Mind Vomit by the ikss ~ a journal
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Tuesday, Jun. 01, 2004and how was your weekend?
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--Kashmiri, proverb
My weekend was lovely - filled with nature, physical exertion, good friends and fabulous food. Let�s recap, shall we?
FRIDAY:
I left work at around 3:30pm. We generally leave the office a couple of hours early the Friday before a holiday. It was month-end, which means extra work for yours truly, but since the Little Big Man was out sick three days last week he offered to stay and make sure everything got done. So I was free at three! I went to my credit union to get my rent check and Darla was actually home when I delivered it. Two things I discovered while talking to her:
1. The Rad Pad, Junior is still not ready. They �hope� to have it ready to go by June 15th. Good thing, since I want to move in on June 19. Stay tuned�I�m going to be very, very pissed if I end up having to pay yet another month�s exorbitant rent for the Rad Pad and only because they couldn�t get their shit together. Especially since, if that happens I will most likely be unable to take John to Mendocino as we have planned, due to various other financial matters which came to light over the weekend.
2. I think Darla�s boyfriend died. Some time ago, she told me he had cancer. Well, when I was standing at her door on Friday evening, I saw two guitars on her living room floor. I naturally asked if she played. She said: �Well, my boyfriend played. Now I want to learn.� Note the past-tense, there. She then went on to tell me that she and the gal who lives in the other one-bedroom (my soon-to-be-next door neighbor) are going to take lessons and ask me if I wanted to take them as well. Which I may just do, since I play one horrible guitar, people.
3. The dead-boyfriend factor makes me feel bad for possibly being pissed that the Rad Pad, Jr. isn�t ready yet�until I remember that they�ve had over a month to get it ready and the place is about the size of my present living room so what the hell is taking so fucking long anyway? I mean, the painters have already been there, for Pete�s sake � why didn�t they actually paint?
After buying some din-din at this little Mexican food place up the block called Linda�s (who sells the tastiest salsa on the planet, even though sometimes it�s so hot it peels the skin right off the inside of my mouth), I did laundry and packed some clothes for the weekend. In all, it was an exciting and wild Friday night, as per usual.
SATURDAY:
I awoke at 6:15am and jetted off to my parent�s house (don�t worry � I brushed my teeth and stuff, first) in order to borrow their cell phone. In the area of cell phones, as in most areas of my existence, I am woefully behind the times in that I do not own one. Thus, whenever I hit the road headed for John�s, I borrow theirs. They never use their phone (it currently has in excess of 700 pre-paid minutes on it) and I don�t much like the idea of driving 400 miles north through a whole bunch of farmland (read: nothing) without the option of calling for help, should I need it. Anyway, after hanging with the folks for about half an hour, I headed over to Barbara�s.
Along the way, I decided I would call Jody. Jody had sent me an email last week, you see, in which she disclosed that she and Leonard were going to sell their little house in San Clemente and move. Their house, while adorable, is small. It only has two bedrooms and one bath. Jody and Leonard have two children and one on the way, so it was either spend money to add to their house and thus almost eliminate the nice-sized back yard they have now, or move. They are going to move�to either Fallbrook, which is even farther south toward San Diego�or to HAWAII. The Big Island, to be exact.
The house they bought for $200,000 is now worth in excess of $700,000! Apparently, one can still find reasonably-priced property on the Big Island and they could buy a house and have several hundred thousand dollars with which to (hopefully) start their own business. They�d at least have a nice cushion to live on while they figure out their best option, career-wise. If they move to Fallbrook, Leonard would still have to work (and wake up at 4:00 in the morning for his commute), but the schools there are better and they�d still be able to take road trips and see their friends and family on a regular basis. If they go to Hawaii, these things won�t be impossible � just a heck of a lot harder to do.
Yikes. Quite a decision.
I�m placing a wager that they end up in Hawaii. They are daring people and I know they really want to get out of the �rat race� and live a simpler life free from traffic and the like. And that would set fine with me, as I�ll have someplace to stay over there. However, it sucks because I won�t get to see her much at all.
Anyway, after finishing that conversation, I arrived at Barb�s. She, Alisa and I then went on a little hike up the hill behind Barbi�s apartment. It was a lovely, somewhat foggy morning. Very nice hiking weather. The hike was nice and offered up a beautiful view of Glendora and the surrounding areas (apparently, you can see all the way out to Catalina Island on a clear day) but in truth it wasn�t much of a workout for me. The hike itself was about 1.5 miles up the hill, then 1.5 miles back down. But Barbara and Alisa walk slooooooooowwwwwwllllyyyyyyyyy. And they take breaks when they get winded. So whenever I would start to breath a little hard, they would stop. While I could have gone on ahead of them, that would have negated the whole socializing factor, which was half the reason I went on this hike to begin with.
After our hike, we went back to Barb�s place where Arnett was busy making us breakfast � very yummy blueberry pancakes and eggs and bacon. This was the first time I�ve ever had low-salt bacon and I must say I liked it very much. The entire breakfast was tres� yummy, of course.
Then I was off to John�s. I made good time and didn�t even have to fight too much traffic, which was a relief (I will say that I am developing a rather large pet peeve and that is people who do not heed the �Slow Traffic Keep to the Right� signs and instead insist on driving in the fast lane over the Grapevine at ten miles per hour below the posted speed limit).
Shortly after I arrived (and realized that the Lakers were not going to win that night�s game and were instead stinking up the joint), I showered and made John take me to dinner at the Italian place he introduced me to the last time I was up there, because I had been craving that salmon all the way up. Mmm�I can still taste it now.
SUNDAY:
After breakfast of course, because John does not skip meals if he can at all help it (although I actually had lunch at 9:30am because a shredded beef taco sounded better than bacon and eggs�and now that I think of it, I have eaten far more than my fair share of tacos in the last few days), we went for a very long motorcycle ride. We went down Hwy. 1 for a while and thru the Salinas Valley and thru some rolling hills, past a couple of lakes I didn�t before know existed. While the temperature at John�s place remained pleasant in the low- to mid-seventies all weekend, the temps. on our ride ranged from my-seat-heater-on-full-blast 65 to hot-as-all-git-out 95 degrees. Not that I was actually hot while on the bike, of course, but I did manage to get a sunburn on my chest. Oh and a bug flew up inside my helmet at one point, which was pleasant. We arrived home in time to take a four mile walk and have dinner at another of my faves up there (swordfish this time). After all was said and done, I was plain tuckered.
MONDAY:
After taking a five-mile walk in the a.m., we went in to the town of Capitola � another new discovery for me. I had been to parts of the town before, but this time John took me to this very cute, old part of the town, at the beach. While a fairly-typical beach town with lots of cute little stores and galleries and restaurants, I just found this one to be extraordinarily charming. I like it more than I do Santa Cruz and even though it was crowded it really wasn�t terribly so, especially considering it was a holiday weekend. I would totally live there (although it�s probably a bit too crowded for John�s liking) We will definitely go back there. Oh and we had yet more tacos at this little taqueria in Santa Cruz which is a very yummy place to chow down. And then I drove home, and again had no traffic woes (we won�t talk about that a-hole who flipped me off after he was so totally in the wrong as to inspire highway gunplay).
You know�as much as it sometimes bites that John lives so far away, generally speaking it is terribly cool for several reasons; not the least of which is that whenever I go to see him, it�s like a mini-vacation for me. :)
~~~
Word of the Day for Tuesday June 1, 2004
starveling STARV-ling, noun:
One who is thin from lack of food, or who is starving or being starved.
adjective:
1. Being a starveling.
2. Poor in quality; inadequate.
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