The Calm Before The Storm

We managed to escape to the mountains for the weekend. It's stunningly beautiful up here today. Bright sunshine and a hint of a breeze. The dogs are sunning themselves on the deck and the boyfriend is giving me minute by minute updates on all the Housewives. Damn Twitter. I know I'm going to regret having Internet access up here.

It's a good thing I'm getting a little downtime because Monday is the the start of the new job.

Kinda.

They ended up making me an offer I could easily refuse; essentially it was a cut in pay AND the addition of a two hour, fifty mile commute. What's not to love? I said no and we ended up hashing out a deal where I'm kinda/sorta an employee and I get to work from home and I can keep my other clients and my teaching gig. All they ask is that I come in once a week for a staff meeting. The first one is Monday at 9:30. Which means I should probably leave OC around... 3:00am. Thats if I plan on being on time.

This is a horrible admission to make but I don't even really know what my company does. It's one of these nebulous "online" ventures. We deal with "content", whatever that is. All I know is my job is to make it look pretty. It could either be the next Facebook or one of a million Internet flameouts. I think I'll just keep my mouth shut and ride the wave.

To Twit Or Not To Twit

God help us... the boyfriend discovered Twitter.

That iPhone is proving to be a Pandora's Box.  Before he had it he was completely content to be a digital Luddite.  Now, not so much.

First it was the texting.  I don't get texting; either call me or email me.  Why the hell do I want to be constantly tiny-typing on my phone when I have a perfectly good human-sized keyboard sitting in front of me?

Then, last week it was Facetime, Apple's video calling feature.  In one sense it was great for him because he was able to chat and see his best friend in Hawaii who he doesn't get to see nearly as often as he'd like.  But do I really need a video conference to tell me to pick up some coffee at the market?  Plus, there's absolutely no way to hold the phone so you don't look like Jabba the Hut.

And now... Twitter.  I signed up for Twitter years ago and never use it.  I'm not much of a follower, which kind of defeats the whole purpose.  I have enough ways to waste time without adding yet another and there's no one I find fascinating enough to want to see their every 140 character thought.  But the boyfriend is now hooked.  When I asked him which world leaders and deep thinkers he was now following he informed me that he's following all the "Real Housewives".  Oy vey.

Let's just hope and pray he doesn't discover Pinterest.

Things That Go Bang In The Night

There's something oddly comforting about the dull thuds of the nightly Disneyland fireworks.  It must be an Orange County thing.  I imagine in many parts of the world the sound of muffled explosions nearby in the dark would be anything but comforting, but that's how it goes here.

Like clockwork, around 9:40 every night, you can hear what sounds like a small scale war.  When was a child, they used to go off earlier, just before 9:00.  I grew up a few miles north of the Park and I remember my parents sending us to bed around 8:30 and then drifting off to sleep to sound of the explosions.  We used to actually be able to see them from the backyard, but over the years, the trees matured and blocked the view and all we were left with was the sounds.  Or occasionally, when the cloud deck is low, bright bursts of glowing color.

I was hoping when we moved here we'd be able to see them, but sadly the view is blocked by a hill.  Although, when I hear them, I can still picture them in my mind.  I suppose that's enough.

That 70's Show

And now a few words about... Kenos.

Magical Kenos.

We found it quite by accident; the boyfriend found a coupon in the mail for prime rib for $9.95.  How could you possibly go wrong?  It's right down the road from us and from the street it looks a lot like a Carrows.  In fact, once inside, half of the restaurant looks exactly like a Carrows or a Dennys.  But the other half...

... is a time machine.

I couldn't even tell you what the diner portion of the restaurant is like since from the moment we set foot inside we were drawn, like moths to a flame, to the the other side, the Lounge.  Step past the threshold and you are immediately back in the Disco Era.

The first thing you see is the sunken conversation pit surrounding a copper hooded fireplace.  Close your eyes and you can imagine women in their Qiana finery, sipping Harvey Wallbangers as they laugh at the jokes of the men decked out in their wide-collared polyester print shirts, unbuttoned low enough to show off their gold Italian horn necklaces.

The ceilings are low and the room is dark.  Across the far wall is a low slung bar.  The regulars roll around on short tufted club chairs on castors.  Along the other walls and down the middle are deep, high backed naugahyde booths.  Black and white photos of the 60's era Rat Pack are featured above the booths, but make no mistake, the year is 1977.

It was love at first sight, and what's not to love?  Even if we hadn't been seduced by the decor, the food is surprisingly good, the drinks are large and potent and the whole shebang is remarkably cheap.

Not to mention, Friday night is... Karaoke Night!

Our first visit just so happened to be on Friday and it was hard not to be swept up in Karaoke Fever.  Before you knew it, the boyfriend was up there doing a mean rendition of "Come Fly With Me."  He was competing against a 12 year-old singing "Paparazzi".  That's right... a 12 year-old!  In a bar!

It's that type of place.

Ultimately, they both lost out to a couple of regulars, people who obviously LIVE for Friday nights at Keno's.  And who knows, we may soon be two of them.

I told the boyfriend if we ever end up getting married, I want the reception there.

We Apologize For The Inconvenience

I do apologize for the dearth of posts.  My potential new corporate overlords are proving to be needy, indecisive and more than a little demanding.  Since I'm right in the midst of negotiating a contract, I thought it best to appear subservient.  Key word being "appear".  for better or worse, that nonsense will be over this week and I can get to slacking off with more regularity.

Lucky Duckies

We certainly aren't any strangers to living around wildlife.  We've always been surrounded by all manner of critters, either at our former home in the hills or the cabin in the mountains.    Or even during our unfortunate exile in Dogpatch, if you count the cockroaches.  So it comes as no surprise that even here in Orange County we'd come in contact with the local fauna.  But I never thought it would be... ducks!

We must be on some sore of mallard flyway, although I have no memory of ducks from my childhood.  When we moved here in March I was startled to hear them and see them flying overhead.  A few days later I found their not so secret hideout, the condo pool.  Dozens of them floating in chlorinated bliss.  Don't think I'll be using the pool anytime soon.

Yesterday I took the dogs our for their afternoon walk and as we approached the front door I heard an incessant, tiny, squeaking.  Then suddenly, from under a bush, marched five tiny yellow ducklings, the size of tennis balls.  They were marching in a single file line, the one in front making all the noise.  There wasn't a mama anywhere in sight.

They started towards us in slow, lazy S-turns and I thought to myself "That's the cutest thing I've ever seen", forgetting about the dogs.  The jerk of the leashes snapped me out of my Disney moment.  The dogs didn't think the ducklings were cute; they thought they were snacks and it took some effort to hustle them back into the house.

I watched the ducklings meander past through the blinds.  I have to admit, I was worried about them.  Should I call Animal Control?  What if they were hit by a car?  I went back out to check on them and they had turned a corner and appeared to be happily headed for the pool in a cheery little conga line.  It was like being at the Peabody Hotel.  I have to admit, it made my day.

I always thought the "Ducks" was a stupid name for the hockey team here, but it appears I was just ignorant of the duck abundance in Northern Orange County.  My bad.

iLust

Shortly after the boyfriend and I moved in together, I added a phone for him to my cell phone plan.  He protested, saying he wasn't much of a "cell phone guy".  Which proved to be true.  He rarely carried it and more often then not when I called his number I'd hear the phone ringing down the hall, from the laundry basket.  Prudently, we limited him to the most basic of phones, since more than one disappeared, lost under car seats with dead batteries for months on end.

He's gotten better over time, and last year I decided it was time for him to step boldly into the 21st Century with an iPhone.  Actually, I decided I deserved the latest iPhone and graciously offered him my old hand-me-down iPhone 2.  It was cheaper than buying him a new phone.

He took to it like a duck to water and now my days were filled with funny texts and random photos.

Or at least they were until Tuesday.

Someone stole his iPhone.

He'd left it charging on his desk and someone swiped it when he wasn't looking.  The bastards.

Suddenly the man who wasn't a "cell phone guy" was lost.  And he felt awful.  And he didn't know how he would replace it.

I felt sorry for him and decided I'd take it upon myself to replace it yesterday, even though ATT informed me I'd have to pay full freight for it, the list price of $649.00.  It would be an early birthday gift.  And Christmas gift.

So I schlepped down to the ATT store yesterday and met with Enrique. Enrique pulled up the account and noted that I had reported the phone stolen, and then a practiced look of surprise and joy spread across his face.  It was good news, Enrique said, the phone qualified for an upgrade, yadda, yadda, yadda, loyal customer for so many years, yadda, yadda, yadda, the new phone would be discounted to only $198.00!

As long as I signed a new two year contract.

Sure, whatever.  I just saved almost $400.

But Enrique had a solution for that too.  They had a special deal on iPads.

Now, I've been a Mac guy for 20 years.  I've wanted an iPad from the day they were released, but back in 2010, that was out of the question.  We were living in much diminished circumstances and there was absolutely no way to rationalize purchasing one.  But still I coveted.

Recently our circumstances have somewhat improved and I had come up with a whole new, reasonably plausible excuse to buy one.  I had taken on more classes to teach at the same time my workload with main client had mushroomed.  While I was off at various campuses teaching, I was having to be in constant touch with the client, reviewing docs, checking email, carrying on numerous virtual conversations.  It's nearly impossible to properly look at intricate docs on my phone and it wasn't practical to haul around my bulky laptop and repeatedly boot it up just to read email.  An iPad was the perfect solution.

At least, that's what I told myself.

And yet still, I balked.  The past couple of years of poverty had made me gun shy in regards to spending money.  Which was a good thing.  I just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger on my own.  What I needed was an enabler.  What I needed was... Enrique.

He's good, that Enrique.  I never knew what hit me.

Even as I brought my new iPad home, I was having enormous pangs of guilt which I tried to muffle with my school/work rationale.  And not surprisingly, it worked like a charm.  I lovingly removed it from it's box and caressed it's sexy surfaces.  I powered it up and quickly linked it to the home Wifi.  Then I set up my email and as I cradled it in my lap, marveling at it's beauty, I hit "Get Mail".

The first email from from my school, informing me that due to low enrollment for the summer quarter, all but one of my classes had been cancelled.

Hmmmm.

The smart thing to do, the prudent, wise, mature thing to do, would be to return it.  I don't really need it anymore, my whole rationale has been blown all to hell.  It's an extravagant expense that can't really be justified.  The smart thing to do would be to return it.

Yes, that would be the smart thing to do.

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The boyfriend just emailed me from work to say that, wonder of wonders, his iPhone just showed up.

His old iPhone.

So, he doesn't really need the new iPhone now either.

The smart thing to do, the prudent, wise, mature thing to do, would be to return it.  And the iPad.  That would be the smart thing to do.

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Turns out, the boyfriend and I aren't as smart as we thought we were.

The Catch

I am an independent contractor, a "freelancer".

Not by choice.  As we fast approach the fourth anniversary of my ultimate downsizing, not a day goes by that I don't actively look for a full-time job.  Actually, "actively" isn't quite right since it's really devolved into a pointless morning ritual, like playing the same lotto numbers week after week without winning because of the fear that the one week you don't play will be the week your numbers come up.  So every morning I go through the motions, knowing full well that the continuing sorry state of the advertising business and my advanced age (falling well outside the desired demographic) mean the odds of full-time employment are slim to none.

Freelancing does have it's advantages.  For one thing, in this digital age, it's all virtual.  I can work from home, which the dogs feel is an ideal arrangement.  I can actually work from anywhere.  And more importantly, I can pretend to work from anywhere.  Most of my clients are in LA, but none of them ever knew about our two year exile in Bumfuck, thanks to my 323 area code cell phone.  I've come clean to most of them about our move to Orange County, since that's a marginally more respectable address, although several I still leave to believe I live in LA.  Additionally, I save a fortune on car upkeep and dry-cleaning.  I can work in shorts.

There is, however, a considerable downside.  I rarely leave the house.  Clients tend to believe you operate a 24/7 drive-up window and have no reservations about firing off revisions at midnight on a Saturday and expecting to see something at 6am Sunday.  There are no such things as "days off" or "vacations".  And you can forget about luxuries like... insurance.  And then there's personal hygiene.  Most days I opt not to shave.  The boyfriend thinks I look like the Unibomber, but really, why bother?  If he didn't come home for lunch most days, I'd probably forget to shower too.

The first couple of years were brutal, but by last year things seemed to markedly improve.  I now have a stable of about a half dozen steady clients and it looks like I'm on track to double what I made last year.  That being said, I still craved the stability of a full-time job and would periodically put out feelers and drop hints to my clients.  The response was usually along the lines of "not fucking likely."

In particular, I'd hit up my best client.  He takes up most of my time and accounts for half my billings.  As recently as January, before the sudden and unexpected move to OC, I'd prodded him about a more permanent solution, to which he said "maybe in a year or so."

So imagine my surprise when I was summoned up to Hollywood for a meeting a few weeks ago.  It was all the more remarkable because I had only ever met him in the flesh once, at his company Christmas party last year.  We don't even actually speak all that often, everything more or less being handled through email and text.

It was an 11am meeting and not wanting to be late, I left Orange County at 9.  I barely made it on time.

The meeting was brief and to the point... he now had some angel investors and was planning on staffing up and going big.  He offered me a full-time job.

Oh, how I had waited to hear those words!  The joy was a little short-lived as I suddenly reflected on the two hour gridlock I'd just sat through to get there.  He evidently sensed my concern because he assured me I could still work from home and maybe only come into the office one or two days a week.  Since I already teach in LA on Monday evenings, that seemed completely manageable.

For the next couple of weeks I was walking on air.  Although the official offer hadn't yet come through and we'd yet to hash out the numbers,  I was counting the days until I was back to being a functioning member of society.

The first worrying sign came in an email.  I was told the investors would like a list of my hardware and software requirements.  They were fairly adamant about company work not being done on personal machines.  Connecting the dots meant that the company machine would more than likely be located in the company in Hollywood, which more than likely meant I would have to be there more than a day or two during the week.  More like... every day.

Not to worry, I told myself.  It wasn't working in Hollywood I minded, it was the commute.  But I couldn't help but notice the office in Hollywood sat atop a subway stop.

And we live near a train station.

With a combination of Metrolink commuter train and subway, I could be at the office in an hour.  That's half the time it would take to drive.  I suddenly had my "Mad Men" fantasy, talking the train into the big city!   And with the free Wifi on the train, I could work.  Or blog.
Everything would work out great!

Then this past Saturday came an innocuous enough email.  A request from the client to design a splashy announcement about the expansion.

And the MOVE.

Turns out the investors are insisting the agency move to a building they already own.

At Wilshire and the 405 freeway.

The busiest intersection in all of Los Angeles.

Which just last week started a multiyear freeway improvement.

Which promises a state of permanent "Carmageddon" for the foreseeable future.

I briefly freelanced for another agency near there before we were exiled out of LA.  In rush hour traffic, it could take an hour to go a mile.  We lived 8 miles away and it took two hours to get home.  And that was without the freeway closures.  In the current conditions, I can see that easily being a three hour commute.  Each way.

This morning I received a cheery e-mail telling me i could expect the formal job offer from the investors any day now.

Now I'm not so sure I want it, although in reality I have no choice but to accept it.  It's the first concrete job offer in four years.  Although, in the end, it will probably kill me.

I mean... it's the fucking 405.

Pack Rat Jenga

I didn't get her name, the Hoarder.  I was walking the dogs through the condo complex when we rounded a corner and there she was.  She was in her 50's or so and looked like a less well preserved version of that horrible Kardashian woman, the woman who's spawn are a blight on every last checkout counter.  She was standing in front of a garage clutching a worn Walmart bag that was heavy with... who knows what.

"So how do you like it here?" she asked.

"What?" I replied.  We live on a fairly busy main drag and the traffic noise was deafening.

"You just moved in, right?  So how do you like it here?"

This time I heard her.  "It's nice" I replied.  I'd never seen her before so how she knew we had just moved in was a mystery.

She said something else, I could see her lips moving, but the highway noise drowned it out.

"What?" I said.

"I said I like it here because it's so quiet" she said, almost shouting.

Okey dokey.

She then raised her free hand, which actually held a garage door opener, and suddenly with a snap the garage door behind her started to rise, creaking and groaning, slowly raising to reveal...

"The Great Wall of Hoarding".

It was a marvel of engineering.  From the slab floor to beyond the door frame there was a solid wall of boxes and plastic bins.  Countless Walmart bags were crammed into what little space existed between the boxes and bins, like mortar holding the whole thing together.  It looked like the garage door had at most an inch of clearance.

The woman turned from me and surveyed the wall of crap, evidently searching for a weak spot.  She then raised the Walmart bag in her hand and with both arms and brute force she shoved it against one of the center boxes.  The box lurched back about six inches and you could hear a muffled crash from the back of the garage.  The woman seem unconcerned, and really, why would she be?  It will be years before explorers reach the back of her garage and discover what broke.  With her Walmart bag now perched in it's little box alcove, she seemed satisfied.  She raised the clicker and the door started to close.  It must have caught something on the way down because there was another small thud and a crash, but the woman was oblivious.

"Have a wonderful day!" she said as she turned to leave.

When the complex goes up in flames, I think we'll know where the fire started.  Or maybe not.  I have a sneaky suspicion she isn't the only hoarder 'round these parts.

Rock’ n Rollin’

Nothing like a little earthquake to remind you you live in California.

And this one was was centered under "The Land Of Gracious Living™".

It rattled the dogs, but we were nonplussed.  Anything under a 6.0 is negligible.

The Eichlers

It's no secret that the boyfriend and I hate being renters.  Once you've owned several homes, being forced to rent feels like being kicked several steps down the evolutionary ladder.  But now that there's the slightest glimmer of hope that our prospects are improving, we did what any delusional person would do...  we started looking at homes to buy.

One of the passions the boyfriend and I share is anything featuring mid-century modern design, particularly residential architecture.  Our house in LA was a lesser Lloyd Wright, all walls of glass and cantilevered decks.  It was also a money pit, a fact that is slowly getting lost to to the shifting sands of time.  Which is why we can so blithely go looking for new fixer-upper challenges.

On Tuesday I received an e-mail from the boyfriend with a magical subject line... "An Eichler!"

Joseph Eichler was a homebuilder who specialized in building tracts of elegant mid-century modern homes during the 50's and early 60's.  He built them all over the place, but the vast majority of them are in Northern California.  There are, however, three tracts not far from here in the city of Orange.  And one of those homes was for sale.  We decided to go check it out once the boyfriend came home from work.

The boyfriend has a distain for maps, no sense of direction and a short fuse, usually not a good combination.  He did, however, have a vague sense of where the houses were which proved to be not enough, and after driving around for an hour on an Eichler snipe hunt with no success, we were about to throw up our hands and head home.  Luckily, my new best friend Siri, on my iPhone, was able to provide us with just enough additional information to lead us to Nirvana.

And Nirvana it was, a tract of over 100 Eichler homes, most lovingly restored to mid-century glory.  It's more than a little ironic that homes that were initially designed to be an inexpensive alternative to the masses now take hundreds of thousands of dollars in renovations to get them back to how they looked when they sold for $12,000.  We quickly found the house listed for sale and it was a beauty.  I'm assuming it was being sold by the estate of the original owners because the house was in absolutely pristine, mint condition.  We peered through the original aluminum casement windows at the glass enclosed atrium, the linoleum floors, the state-of-the-art, turquoise kitchen appliances, the original globe lights hanging in the eaves... it was heaven.

And at nearly $600,000, it was way out of our league.

We heaved a sigh of resignation and went home.

And then yesterday came another email... "More Eichlers!!!!"

The boyfriend had discovered another cache of "lesser known" Eichlers and it happened to be smack dab in my hometown (how did I not know of this?).  And one of those was for sale for only $285K!

Last night, off we went to check it out.

Well, there's a reason they're "lesser known".

First of all, the tract is in what was known even in my youth as "The Bad Part of Town".  As we slowly cruised the neighborhood, clots of shifty looking characters milled about and it suddenly occurred to me that this isn't the type of neighborhood you slowly cruise around.  Because it really was "The 'Hood".  Which is why I didn't know about... we were always afraid to venture into this part of town.  All of the houses, even the less molested ones, sported burglar bars and heavy security gates.  In our brief tour we passed four squad cars in various stages of arresting people.

If only they had been the Design Police, because then everyone in the neighborhood would be under arrest.  What these people had done to their poor little Eichlers was beyond belief.  Who knew you could do so much damage with so little stucco and fake brick.  Home Depot should be charged as an accessory... to murder.

Crimes against humanity, I say.

There were only a handful that were still salvageable, and then there, in the wilderness, was one house that had obviously been meticulously restored by some intrepid pioneers, probably some gays hoping to be the tip of the spear in a neighborhood gentrification.  Well, good luck with that.  This neighborhood has been a cesspool for over 40 years and no amount of sage green paint and tasteful landscaping was going to change that.  I don't really see the point of buying a home in a neighborhood you might one day feel safe in.  In twenty years.  Maybe.

So the dream is deferred. As I sit here working in our little fake Spanish rental, I'll throw on some Sinatra and pretend.  One day...

The Land Of Gracious Living™

There's a "Richard Nixon Freeway"... who knew?

I sure as hell didn't and I grew up here.

Like the Nixon Administration itself, it's unnaturally short.  Only about three miles, if that.  I must say it's quite lovely, two words not normally associated with our 38th President.

We found ourselves driving on it over the weekend on the way to the mall.  It passes through the the town of Yorba Linda (home of the Nixon Library and Gift Shop - check out the paper shredders) and a sign as you enter informs you that Yorba Linda is "The Land Of Gracious Living™".

"Gracious Living".

Doesn't that sound marvelous?

Who wouldn't want to live graciously?

Like Martha Stewart?

It got me to thinking.  With so many dreams and aspirations ground into dust over the past couple of years, it's hard to focus on the long term goals we need to meet to hopefully dig ourselves out of the hole we're in.  Just the thought of it is so daunting it's tempting just to throw in the towel.  What I needed, I thought, were some short term, attainable goals...

A simple goal...

Like...

 Living Graciously.

How hard could that be?  If you're creative, you can probably do it on the cheap too.  It certainly couldn't hurt to try.

If it got Martha through prison, it can probably work for us.

Best Laid Plans

We were both looking forward  to a nice, relaxing weekend in the mountains and after the week we'd both had it was very much deserved.  And then they closed the road.

Not a road really... the freaking 5!  Interstate 5, the main artery of California... CLOSED.  For a forest fire.

I heard the traffic report as I was out getting supplies for the weekend.  Surely they'd open it I told myself.

Four hours later... still closed.

We'd wait until morning, we said.  It'd be a shorter weekend than we'd like, but we'd still get out of town.

This morning it was still mostly closed, so we threw in the towel.

Just as well.  My main client did a work dump on me around 3:00 yesterday and I was looking at the probability that I'd be inside on my laptop for the entire weekend.  Instead, I'm sitting here on a Saturday afternoon in front of a computer looking out on what looks like a nice day. I wouldn't know, I haven't been outside today.

It will all be worth it.  I hope.  It looks like this might turn into a full-time gig, with all the attentive benefits, including a pre-rececession scale salary.  It may even be enough to trade up to an adult sized apartment.  Fingers crossed.

Questionable Behavior

I meant to mention in my last post about the neighbors that several of them moved out over the weekend.  Actually, that was to be the main point of the post, but somewhere around paragraph two I lost my train of thought.  More like derailed.  At any rate, that's the deal... two, maybe three neighbors moved out on Saturday.  It was hard to tell exactly how many since there was so much activity going on.

One of the neighbors who apparently moved out was the hard looking woman directly next door.  We share a wall, although I've never heard a peep out her.  She bears more than a passing resemblance to Almira Gulch from "The Wizard of Oz".  She glares a lot.  People, presumably family, were here moving furniture out on Saturday, so I assumed she was gone.  So imagine my surprise when a truck pulled up yesterday.

An "Shred-It" truck.  A big one, industrial strength.

I work out of our second bedroom, upstairs, and I had a perfect view of the truck parked below.  Shortly after it parked, men started coming out of the house with huge trash bags overstuffed with... well, that's the question.  Bag after bag came out of the house.  The shredding began and it was deafening, like being in a timber mill.  For two hours!  There had to be over a hundred bags!

What exactly is Miss Gulch up to?  I think we'll never know.  And I think that's the plan.

It would be easy to say, oh well, she's just a hoarder, a pack rat.  Listen - my father has meticulously kept every cancelled check and bank statement for the past 60 years and it barely fills a closet.  The amount of stuff coming out of Miss Gulch's place would've easily filled a bedroom, probably two here in Tiny Town.  And it was clearly all financial looking forms and spreadsheets.

The truck finally left, and evidently Miss Gulch did too.

I expect any day now we'll hear about some massive bank fraud or financial meltdown and the phrase "missing documents" will be bandied about and Miss Gulch's photo will pop up as a "Person of Interest".

¡Viva OC!

Sometime back in the early 70's, the architectural tastes of Orange County shifted, from the clean, efficient Modernist design of the 50's and 60's to the tacky, arched, stucco encrusted fake Spanish hacienda look we know and love today.  Seems somewhat ironic considering the prevailing attitude toward the Hispanic immigrant population at the time, but I think the shift had less to do with honoring the area's rich Spanish heritage and more to do with the popularity of Disneyland and it's fake themed environments.  Sadly, the hacienda look proved to be a gateway drug to the bad architecture of today, the first step on the road to faux chateaus and phony Tuscan villas and Thomas Kincaid-ish English cottages.  But I digress.

The place we call home appears to have been the tip of the spear, one of the earlier examples of "¡Viva Condo!" architecture.  It was built in 1971 to resemble a Mexican shantytown, with dozens of boxy four-plexes, slathered in stucco and capped with tile roofs, tastefully arranged against a hillside.  It's where Taco Bells go to die.

To complete the effect, all the streets in the complex have been given extravagant Mexican names, which is how we've come to live on El Camino Del Rey Mar Vista De Naranjas.

That isn't the actual name, but it's pretty damn close and let me tell you, it's a headache.

Let's start with the fact that most forms don't have that much space or an allotment for that many letters, not to mention blank spaces.  Half my mail is probably being returned to sender.

And then there's the challenge of take-out food.  Most of the orders end in utter confusion when it comes to the address, unless of course the person on the other end of the line speaks Spanish, in which case they laugh uncontrollably at your pronunciation.  So far, unfortunately, the only restaurants up to the task have been uniformly awful.

And it only gets worse.

We had only lived here two weeks when the internet went out.  No shock there, it's Time Warner Cable, the Yugo of Broadband.  Time Warner's system is apparently powered by squirrels and held together with spit and twine and it's usually out more often than it's on.  Having been cursed with them before when we lived in LA, I knew to give it an hour or so.  That's usually enough time for them to find new squirrels or duct tape it together enough to power back on.  But this time, it didn't come back on, which is a serious issue for someone who works from home and relies of the magic of the internet to collect a paycheck.  So I called customer service.

I was quickly connected with "Jenny".  Fun fact:  ALL of Time warner's customer "service" representatives are named "Jenny"!  The Indian firm that's been outsourced with the customer "service" account has evidently decided that "Jenny" is the most American sounding name and they hope to trick you into believing you're speaking with an American despite the thick Hindi accent.  I could barely understand her, but she quickly decided the problem wasn't with the network even though she said 19% of our service area was currently out. "Doesn't that seem like an outage to you?" I asked.  "No" "Jenny" informed me.  "We only consider it an outage if it's more than 20% out".  Good to know.

She insisted I needed a service call.

"Our first available appointment is a week from Friday".

I tried to impress on her the seriousness of the situation, the dire position I was in without an internet connection.  Jenny didn't care.  The only thing Time Warner cares less about than the service they provide is you, the customer.

"Jenny" began filling out the appropriate request, which was going ponderously slow with the language barrier.  And then we got to the address.

After the first four attempts I tried just spelling it out out, letter by letter, like speaking to toddler.

E.  L.  *space*  C.  A...

The space tripped her up and we started again.

Twenty minutes later we had only gotten as far as "Rey" when suddenly the internet came back on.  I hung up on "Jenny".

More than a week goes by and phone rings.  It was Friday.

"This is Manny with Time Warner Cable.  You have a service appointment scheduled but I can't find your street.  Would you spell it for me?

I hung up on Manny too.  Life is too short.

The Neighbors

Well, we've lived here almost three months and we've yet to meet any of our neighbors.

Actually, that's not entirely true, I've met one, Linda On Disability.  Or maybe it's Lindaondisability.  I'm not sure how she spells it, but that's how she introduced herself..."Hi, I'm Linda, on disability."  She's probably in her late 40's and putters around the complex in a faded and worn housecoat and fuzzy slippers.  She's extremely friendly or heavily medicated.  Or both.

But other than that, the people here are pretty standoffish.  I don't think that's an Orange County thing, I think it's just the way of the world these days.  Our neighbors back in LA weren't all that friendly and neither were the hicks in the sticks.  Back in 2009, as the day for our move into exile approached,  I decided it was unhealthy to fixate on all the horrible aspects of it and instead try and focus on the positive, such as they were.  So I stopped Googling the Hemlock Society and tried to imagine the good things we could expect.  High on that very short list were the kind and gentle country folk, known for being warm and generous.  I imagined us being invited to ice cream socials or square dances or hootenannies or whatever the fuck those people do and forming lifelong friendships.

Never happened.  We were essentially shunned from the day we moved in.

So, I'm not all surprised no one's rolled out the Welcome Wagon for us here.  And after meeting Linda On Disability, that's probably for the best.

God Save The Queens

I was watching the news this morning and they had a report on all the preparations for the coming days' celebration of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.  Seeing the sights of London in all it's Jubilee glory,  I had an acid flashback to a High School trip to London during the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977.

Elizabeth aint the only old queen.  Just sayin.

Olga The Angry Checker

Why is Olga so angry?

I think it's the carpal tunnel; she wears massive wrist braces on both arms that make her look like an aged Wonder Woman.  Or a Transformer.  Whatever the reason, make no mistake about it, Olga is angry.

You place your groceries on the conveyor belt and they trundle their way up to Olga.  She snatches them with her claw-like hands, like an eagle plucking a salmon out of stream with it's powerful talons.  And then she smashes them against the scanner until she hears the "beep".

Then she flings.

Not a subtle little toss, a major league pitch.  Sometimes there's a box boy there, sometimes not.  Olga don't care.

If there is a box boy, or girl, they do their best to keep up, but if not, your groceries more than likely fly over the edge and onto the floor.  Olga don't care.

I'm not really sure why the management tolerates it, but I think they're afraid of her.  She's obviously been there since the beginning of time.  I try to avoid her, everyone does.  Olga never has much of a line, for obvious reasons.  If you do find yourself in Olga's line, you might as well just set the eggs aside because they'll never survive.  Same with fresh fruit.  Or basically anything other than dry goods or paper products.  And even those take a beating.

And whatever you do, don't make eye contact.  Trust me, I learned the hard way.