There Goes The Neighborhood

So I was surprised to see our dumbshit neighbor Margaret moving out yesterday. At least I think she was moving out. A stake bed truck pulled up and she and her friends just started flinging all her belongings into the back of it. Upended furniture, half open boxes literally tossed into a heap. They seemed suspiciously to be in something of a rush. The way everything was being loaded she might as well just drive it all to the dump because I doubt seriously anything is going to make it out of the ordeal in one piece.

I'm going to miss Margaret. She may have been dumb as a bag of rocks, but she was nice the few times I saw her and she was quiet. I never once ever saw or heard her in her backyard.

We knew she was a renter but she'd evidently been here for years. Now we'll just have to wait and see what the cat drags in. I suppose I could hope for another gay couple, turning our little Lavender Triangle into a Pink Rectangle.

Or actually, it would be a Rhombus.

Whatever.

Our other gay neighbors haven't been the social goldmine we had hoped for, so I suppose it doesn't really matter.

So time to start the betting pool...

A. White Trash

B. Bible Thumpers

C. Shit Kickers

D. Section 8

It doesn't really matter which you choose, because like some much else here, even if you win, you lose.

Random Good Things About Bakersfield #20

I was just thinking it had been an awful long time since I wrote anything nice about Bako. It's not for lack of trying, trust me. It's just always such a needle-in-a-haystack proposition. But then last night the boyfriend came up with one, so here goes.

I thought it would be nice to go out to dinner to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. The boyfriend is nominally Jewish; he even went to school in Israel for several years. At this point I think you could safely refer to him as "lapsed", although he does still speak to the dogs in Hebrew and they seem to quite enjoy it.

The only reason I even knew it was Rosh Hashanah is I've been working on a project for a client in LA who's ultra Orthodox and he was in quite a panic yesterday that we get the project wrapped up by sundown. I've had some wacky deadlines in my career, but that was a first.

So when the boyfriend arrived home from work, I wished him a hearty "Shana Tova!" and asked him where we should go for dinner. "What's involved in a typical Rosh Hashanah dinner?" I asked. He explained and... we decided on Teriyaki.

On the way to the restaurant he said he had to make a quick stop. We had to stop and buy him his lottery ticket. Every week he plays exactly one single, solitary lottery ticket. He's been playing the same numbers for years and he's convinced the one week he doesn't play them will be the week they finally come up.

We stopped at a nearby convenience store and he ran in while I waited in the car. When he returned, he said...

"You know, say what you will about Bakersfield but they do have the nicest convenience store clerks I've ever seen."

And you know what? He's right. With the exception of Miss Thang Tracy at the corner gas station, all the convenience store clerks I've encountered here have been exceedingly nice. And since there's roughly one convenience store for every 5 people in this town, that makes for a lot of nice people.

So.... Bakersfield: Nice Convenience Store Clerks.

Finger Lickin’ Stupid

Our unexpected home renovation has rendered the kitchen useless. Not really, but the hoses from the dehumidifier drain into the kitchen sink, and if you saw what was coming out of them you'd lose your appetite. And your will to live.

So it's fast food for us. But let me tell you something about fast food in Bakersfield... it isn't.

Fast, that is.

If you've read the blog for any length of time you can probably guess the reason: The Perfect Storm of brain dead customers and clueless staff which is a local characteristic. I've chronicled my ordeal(s) at McDonalds, but just to prove the morons here are equal opportunity, today we'll be going to The Colonel.

A lot of times, when I find myself with a craving for fast food, I head to the local KFC. Not because I particularly like the food, but because it's always empty. It has the misfortune to sit in the parking lot of a mostly abandoned strip mall and gets no traffic. No traffic means no customers which means no hassles for me. The only thing you usually have to contend with are the surly teens texting behind the counter. If you try not to think about just how long the chicken has probably been sitting on the warming racks, it's not too bad.

So yesterday I headed over to KFC and as usual, it was deserted. Then, just as I was walking up to the doors, out of nowhere a heavyset black woman swooped in front of me. Didn't even see her coming.

This would be Donna.

I know her name was Donna, because that was what was tattooed on her forearm. I've never understood why people would tattoo their own names on their bodies, but with Donna, it's probably a smart move. As we'll soon discover, Donna is the type who probably forgets who she is pretty often.

So I'm standing behind Donna, who's staring up at the menu board. To me, it was a menu, but to Donna it was evidently the Periodic Table of Elements and she was completely baffled. She was going to need the entire menu explained to her.

Ten minutes later she finally settled on a chicken sandwich.

"And what all is on that?" asked Donna.

Bacon.

Cheese.

And "Colonel Sauce".

What the fuck is "Colonel Sauce"? Who knows. It's probably just a variation of Thousand Island dressing, but it sounds like something out of a bad Southern porn movie.

Donna was having none of it. "No sauce!" she practically screamed. She's evidently had a bad experience with "Colonel Sauce" in the past.

As she was finishing her order, she also added "And I don't want any bacon or cheese neither."

Whatevs Donna.

She moved away and I moved up, but before I could order, Donna popped back into frame.

"You don't have to put it on a bun. I just want it plain."

The cashier and I looked at each other. It was pretty clear to us that Donna was now paying $5.00 for a chicken patty. Donna hadn't yet figured that out and it suddenly occurred to me I didn't want to be there when she did. Donna was a hard looking women and I don't think it's a stretch of the imagination to think that she had done time. Donna could fuck you up.

Both of our orders came up at the same time. They called Donna's name, but she was seated by the window, lost in thought. Perhaps "thought" isn't the right word. At any rate, I snatched my bag and made a run for the door and as I was leaving I heard Donna erupt...

"What the fuck is this??? It's just a fuckin' piece of chicken!!! Why the fuck I payin' $5 for a fuckin' piece of chicken...."

I didn't stick around to see how it all played out. Didn't even look back. If there's one thing I've learned in Bakersfield it's never look back.

A Hole New World

What a difference a day makes!

This was our problem yesterday...



And this is our problem today!



The photo doesn't really do it justice. I couldn't capture the whole mise-en-scène because of all the mammoth dehumidifying equipment and industrial fans, not to mention the heavy gauge plastic that's now cordoning off this half of the house.

Let me just say the benefits of home ownership are vastly overstated.

When All Else Fails...

Yesterday, I finally reached it... THE BREAKING POINT.

Half the house had been quarantined, the ceiling gone. Strangers were tromping all over the house, screaming at each other in Spanish, installing industrial strength blowers and dryers and humidifiers, which all drained into the kitchen sink, rendering the kitchen unusable. We'd lost our cable connection to the world, the dogs were going insane, as were my clients.

I'd had it. Seriously, had it. Lost the will to live.

I would have stuck my head in the oven, but it's electric. I can't catch a fucking break.

So, faced with such adversity, I did the only sensible thing.

I raided our emergency Vicodin stash.

We have one, really we do. It isn't like it's behind glass with a little hammer or anything, which is a good thing because we'd be constantly sweeping up broken glass.

About a year ago, the boyfriend threw out his back, and rather than subject himself to Doctors Without Borders here in Bako, he made a call to our doctor in LA, who promptly phoned in a prescription for Vicodin... 50 pills... with 5 refills.

Well, that should cure just about everything that ails you, and it does. I think I may just be able to get through the day.

Now, in any other town, 250 Vicodins should pretty much be enough for a lifetime, but when I raided the stash yesterday I saw we were nearly out. Call it the "Bako Effect."

I'll give him a call tomorrow and have it refilled. I'm sure he will.

He knows where we live and he's nothing if not compassionate.

Quarantined

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm ready to kill myself.

The leak in the ceiling proved to be the classic case of "good news/bad news".

The "good news"?

A plumber came out and quickly replaced the problem pipe. Not only that, but he surveyed the rest of our plumbing and said it looked to be in pretty good shape.

And then the "recovery team" showed up from our home warranty company.

This would be the "bad news".

We were under the assumption that the problem area was the section of ceiling that collapsed. We were wrong.

They wielded a cattle prod like device that detects moisture. And as they probed the ceiling in frightening larger circles, it was determined that most of the ceiling on that side of the house has been soaked. The leak may have been small, but it had evidently been going on for a long while.

The ceiling has to come down.

They've now cordoned off that side of the house like we're in quarantine. See above. They've started removing the ceiling which has filled the house with the lovely odor of 40 year old wet drywall and insulation and opossum poop. It needs to dry, I've been told, before they can begin re-construction... in a week.

And it's all happening just above the only cable outlet in the entire house.

We will have no TV... for at least a week.

Where was that bookmark for the Hemlock Society...

When It Rains...

"What's that dripping sound?"

Well, there's a four word phrase you hope to never hear.

Not unlike "We're moving to Bakersfield."

But that's the phrase I heard when the boyfriend returned from running errands yesterday. I had picked up a decent size job out of LA late Friday afternoon and had been working on it all weekend. He had just returned from the market with the makings for what we planned to be a a relaxed and pleasant evening. Which now wasn't going to happen.

Because a quick check revealed a puddle slowly forming on the cheap Pergo floor of the family room, right between the TV and the couch. Directly overhead, large drops of water formed on the popcorn ceiling.

"Well that's not good" I said. I say that a lot here.

I knew, from spelunking through the attic in search of the opossum last winter, that all the plumbing for the house ran overhead. I also knew, from that little adventure, that the house was plumbed with galvanized steel. And in addition, I knew from the money-pit renovation of our old house in LA, that nothing good came with old galvanized pipes. All together, I knew far too much.

Because of my previous experience in the attic, I was dispatched to find the problem. Inching along the joists on my knees, I quickly found the problem -a pin prick leak in the hot water pipe was shooting a tiny, scalding stream of water on the ceiling dry wall.

That seemed to be a bad combination.

And no sooner did I think that than a platter size section of ceiling fell away directly under me, smashing on the edge of the flat screen below.

"Well that's not good" I said.

Long story short, the boyfriend made an emergency run to the hardware store for putty and tape and between the two of us we managed to stop the leak. For now.

There's now a massive hole in the ceiling of the family room. The rats must be thrilled. They finally have their All-Access pass to the rest of the house.

A plumber is on the way to assess the problem as we speak.

It just so happened that I had finally received a hefty check from a long delinquent client. I had planned to use the money for a return trip to the doctor. My doctor in LA had grown alarmed when I saw him back in August. He had wanted me to come back the next week to run a battery of tests. I've been putting it off because I simply couldn't afford it. I haven't reached the deductible with my shitty insurance company, and, let's face it, I never will. But now I had the funds, or so I thought. Looks like now the money is going for plumbing, just not mine.

I also just got off the phone with Dottie. She works for our home warranty company and seems like such a dear. She's sending someone over this afternoon to assess the damage and see about the repairs.

"Don't worry honey, we'll make you right as rain" she said.

That's sweet, but not fucking likely. Not unless she plans on packing us up and moving us out of here.