...In With The New

The one enduring mystery of 2012 has been... Why is it so hard to keep this blog up to date?

I never had this problem with my last blog, the diary of our time in exile.  I posted on that religiously, sometimes more than once a day.  What was it about that blog that made it so easy to write?

Oh right.... white-hot, blinding rage.

Turns out seething anger and contempt are great motivators for writing.  Which makes a certain amount of sense - nasty reviews are always the most entertaining.

The previous blog was powered by the boiling anger about the collapse of our life as we had known it (and where fate had landed us).  It made the writing more therapeutic and cathartic.  And plentiful.

So... something to work on.  It isn't that there aren't just as many frustrating and bizarre subjects to write about here, I'm just going to have to find some other motivator other than howling at the moon.

So that's my New Year's resolution... more writing.  Along with the perennials - losing weight and quitting smoking.  The writing will be the easier of the three, one would think.

Happy New Year

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

The Orange County of my youth was a horribly racist place.  The hatred wasn't directed at African Americans, simply because there weren't that many.  My elementary school had only one black student and my high school had maybe six.

No, the hatred was all directed at... the Mexicans.

This was long before "Hispanic" or "Latino" entered the lexicon.  Anyone with brown skin was simply a Mexican.  From Brazil or Puerto Rico?  In Orange County, you were still a Mexican.  And you were despised.  Unless, of course, you were mowing the lawn.  I remember the politicians of the time (all Republican) railing about the coming invasion from the south, the brown horde massing at the border ready to swamp all the was good (and white) in a wave of tortillas and refried beans.

And it turns out, they were partially right.

There was an invasion.

Only it came from the east.

The most shocking thing to me, moving back after 30 years, is how huge the Asian population is here now.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  I would say that the community where we live is easily 50% Asian.  Same goes for the surrounding areas, including my hometown.  There was a report on the news this morning about the building boom down in Irvine, but the houses being built are all designed for Asian clients, complete with separate wok kitchens and no unlucky "4"'s in any of the addresses.

I'm not sure how exactly it happened, but I think it all began back in the 70's.  I remember a concerted effort at the time by the then new-ish Evangelical churches to "save" the Vietnamese after the fall of Saigon.  They sponsored families by the boat full  and congratulated each other on their good deeds and then were horrified when the Vietnamese did what most immigrants to this country do... prosper and multiply.  Now, central Orange County is home to the largest Vietnamese population in the world outside of Vietnam.  And the old timers continually bitch that the area has been dubbed "Little Saigon".

In the 80's, it was the Koreans.  On my infrequent visits home, I noticed the Methodist church near my folks started offering a service in Korean.  Within a few years, it was a Korean Methodist church, now offering one service still in English.  Now that don't even bother with that.  In fact, most of the churches  in town appear to be fully Korean.

And then, in the 90's, the powers that be actively courted Asian companies to fill the huge void that was left with the end of the Cold War and the disappearance of all the aerospace and defense jobs.

So here we are, living in 奥兰治县.

Awhile back I read an article that happened to mention a rival high school in my hometown.  It's located in the affluent part of town and was lily white when I was in school.  In the article it casually mentioned that the school was "80% minority(Asian)".  How anything that is 80% can be considered a minority is beyond me.  I mentioned this to my rightwing sister over the holidays and it got her dander up.  She and her husband marinate in Fox News and were still licking their wounds over the election.

"I know, it's awful" she said, lowering her voice.

She then went on to tell me tale of one of her (white) colleagues who lives in the school district.

"It's a nightmare" she said. "Her son can't compete.  He has a 3.5 grade point average, which is at the bottom in that school.  No matter what he does, he's beaten out academically.  Can't get into advanced classes, can't get any scholarships.  My friend had to take drastic action."

What did she do? I asked.

"She had to pull him from school.  Enroll him in a school where he at least stood a chance.  A school with more Mexicans."

Old habits die hard.

Me, personally, I think it's great.  I think it's what's helped turn Orange County from a provincial backwater into something approaching cosmopolitan.  The again, I come from multicultural L.A.,  where within a 10 mile drive I had Little Ethiopia, the Jewish Fairfax district, Little Armenia, Philipinotown, Tehrangeles, Koreatown and Japantown.  And probably a dozen other neighborhoods I never explored.  And in time I wouldn't be surprised if Orange County starts looking the same.  It is, after all, the home of "It's a Small World".

Ghosts of Christmas Past

This Christmas was going to be different.

The past four Christmases have been brutal and bleak.  Shortly before Christmas 2008, I lost my job.  A month later, the boyfriend did too.  By Christmas 2009, we had lost the house and were living in exile, shellshocked.  The next two Christmases were barren as well.  We decorated, of course, if for no other reason than to try and cheer ourselves up, but there was nothing under the tree.

But this Christmas was going to be different.  We were going to be able to celebrate the way God intended, with an orgy of overspending on needless gifts.  When all was said and done it looked like there was about $1000 in the bank just waiting to be gifted.  Of course, there wouldn't be a tree to put it under - this house isn't big enough for a tree, not even a pygmy one.  But tree or no, there would be gifts.

Then came the unexpected car repairs.

Followed by the unexpected trip to the vet.

Final bill?  $1100.

Oh well.  Better luck next year.

Actually, it's OK.  If nothing else the past four years have made us appreciate the season the way it was originally intended to be, or so one would assume.  Our dire financial straits had already stripped it of all the commercialism and consumerism and forced us to just focus on the joy and good will, since it was all we could afford.  And being far from home really made us appreciate the bonds of family, no matter how dysfunctional and infuriating they can be at times.

So tomorrow morning we'll pack up the dogs and pick up my folks and head on down to my sister's house to spend it with her and her extended family and enjoy the day.  Plus, we'll get to watch my sister be hectored by her mother-in-law about how she doesn't know how to cook, which is always fun.  Ah, the Christmas traditions, they never get old.

Merry Christmas.

Meet The Neighbors

One of the (many) drawbacks to condo living is that oftentimes you don't just share a wall with you neighbors, you also end up sharing their musical tastes.  Whether you want to or not.  I suppose it could  be worse. We could have been subjected to rap or hip hop.  Or yodeling.  Instead, all we have to deal with is...

Barbershop Quartet.

Honestly, I didn't know this existed outside of Disneyland.  Our neighbor on one side is a member of one such group and they practice.  Infrequently, mercifully.  And luckily this building is well built enough that you can't hear it through the walls, so you only have to deal with it when the windows are open, which is rarely.  They don't sound half bad, as far as these things go, not that I'm in any position to judge.  And it's certainly better than what's happening on the other side.  Because on the other side we have... Hector.

Hector and his wife moved in in August, buying the condo next door right out from under the elderly hoarder who was renting it.  Any way you slice it Hector is just odd.  He's probably in his early 30's and is what we used to call "husky".  I'm not sure he has a job because I run into at all hours when I'm walking the dogs.  Hector has a uniform of sorts, wearing the same ensemble every time I see him:  black button down long sleeve shirt, black poly-blend slacks, black wingtips.  Rain or shine, even when it was 105 degrees, he's the man in black, like a pudgy Johnny Cash.  I even saw him out gardening one day in that outfit.

I ran into him the first time shortly after they had moved in.  He seemed a little anxious and amped, which I've come to learn is just normal.  For him.  He introduced himself and then blurted out "just let me know is the music bothers you."

What music, I thought?

I hadn't heard a peep out of them.

"The music.  Just let me know if we're too loud.  We sing.  My wife and I like to sing.  Just let me know if we're too loud.  We sing a lot."

Got it.  Singers.  Good to know.

I never heard any singing, but it was late August or September and we had the windows closed and the AC running most of the time.

A couple of days later I ran into him again.

"I hope I didn't scare you last night" he said.

Huh?

"I was crawling under your living room window".

WTF?

Before I could say anything, Hector explained.

"We have bunnies.  My wife and I.  We have bunnies.  We keep them on the patio and one of them escaped.  I found it under your window.  That's why I was crawling under your window.  Didn't mean to scare you."

Got it.  Bunnies.  Good to know.

Hector was officially creeping me out now.

Sometime in mid-September I ran into Hector again.  I was setting off on a walk with the dogs mid afternoon and I could see Hector walking towards us.  Dressed all in black, as usual.  And carrying a full blown Santa suit.  As he got closer I could see he had a demonic grin on his face, ear to ear.

"I can't believe I'm already getting calls!" he exclaimed.

You're a Santa? I regretfully asked.

"You bet!  And I'm already getting bookings!"

Yikes.

The next time I ran into him, he was apologetic again.


"Hope we didn't disturb you guys last night.  My wife and I really got into it.  The singing.  We were really into it last night and we got a little loud.  Singing."

What the fuck is with the singing???  I still hadn't heard anything and didn't know what the hell he was talking about.  By then I had learned to just smile, nod and jerk the dogs in another direction.

Then the hot summer weather started turning fall-ish, the AC was turned off and we would open the windows.  And then that's when I heard it.

The singing.

What to say.  I wouldn't call it classical voice, exactly.  It kinda sounds like he's aiming at opera.  More than anything else it reminds me of a trash compactor we once had.  Screeching, that the word.  Dear god, and loud.  Hector evidently fancies himself the Fourth Tenor, but seriously, that voice could etch glass.  And the poor dogs.  That just might qualify for animal abuse.

They were just getting around to butchering the holiday classics when the weather turned again and we were able to close the windows.  Hopefully, forever.  With a little luck, we'll be long gone from here before the weather warms up.

End of Days

I'd almost forgotten about the Mayans.

On the news this morning they reminded us that, according to the Mayans, the world ends next Friday.

Honestly, I never really got all the fuss.  Yes, the Mayan calendar ends next week.  Guess what?  Our calendar runs out too, about a week and a half later.  Happens every year.  And you know what we do? We buy a new calendar.  For next year.

The Mayan calendar runs over 5,000 years.  When your calendar runs for five millennia, I'm guessing there's no great rush to start working on the next one.  The Mayans probably figured they'd take some well deserved time off (like, 1,000 years) before jumping on the next one.  And then the Spanish showed up.  Shit happens.

At any rate, I think it's best to get all that Christmas shopping done beforehand because I'm guessing a lot of morons are going to wake up on the 22nd and suddenly realize they need to buy gifts after all.

Size Matters

The boyfriend is a little slow.

Not lick the windows, short bus slow, but slow in the sense that it sometimes takes him forever to see the bleeding obvious.  So, after living here for nine months, it has occurred to him that this condo is too small.  I could have told him that the first day I walked in here, but this isn't about me.

And really, it is.  The kitchen is about the same size as one you'd find on an RV.  To get to the downstairs bathroom you have to turn sideways and shimmy past the washer and dryer.  We have a dining room table we've never used here because there isn't enough space to pull out the chairs and sit at it.  And then there are the closets, or lack thereof.  The "master" closet can barely fit a laundry hamper.  Which has led to another unfortunate situation... the "sunroom".

We chose this particular unit as opposed to other similarly doll-house sized units because it had a small enclosed patio off of the living room that we wistfully dubbed the "sunroom".  It eats up half of the space of the tiny backyard, which isn't such a loss because three other units look down on it and any time spent outside makes you feel as if you're in an prison exercise yard.  Plus, this time of year, with the sun low in the sky and blocked by the hills, the back yard receives exactly zero sun and after last week's rains, it's turned into a mold factory.

We imagined that the sunroom would give us a little more elbow room and allow us to hang onto more of our furniture.  What it has turned into is what this unit is sorely lacking... a walk-in closet.  Did I mention that it is technically outside?

It started with the boyfriend throwing up the ironing board since that was the only space in the house large enough to extend it.  With the ironing board there, the laundry soon followed and now it's a forest of clothes with shirts and slacks hanging off all the beams.  Absolutely all our clothes are now down there forming a hanging gauntlet you have to navigate to get to the garage or yard.  And then last week we unfortunately discovered... the roof leaks.  Badly.

So that seems to have been the final straw for the boyfriend.  Our lease here runs until the end of February and we've made the decision to move on to something more spacious.  Which brings up the perennial problem... money.

If our exile in Hooterville accomplished anything, it was to mask the severity of our drastically diminished circumstances.  Housing costs there were so low we were able to live substantially as we had before, paying $900 for a three bedroom house.  Our hovel here in Tinytown costs more than twice as much, and someplace larger will no doubt cost substantially more.

So the time has come to make some hard choices.

I wonder what a kidney goes for these days?

Danger Will Robinson

Turns out there is one drawback to taking the train... people.

Wednesday evening I developed a scratchy throat and by Thursday morning I had a full blown head cold.  It's too soon to call it the flu, but time will tell.  I really have no one to blame but myself.  I lead such a "Bubble Boy" existence - I work from home and only leave the house to walk the dogs.  My immune system wasn't prepared for the onslaught of humanity. At any rate, by the time today rolled around, I found myself with no pressing deadlines and an overwhelming desire to be horizontal, so I crashed on the couch with daytime TV.

Daytime TV is a demoralizing place.  Judging by the programming and the commercials, it's Loserville.  At one point, a commercial came on for one of those ambulance chasing law firms, the ones that promise you a financial windfall is someone you know suffered side effects/injury/ death from [insert drug name here].  And this one was no different...

"If someone you know has suffered serious side effects, injury or death from Robot Surgery..."

WTF?

ROBOT SURGERY!?!?!?!?!?

When did this happen?  Is this a thing?  Yikes.

So how does it work?

Is it like HAL from "2001" removing your appendix?  He wasn't exactly known for his bedside manner and if I recall, things didn't really end well.

My guess it's just yet another insurance company indignity; they've outsourced major surgery.  The robots are probably operated by doctors in India.  I'm picturing a med student in Bangalore with a scratchy video feed on a laptop making $12 an hour.  What could possibly go wrong with that?  They've done so well with customer service.

Well, it's none of my concern.  My insurance is so shitty there's little chance I'll ever have surgery, robot or not.  Not unless I do it myself.

Leave The Driving To Us

I have discovered a marvelous machine, a remarkable invention which I think may revolutionize life as we know it.  It's called... the train.

What do you expect?  I grew up in Orange County; the only trains we rode were at Disneyland.

But seriously, it's been a revelation.

I had a business meeting scheduled today in Downtown LA and while I was looking forward to the meeting, I was dreading the drive.  My recent experiences trying to commute to the city, inching along at 4 mph for hour after hour, sucking in exhaust on the 5, left a pit in my stomach just thinking about it.

And then it occurred to me... I could take the train!

The train?  Who does that?  Well, I did, and I'm giving it rave reviews.

I happened to mention my plan to a friend and you would've thought I said I was going by flying saucer.  But really, it couldn't have been easier.

There's a station not far from here, near my folks.  I drove over and parked (for free), bought my ticket and soon after, the train pulled up.  I boarded the train at 9:29 and 20 minutes later I was staring up at the Downtown skyline.  It took me longer to drive to the station.  Down one flight to the subway, and 15 minutes later I was at my destination, early enough to have a cup of coffee and prep for the meeting. I was in shock.

Now, there are some drawbacks.  The drive from OC to LA is not exactly what you would call "scenic", but the view from the train is simply ghastly.  Mile after mile of industrial wasteland, crumbling factories and rusting and decaying warehouses with the occasional truck depot or scrap yard or cement plant to break up the bleakness.  And the homeless encampments.  It's like something out of a "Terminator" film.  But that's a small price to pay for the convenience, and besides you can just turn your attention to returning e-mail, which is what I did.  Which is something you can't do in the car! Actually, you can, but you shouldn't.

The return trip was just as easy.  At one point, each way, we passed over a parking lot.  And then I realized it was Interstate 5.  I can't even imagine what my blood pressure would be right now if I'd driven.

And then there's just the shear romance of it.  Union Station in LA is astoundingly beautiful, the very last grand train station built in this country.  Even the little train station in my old home town has such a Mayberry, small town charm.  I have to admit, I was completely sucked in by it all.

It all felt so "Mad Men"-ish.

Dames des Chats

This place definitely gives off the vibe of "The Land of Misfit Toys".

Nearly everyone here rents and most seem displaced.  The condo complex seems less like a little community and more like a refugee camp.  Everyone just seems so... downsized.  Downsized by age or circumstance or the recession.  Or relationships gone bad; there is an inordinate number of single women of a certain age here. And quite a few of those appear to have taken the next logical step... Cat Lady.

I see them, peaking warily out the windows as I walk the dogs.  The cats, not the women.  And the phenomena isn't evidently limited to this complex.

I had to run to CVS to pick up a prescription and decided to pick up a few sundries while I was there.  As I approached the register I was bummed to see a line.  It was only three people, but this was CVS, a company that apparently only hires people who find the Walmart application process too rigorous.  Worse still, I hadn't bothered to wear my glasses, so I couldn't even peruse the tabloids while I waited.  So to pass the time, I turned the attention to the woman in front of me.

She was probably late 40's and careworn.  My guess was she was quite the looker back in the day, but she'd let herself go and now shuffled along in a velour track suit that had seen better days.  And then I saw her cart.:

Two boxes of wine and ten pounds of cat litter and too many tins of Fancy Feast to count.

And that was it.

My heart went out to her, and then I glanced at the woman in front of her.

Same thing.

And the woman in front of her, too.

All three... Cat Women.

The quantities and brands differed, but all three had carts chock full of cheap booze, litter and cat food. And nothing else.

My first thought was absolute sadness.  Actually, my first thought was... "are they having some sort of sale?  On dog food too??"  But my SECOND thought was absolute sadness.

We worked through the line and the woman in front of me finally reached the counter.  "And gimme a carton of Virginia Slims" she growled, sounding like Brenda Vaccaro on a bad day.  Well, there's that.

As she trundled out the door I thought to myself "there but for the Grace of God go I..."

But with dogs.