Category Archives: Adventures in Los Angeles

We are “paint-grade” people

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We’re done with our kitchen. After 16 years of Home Depot cabinets with sagging shelves and broken drawers, a tile countertop with missing grout and a stove fan that circulates air into the kitchen, we are ready to upgrade – to experience the good life of smooth granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, and glass-tile backsplashes.

Nothing like standing in front of the stove while it blows the fumes right at your face. Great design. I am personally going to smash this with a sledge-hammer when we demo the kitchen.

We are ready to stop lying to friends who visit: “we’re planning on re-doing this whole thing soon.”

We are ready for an adult kitchen.

Or we thought we were.

What we believed would be a fun and exciting transformation has a been a self-esteem roller-coaster. And it has to do with living in Los Angeles, where it’s damn easy to feel poor every day.

Yes, interviewing contractors delivered the harsh message: we are “paint-grade” people.

Paint-grade people.

We are the people who don’t choose the stained, hand-picked maple cabinets or the stone mined in a remote area of Brazil, polished with coca leaves, and hauled by donkey to the United States.

We are the people who don’t have the unlimited funds to give the contractor a platinum American Express card and instructions to “go wild.”

Could we afford the maply-goodness of stained cabinets? Probably, it’s all home equity. But it’s still our money, the money we worked for. And we elect to save it for a rainy day. Four-thousand dollars to us is not a trivial amount. We’d like our daughter to get a good education. And 4K in her college fund today may be a big deal to her in eight years. Or we hope it will.

So the contractors have come and left their bids and stories of larger, better jobs in larger, better cities – Beverly Hills, Calabasas, Encino. “We’re doing a 30-million dollar remodel in Century City. Some computer-guy and his wife. You’re much happier than they are though. They agonize over every detail. They love to micro-manage.”

(Translation: Money will buy you a great kitchen, but it won’t make you happy? I have my doubts.)

Or this gem, “It’s good to see construction here in the Valley picking up. That’s a good sign for the economy. It never went away in Brentwood and Beverly Hills. You couldn’t drive down a street there without construction.”

(Translation: The 1% did okay while the rest of the country was hurting, but they weren’t enough to create the jobs for the many. The middle class is needed for that.)

The paint-grade people are needed to get the party started.

So, the search continues for the right contractor, the one who walks into our kitchen and doesn’t tell me romantic stories of past million-dollar remodels and 30K custom-built dining-room tables. Who doesn’t feel the best jobs are in high-income zip codes. A contractor who doesn’t frown when you tell him you want painted white cabinets.

Yep, when I find that guy or gal, I’ll write the check. Until then, life in our paint-grade world goes on. And it’s a good, happy world to be in.*

[*Exception: when remodeling a kitchen.]

January Malaise

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My least favorite month is January – vacation and holidays are over, back to work, cold weather, short days. And the thought of all the things I want to accomplish in the upcoming year but won’t.

Last week, I saw these autumn leaves hanging on and couldn't resist taking a picture. I was rooting for them to make it to spring, but the winds this weekend were too much for them. Hello, bare trees. Looking forward to April.

Being sick since last week hasn’t helped my January outlook, though I can’t blame the weather here this time. It’s been spring-like with 70 and 80-degree days. But it hasn’t helped enough. I’m in the “first-month-of-the-year” funk.

Tomorrow I repeat the PFT and find out if my parole is over and it’s time to go to jail. I have no idea which way the test will go. I’m a shitty judge of my lung function.

How many times have I gone in for the test thinking I’m going to ace it and my numbers will be “through the roof” high only to be disappointed (chump). So, I have no opinion tonight of my performance tomorrow. The numbers will be what the numbers will be. I have done everything I can at this point. It is in Tim Tebow’s hands right now (he’s a god to me after Sunday’s game).

The thought of going in the hospital makes me cringe. It must be easier when the decision is made for you or clear cut, e.g., you’re injured in a car accident and taken to the hospital in an ambulance. But having to check yourself in for two weeks when you’re still functioning, walking, talking, etc. Well, not so easy to do when your brain is telling you, “bad things happen there. Stay away.”

There is nothing good about the place: the process, the routine, the doctors, the tests, the food, the germs, the mistakes, the juggling of work, and the being away from home. There’s not a lot to like about any of it.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were some cool benefit to going in. Daily massages. Nurse . . . er . . . playtime. [sound of train coming to a crashing stop] That’s it. That’s all I can think of. What else could a hospital possibly offer to make it worth going there voluntarily?

An Apple Store with a 50 percent off sale?

I’m at a loss to think of anything else. Oh, yeah, the feeling better part. There is that.

So, we’ll see. Tomorrow is one more day of January over. That’s something to look forward to, isn’t it? How is that for positive thinking?

One reason to live in Los Angeles: Sunsets

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It’s the last day of the year. Another one in the books. Yeah, baby.

To all of my friends and readers, thank you for reading my warped thoughts, and for your support and comments this year.

I wish all of you a Happy New Year. And may you achieve all of your goals this year and do it in the best of health.

I took these Los Angeles sunset photos this week. They seem appropriate for an end-of-year post. I know the sunsets here are influenced by the air pollution, but at least there is a visual feast in return.

Here’s to a great 2012.

This was my favorite of the dozen I took on my cheapo iPod camera. It says "L.A." to me with the two palm trees in the distance.

Hello, Moon.

My wife didn't like this one because of the trees, but I did for exactly that reason.

“What if we skipped the gifts at Christmas?”

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I miss the days when I believed in the big guy. Creative Commons: Brokenarts

When I suggested “no gifts” at dinner last night, my nine-year old daughter attempted to summon superpowers she doesn’t have to shoot laser beams from her eyes to take my head off at the neck.

“Bad idea, Daddy.”

Yeah, I guess if you’re nine it’s a bad idea, but what if you’re an adult and know the man in red and white is a pretender?

As an adult in age, not mental capacity, I like the idea. I’d still have the time off from work, holiday music, the tree, peppermint ice cream, and lights on houses, but not the gifts.

I asked the question because I have this theory that the gift-buying process has evolved to its most stressful and consumer-centric level yet and is making a large percentage of Americans unhappy.

And what made me think of this was an article about Best Buy canceling Christmas orders and leaving people out in the cold for presents.

Best Buy cancels orders

What's in the box? Is that the pair of flannel-lined pants I wanted? Creative Commons: Brokenarts

It made me wonder how much time these customers were going to spend contacting Best Buy, complaining during what is supposed to be a happy time of the year, writing a negative online comment about Best Buy, and how their holidays may have been derailed by the process involved in buying a holiday gift.

Is there a happy step in this process?

  1. Spend hours searching for a gift, online or in the mall.
  2. Go to really crowded places and look for parking spaces while avoiding speeding drivers who flip you the bird when they cut you off because they never bothered to crack open the DMV’s Rules of Driving booklet.
  3. Spend time looking for the best price, which might mean a late night after Thanksgiving when you stand in line to save money.
  4. Wait in line to give your hard-earned money to someone who won’t say “thank you” because they don’t like working in retail and are only doing it because all of the good jobs are in China and India now.
  5.  Put yourself in confined spaces with people who are tired and pissed off about the whole buying experience.
  6. Stress over getting the right present.
  7. Experience guilt, especially if you don’t get a gift for someone and they do for you. Or don’t spend as much as they did.
  8. Open January credit card bills. Experience overspending nausea.

The list goes on.

So, I dig the Christmas experience, a lot. But the buying presents part, no so much.

The Lost Week

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I’m not sure what happened to last week. I lost it. I know I lived it. It existed. It took place. But it was a wisp – gossamer – ethereal.

Even my calendar forgot about last week

I wasn’t drunk and partying with Harry Nilsson in Los Angeles like John Lennon once did. No, I was at home on vacation and the week disappeared as if a magician borrowed my watch and didn’t return it.

What time is it? What day? Where am I?

I had plans for the seven days – a big to-do list – but have nothing much to show for the time.

I bought my daughter a new bike for Christmas, which didn’t take long. I ordered my wife some presents. Just some clicks at Zappos and L.L. Bean. Not very time-consuming and she’ll probably send everything back anyway. I worked a little bit each day, as mentioned in my previous post. But not that much.

Other actions completed: My daughter’s Christmas show at school one night (one song and we sat far away). Bought a new electric guitar and played Rocksmith a couple of times. Installed a wall mount for a TV. Watched a couple of movies. Switched alarm companies. Spent an afternoon on refinancing paperwork so I can build a compound wall high and strong enough to keep vermin out and our dogs in.

With the exception of Skyping with my friend @seanset of Englandshire, I have nothing valuable to show for my time. I didn’t read or write a book. I didn’t write five or six blog posts. I created very little.

I managed the mundane.

Some scientific minds theorize Time feels like it moves more slowly when we’re young because we constantly experience new situations and thus make boatloads of new memories. When we’re older, we don’t make as many and time feels like it moves faster.

I’m not sure if they’re correct, or if I’ve accurately described the therory in two sentences, but it will make do for my purposes because I believe I lived a week without memories. A week without anything worth remembering beyond tasks on a to-do list. A week without surprise.

I’m hoping to change that this week and slow down time by creating new memories. I need to explore new places, plan the days, and make the most of the two weeks I have left in my vacation. I don’t want to repeat this post on January 3rd. I want the first post of 2012 to be titled, “Two weeks I’ll never forget.”

I experience a perfect day

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Saturday night, at 1:30 in the morning, as I wedged myself onto the dog couch with a yellow lab at my feet and a black lab on an adjoining ottoman, I realized I had experienced a perfect day.

Yes, with who knows how many days left to go in my life, I did it.

Jackpot. Hole in one. Full-court basket. An elusive occurrence indeed.

It started Saturday with the first day of my three-week vacation from work (future blog post). I woke up with relief that I didn’t have to think about email and projects for Monday. And what a difference that makes in enjoying a weekend.

Great game and the Xbox equivalent of Wii's Mario and Luigi.

I took the dogs on a long walk in 70-degree weather. Other than making the mistake of wearing my flannel-lined pants and having to strip off a couple of t-shirts during the walk, it was April in December, with the sun’s low angle the only difference. And maybe the brown lawns. An no flowers. Nevermind.

I returned and played “Rayman Origins” with my daughter on our new Xbox. The 9-year-old monkey is testing me on video games now. I’m the king of video games but she’s playing with a faster network of nerve impulses from her brain to her hands than I am and it’s everything I can do to keep up with her.

Later that afternoon, we did a parent doubleheader when our daughter played guitar at a recital, followed by a soccer game.

She strummed Silent Night and some other Christmas song I can’t remember because I was doing my best to keep tears from spraying from my eyes like a broken fire hydrant. Something about the experience knocked up my emotional cortex, and watching her up there, dressed up and concentrating, made me feel so lucky to experience the moment it was hard to maintain my composure.

At the end of last year’s soccer season when my daughter’s opinion of her effort didn’t match reality or our opinion, my wife and I had what was one of the hardest conversations we’ve ever had with her. We’re not of the school that we tell our child she’s great at everything-but we’re not about destroying her self-esteem either. However, we gently told her we didn’t think she gave the season very much effort.

And boy did she grumble. And she may have cried a bit. But to her credit, she came back this season and played with more effort and skill than ever before. And it culminated in the last game of the season where she played a great game. She’s not the best player on the team, but it’s about being engaged and trying hard. And she did that. So, we celebrated by going out to dinner and letting her pick the location.

I am a sherbet freak. This is one of my all-time favorite flavors

At the Argentinian restaurant she chose – she likes steak – I stole some of her rib eye and ordered a black and white lobster ravioli in a pink sauce that was mind-blowingly good. I followed it up with a dessert at home of Tropical Rainbow sherbet and Oreos. Perfect finish, a foodie touchdown.

After more Rayman where my daughter and I ran circles around my wife, who spent her youth studying and listening to Tom Petty and Bee Gee records and not hanging around 7-11 stores playing video games, we put our little superstar to bed and watched Friends with Benefits. It was the perfect “I don’t have to think hard to watch this movie” movie, and got me out of the doghouse for choosing Melancholia a few weeks ago.

Then came SNL with Katy Perry hosting and more laughs. And at 1:30, when I went to bed, I realized I had achieved an elusive goal – make each day great.

Saturday, December 10. Check.

Lucky rock

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An ocean rock attacked me this summer. I wrote about it here.

This is the police line-up of beach rocks. Which one hit me? Creative Commons: Gastonmag.

Quick recap: I was standing in a foot of Malibu surf searching for rocks and shells with my daughter when the water churned a stone into my ankle. I developed a large painful lump and thought, “what bad luck getting hit by a rock while enjoying a day at the beach.”

I went to the doctor and had my ankle x-rayed. Hematoma was the diagnosis. Good news: Nothing serious. Bad news: plaque in the arteries. “Go see your heart doctor right away,” the ankle doctor said.

And I did, leaving a copy of the x-rays with him for an expert to examine. And I was given orders for several blood tests, which I didn’t get because my teeth were being pulled out or cracking and I was busy paying for my dentist’s new fishing boat.

Now we’re back to the present, almost.

The day before Thanksgiving my heart doctor called and confirmed atherosclerosis showed up in the x-ray. I wasn’t happy about the timing of the call before a four-day weekend. However, I didn’t let it get to me. I didn’t think of it once until today when I went to complete the blood tests, and tonight writing this post.

Instead, I spent the holiday weekend looking for ways to have fun each day and not worry.

A new Xbox is in a UPS truck with my name on it right now because 1) I’ve always wanted one, 2) it will be fun for the holidays, and 3) I’m not sure I can play any more Mario and Sonic at the Olympics games.

More rocks to be identified. Creative Commons: Henkster

Again, the keyword here is “fun,” as in, “it’s better to seek fun out than wait for it to find you.”

And the rock I thought was bad luck? It’s now my lucky rock sent by the universe to let me know about a problem that might have gone undetected until the day I yelled at my Denver Broncos to crush the Minnesota Vikings, felt a pain in my chest, and face-planted into the wasabi cucumber dip. End of my story.

So, let’s toast to the writing of a new ending, the endless pursuit of fun, and a lucky rock.

Odds and ends and odds

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Work

I’ve been doing it. A lot lately.

My life would be so much better if I didn’t have to work and was rich. Actually, I like working. If I could just trim some of the mundane, mind-numbing tasks from my job and keep the good parts, I would be happier.

I like work that doesn’t feel like work. And sometimes I have that type of work. Just not as often as I used to.

***

Robert Frost, my man, you were wrong about fences. Wrong, so wrong.

Good fences don’t make good neighbors

I feel like I’m playing a real-life game of Risk in my neighborhood. My argumentative neighbor hasn’t said anything to me since the day we disagreed on how he should speak to my wife. And he hasn’t said anything to my wife since then, which is even better. But times are tense here in the land of palm trees, cement and brown lawns.

I do, however, feel better about loading up my house with security cameras and the soon to be built Berlin Wall II. I have East German-like clandestine meetings with my neighbors on the side of my house in the dark, where we whisper about what we’re going to do about the country so intent on causing pain and suffering to its neighbors.

We’ll see how it plays out, but it makes me wish I was a renter right now and could give my 30-days notice and move.

It’s amazing how much stuff my wife and I have accumulated over the years. I long for the days when I moved to California and all of my possessions fit in a brown Camaro with a 1-inch round hole in the driver’s door where someone shot it with a slingshot one night.

My advice to my daughter – don’t buy s**t you don’t need and live light.

***

Now we’re cooking – or not

Holy crap, kitchens are expensive. If my wife and I don’t move, we’re going to remodel our kitchen. We’ve lived with the current one for over 15 years. The grout is chipping away. One drawer won’t shut and points upward when you close it. The giant fluorescent light fixture covers the area with nasty light and fills up with dead bugs and debris. Our stove is black; our stove hood white. The face of the dishwasher falls off sometimes.

Yes, we are the most frugal people in the world. But even we don’t feel like being pigs anymore and would like something nicer – a smooth countertop, no grout. Handles on the cabinets. Ah, to dream.

***

Grind away

I’m going to the dentist every week these days. All because I chewed through my bite guard a few years ago and was too lazy and busy being sick to replace it.

I’ve eaten my own teeth – cracked and polished them like river rocks made of glass.

I blame the stress of CF and going to bed many nights not 100 percent positive I’d wake up in the morning.

So, my public service announcement tonight is . . . see a dentist and get a hard plastic bite guard if you grind your teeth. You’ll save your teeth, thousands of dollars, and more importantly, you’ll avoid annoying lectures from dental hygienists who can’t wait to tell you “would have, should have, could have.”

Yes, I am an idiot.

What my security cameras revealed

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My security cameras are installed and working like a charm. I can see around my house day and night. I can see my wife and daughter pull into the driveway each day, and I can spot people soliciting before they hit my doorstep, like the 26 year-old pretending to be a high schooler trying to earn a trip.

The only drawback of a four camera system is that now I want another four cameras. I should have bought the eight camera system.

Have you experienced this scam? The person claims to live in the neighborhood by saying something like “I’m Ted, Bob and Carol’s son. We live over on Valley Circle.” Classic B.S.

There is no Bob or Carol. His name isn’t Ted. Therefore, none of them live anywhere near me.

But he wants me to feel guilty and help a neighborhood kid, despite looking like a crack addict, which might help him if I were sympathetic to Bob and Carol’s imaginary plight of having a drug-addicted son. I’m not. I didn’t send him on his trip.

I only buy something from kids who bring their real parents with them because they’re too young to roam the neighborhoods alone selling chocolate and cookies. I lived the nightmare of going to door to door selling Girl Scout cookies with my daughter. Now we just buy a case ourselves and give them away. But I empathize with parents stuck with the same duty.

So, what have my cameras revealed?

  1. One opossum sitting on the roof blocking my camera view. My daughter deemed my excitement of seeing the opossum funny enough to do a stand-up routine for her grandmother making fun of me and my new furry friend. I’m proud of that little girl.
  2. People stealing trash. Both times a man got out and searched our blue recycle bin and our neighbors’ cans. I’m torn. I feel bad for anyone who has to survive rummaging through trash. On the other hand, it bothers me. This is why we shred everything.
  3. Cats. It wasn’t quite the musical, but they find our house a convenient place to cross through on their way somewhere. And there are lots of them in different colors. It’s CatLand at 4 in the morning here.
  4. The paper delivery man chucking papers out the window of his lighted car. This is a service he performs for my elderly neighbors who are afraid of the Internet and don’t mind their news a day old and stale. “Jo Pa was fired from Penn State? What? When did this happen?” Yesterday, you turtle.
  5. Bugs and angry birds. F’ing bugs activate the motion sensors. And if I were a Ornithologist, I’d tell you why birds like taking a direct route at my cameras when they’re not killing pigs.
  6. My wife freezing and the dogs pooping. Fortunately, this isn’t the other way around. But every morning there they are, my wife dressed up in my jacket shaking and the dogs running around killing our plants.

I'll be watching home from my hospital bed one day. Hopefully, not soon.

I’m in no hurry to go back to the hospital, but the next time I’m there I’ll be able to watch over the house while my wife and daughter sleep. If anyone approaches, I’ll see them. It will give me reason to fire up the new laser defense system I installed. It works great on cats. Can’t wait to see it bring down a perp.

Behave. Someone is watching.

(Note: If you think I’m shooting cats with a laser system, you’re the perfect reader for my blog. Keep on keeping on, my crazy friend, and come back soon.)

Why Halloween is my least favorite fake holiday

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I don’t like Halloween.

I wasn't aware there was a Halloween version until tonight.

I liked it when I was young, despite living in Colorado and being forced to wear a parka over my costume thanks to the snow that always dropped the day before. We froze our butts off in light, stiff, flame-proof costumes purchased at the grocery store, or drug store, or where ever my mom bought them before the Internet and corner Halloween stores were in vogue.

I remember the condensation from my breath made the thin plastic mask kind of gross – hot and cold at the same time. Yes, I was the kid with the drooling mask ringing your doorbell.

I did, however, like bobbing for apples, and was really good at it. Probably because I have two giant front teeth like a mutant horse.

Sadly, I was never able to turn my talent for apple bobbing into a lucrative career, though I do think it would make for a good sport to watch on TV. Place the camera at the bottom of the tub for intense action shots, and hire good-looking men and women to compete. Because, really, won’t we watch just about anything on TV if attractive people are in it?

So, as an adult in age, not mind, I have grown to dislike Halloween because I’m the one who has to sit home and hand out the candy. My wife and daughter go to a party and have fun. I am the dog reacting to every knock at the door.

Fortunately no pictures exist of me as a child sticking my head in a bucket of water, though I'm surprised a family member didn't try to drown me for laughs.

I get up every five minutes, tell our real dogs to be quiet, and greet the trick or treaters. Then, I have to pretend my neighbors’ kids are the cutest versions of the same Disney princess (girls), and any character that kills (boys).

I also have to monitor the candy because my wife is never sure if we’ll have enough, though we always have plenty leftover, and because 1 out of every 5 kids is practicing to be a Wall Street banker one day and inevitably reaches in and grabs more candy than allowed, on purpose.

These are the candy hoarders who one day will have to go to Congress and beg for a bailout because they bet everyone else’s candy on a risky financial scheme they didn’t understand themselves. Hey, the behavior of being a hog starts somewhere, folks.

So if a child tries to take extra candy tomorrow, reach over and grab their hand and say, “if you ever work in the financial services industry your head will fill with worms and spiders and explode in a ball of fire.”

It helps to dress as a witch when you deliver this curse. And don’t be surprised if your neighbors don’t speak to you again.

I fantasize about hiring someone to sit outside my house and hand out candy. But my wife gives me the look that spending $40 bucks on the idea will earn me a quick trip to husband jail.

Yet, how nice would it be to have my feet up and not worry about trick or treaters while the Swedish woman I hired on Craigslist sits on my front porch and hands out candy. I do think I’ll need extra peanut-butter cups and Snickers bars, however, when words gets out about my fantastic new hire.

Yes, my dear wife, it was the best $300 dollars an hour I ever spent. A small price to pay for getting my Halloween spirit back.