your blog..."

So honey, this one's for you. I love you. We'll get you an air freshener.

Sunday Inspiration

Megamind

Last night we watched "Mega Python vs. Gatoroid" and this morning I'm feeling noticeably... dumber.

I think I may have actually killed off part of my brain.

The Battle Of The Berry

My sister and I used to be quite close. We aren't now.

If I had to blame one thing for the fall out it would have to be George W. Bush.

That my sister and her husband were Republican wasn't an issue. It's a free country and they were never obstinate about it. In fact they seemed pretty moderate. But with the election of Bush and the ensuing 8 years, they made a hard right turn that left the rest of us mortified. They became disciples of Fox News, believers of every Glenn Beck conspiracy theory, rabid dittoheads for Rush Limbaugh. The election of Obama sent them over the edge and even a discussion of the weather, the seemingly only still safe dinner topic, could get twisted in a diatribe about 'SOCIALISM!".

And then last year, a thaw in the relationship.

What caused this blossoming rapprochement?

A small dark berry, grown in the Amazon, high in antioxidants, or so they say. The miraculous... ACAI.

In the form of... MonaVie, the nectar of the Gods.

I can't say I'm surprised my sister and her husband have been duped into this cult. They've been conditioned to believe Obama is massing black helicopters to round up Republicans and herd them into concentration camps in the desert because of their belief in gun rights and incandescent bulbs. A multilevel marketing pyramid scheme selling berry flavored snake oil isn't such a stretch.

It started last Easter when my sister sidled up to me while I was sneaking a smoke in the back yard of my parents. She wanted to talk and acted like we were friends. That was my first clue that something was up. And truth be told, selling isn't her forté and she lacks for subtlety, so when the pitch came, it came hard and fast.

She didn't even bother pimping the product. She was blunt in the fact that they needed to sign up more people. They'd already hooked 9 suckers and with a 10th they reached some magic level that allowed them to start cashing in. She wanted me to be the 10th. Because we're family.

I batted it aside and tried to be polite. Not interested I said. We just moved, new jobs, yadda, yadda, yadda. And over the past year, at every single family event, she's tried again and again, and every single time I nicely and diplomatically told her we aren't interested.

But about a week ago, the pressure started to be ramped up. It started with calls to my cell phone - it's the only number she has for me. She's never bother to ask for our address or home phone, and she certainly isn't going to get it now. She wanted to know the next time we would be down so that she could plan a proper "presentation". I told her I wasn't interested. Undeterred, she called a few days later to tell me she was emailing me "important information". I told her I wasn't interested, but 20 minutes later this showed up in my inbox. Along with half a dozen links to frighteningly cult-like websites which I won't provide since I'd hate for anyone to fall under their spell.

Over the next couple of days, she'd call to check on my "progress", to see if I had been converted. I let them all go to voicemail because I was busy with work and didn't have time for this stupidity. But I figured at some point this weekend I'd have to deal with it and it wasn't going to be pretty.

And then last night I was speaking with my mother, and at some point I mentioned I'd have to talk my sister this weekend.

"About what?" my mother asked.

I didn't want to say. My sister had asked repeatedly that I not mention anything about it to my parents, which to me would mean that she's well aware there isn't anything kosher about it. But to be honest, I just don't care anymore so I said "She's involved with some multi-level marketing scheme and she's trying to rope us in".

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

"You mean MonaVie?" asked my mother.

WTF?

I asked my mother how she knew about it and she said that my sister and brother-in-law came over last weekend and forced them to sit through the whole indoctrination process.

"You didn't agree to sell it?!?" I asked.

"No, no, no. We're too old for that. But we did buy two bottles. It's not that bad".

I was speechless. Preying on me is one thing since we don't much like each other. But going after our parents? That is just a bridge too far. I told my mom I was calling my sister and going to read her the riot act.

"But you can't dear, they aren't home this weekend."

I asked where they were.

OHIO!

FOR A MONAVIE CONVENTION!

Learning the latest mind control tricks, no doubt.

I can hardly wait to see what we're going to be hit with next.

Time to fasten the seatbelts - it's going to be a berry bumpy flight.

Wish Me Luck

I am moments away from uploading my big make or break job.

Working for a new client is always so nerve wracking. It's not enough to solve the problem. You don't know the high strung personalities involved, their pet peeves and peccadilloes, their taste or lack thereof. And the stakes on this job seemed so much higher because of the off-handed remark about a possible job and the income, insurance and peace of mind that comes with it.

I hadn't done this particular type of work in over a year and I was shocked to see how rusty my skills had gotten when I first sat down to work Tuesday night. By Wednesday morning the pressure to perform had gotten so great I ended up giving myself the mother of all tension headaches.

But after laying down with the dogs for a bit, I finally decided to just... let it go.

If there's one thing I've learned over the past three years is the higher you get your hopes, the farther the fall and the bigger the crash.

Back in 2008 I was up for a big position with Miramax Films in New York. I had applied for another job with Disney, who owned Miramax at the time. I didn't get that job, but my resumé had caught the attention of a Disney recruiter and one day, out of the blue, she called and asked if I'd be interested in the Miramax position. It would have meant selling the house and moving to New York, but it all seemed so pie-in-the-sky that I said "of course". No one was more surprised than I as I aced interview after interview and finally found myself meeting the Miramax honchos at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. The meeting was scheduled for an hour and ran two. By then end I was told that I was their man. There was just one more hurdle, a meeting with the Big Cheese back in New York. It was merely a formality I was assured, and I was told they'd contact me with dates and flight information later in the week. The boyfriend was already looking for apartments.

And then two days later I read online that Disney was shuttering Miramax, absorbing its functions and putting it up for sale. It mentioned the man I was supposed to meet with was getting a lovely severance package. When I tried to contact the people I had just met with, I discovered they had all been let go.

Now that I think of it, we actually dodged a bullet. Can you imagine moving to a strange town where you have no friends or contacts and then finding out you're out of a job?

Oh wait... I can.

Another time I thought I was all but hired for a job. We had hashed out all money and titles and the only matter to be resolved was my start date. I would be replacing someone they were terminating, and I was told it was a delicate matter and to be patient. So I was waiting patiently by the phone later in the week when a former colleague announced on Facebook that he had just gotten the job.

I guess it wasn't that delicate after all.

So, you'll forgive my caution and pessimism when people start bandying about offers of jobs. Especially when the person doing the offering has a history of being a little erratic.

Once I put those thoughts out of mind, I was actually able to get down to the work at hand and I have to say I'm extremely happy with what I produced. And they appear to be as well - I sent them work-in-progress and they seemed really pleased.

So fingers crossed, and all that. Say a little prayer for me as I hit "send".

Animal Kingdom

I've referred to this place many times as The Land of Misfit Toys, but I was thinking of the people. Evidently it refers to the animals too.

I was watching the local news, half awake, this morning and the screeching weather girl was doing remotes promoting the local zoo, called the "California Living Museum", or C.A.L.M. for short.

She'd pop up every ten minutes or so, interviewing the director of the zoo who'd feature a different animal in each segment.

The first one I saw featured and albino snake, which the director mentioned had been donated to the zoo. "Without it's camouflage" she said, "it wouldn't survive in the wild".

A few minutes later, they were back, this time with a red-tailed hawk. There was clearly something wrong with one of it's eyes and even the dim bulb weather girl picked up on it. The hawk, it turns out, had a cornea problem and had been donated to the zoo. "Without it's eyesight" she said, "it wouldn't survive in the wild".

I'm beginning to wonder if there's something wrong with ALL of their animals when the director offhandedly said "As you know, most of our animals are maimed or injured..."

Well doesn't THAT sound like a fun-filled afternoon. "C'mon kids, let's go check out the freakish, half dead animals!" It sounds like they find them all by the side of the road barely clinging to life.

As if to drive home the point, the weather girl closed with a reminder to come down and check out the new kit fox exhibit...

"They're all so cute, even if some of them are missing legs."

Perhaps the zoo would better be called the "California Barely Living Museum".

Name That Street

As if navigating around Hooterville wasn't difficult enough, what with it's rat's maze city planning and labyrinth-like neighborhoods, the city has yet another trick up it's sleeve - street names change arbitrarily mid-block.

Why? Who knows. Maybe they looked at the city and realized how boring it was and decided this might spice things up.

They were wrong.

I came across this (see above) yesterday when I was walking the dogs on a new route.

The house on the left is #2601. The house on the right it is #6808.

"How can that be?" you may ask. "They're sitting side by side. That can't be right..."

Au contrair, mon ami. This is Bako.

Yes, they are sitting side by side, but they are on different streets!

The house on the left is 2601 Toxic Drive*. The house on the right is #6808 Landfill Lane*. And never the two shall meet, except at the hedge in the middle of the photo.

This happens everywhere here. What would look like a relatively normal street to you and I, albeit with some twists and turns, maybe some slight zigs and zags, is, to the city of Bakersfield, five different streets. Every time a street zigs, the name zags. And because that must not be confusing enough, each one has a completely different numbering scheme.

It's the stupidest thing I've ever seen, and living here, that's saying something.

No wonder so many people seem like they're trapped here. They probably are.

*Street names changed to protect the innocent.