Cocktail Confessions

My wife's message to Mercury

Painting my train models is something I enjoy.

Painting parts of my house, (i.e. floor to ceiling walls, or the ceiling itself), is not something I enjoy.  Especially if it comes about by necessity from unexpected repairs done to our house.  In this case, a recent slab leak under our kitchen floor forced my wife and I to re-route the hot water lines through two of our walls and the ceiling.  In events like this, you’d think that your homeowners insurance would cover repairs like this…that is, unless you have Mercury Insurance (which of course Murphy’s Law would indicate that we do (soon to be “did”)) in which they didn’t.  Bastards (another post for another day).

So about $2000 in repairs are coming out of our pockets.  Again, despite the fact I pay what seems to be a useless homeowners policy with Mercury.

Needless to say, our kitchen and dining room have both been in a state of disaray for more than a week now.  Our fridge stands in the middle of the kitchen while chairs, appliances, and other free standing items are either in hanging out in the garage or in various other rooms of the house.  We haven’t been able to use the kitchen for meals in over a week now. 

Another resulting side-effect is this fine sheen of drywall dust (ground white gypsum) finding itself onto just about every square inch of free surface area in the house, including the dog.  No matter how many times we vacuum, or try to dust, we keep finding the stuff all over the place.  That to me has been the most irritating by-product thus far of this whole escapade.  No matter how many times I wash my hands, or put on clean clothes, it’s only a matter of mere minutes before I have this chalky substance all over me again.

Repairs have finally been compelted this past Saturday and new drywall has been affixed to our walls and our kitchen ceiling has been patched.  The finishers came in to re-texture everything…and of course it had to rain that day as well, so the drying and curing time put us *supposedly* another day behind getting back to normal.

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Despite the fact that the finishers told us to wait two full days to dry, my wife (who often says I have no patience) just had to start priming the walls the following day.  I didn’t think too much harm could be done, so I agreed and we bought two gallons of Kilz 2, water-based latex primer.

Do you know how hard it is to paint white on white in low-light conditions and make sure you covered everything? Do you know what it’s like to paint an overhead ceiling with a roller while standing on a step ladder and moving said ladder every few minutes around misplaced furniture and other obstacles.  My shoulder and my eyes will tell you it sucks donkey balls.  It also doesn’t help one’s frame of mind one bit when your daughter is in the living room watching the LOGO network.   For three straight hours all I could hear when I was working was Ru Paul and other transgender ”fellas”(?)  (yet another discussion for another day) putting the ‘spark’ in sparkle and ‘fab’ in Fab-u-lous.  Oy.

Dining room wall, textured and ready to be primed

Now to get to the reason why I’m here today.

I don’t claim to be the best painter in the world, and like I said, I don’t like painting walls if I don’t have too.  I’m very upfront and…keyword….realistic about my lack of talents, but I’ve been around a paintbrush on many occassion and know about proper “prep” work. 

Kitchen area, textured, and ready to be primed.

On the other hand, my wife claims to enjoy painting…..but (truth be told) she’s not really that great at it.  Let me clarify that in case she ever reads this.  I mean, I know her heart is the right place, and I’m glad she’s motivated to paint, but lets just say she likes to….uh….cut corners…. and speed the process in some areas, while taking her sweet time in others. 

Some of her time saving techniques I have witnessed and observed for myself:

• Failure to remove electrical face plates or air vents/returns even though they generally only use one or two screws to hold them on the wall.  To her, you can just paint right up to their eges.  Hell, why stop there?  You can just paint on them ensuring that dry paint will now adhere them to the wall so it almost impossible to get them off again if need be.  
• Taping off straight lines and edges, to her, are optional.  You can save a lot of time if you don’t tape things off…like fixtures, or where walls and baseboards meet.  Also looks like shit when done.  Oh, paint on the brass door handle…you don’t like that?
• Recommended drying and curing time by professionals, is just that….recommended.  If they say 2 days, my wife is happy to wait one.  If I say it’s raining outside and request that she  just finish the priming, where then I can come home, continue to tape off, and then we can resume the next day when it’s dry and sunny.  Sounds reasonable?  I think she waited all of a few hours, thus again, confirming she has no patience either.  But GOD forbid you critique or criticize any of this, or point out obvious mistakes and flaws.  If you do, then you’re an asshole who doesn’t appreciate all her hard work in cutting corners.
• Rinsing out expensive brushes after usage is considered “bush-league”.  To her, when you’re done with a brush, just go ahead and let the paint dry on it until it’s hard and un-usable for the next time you need it.  There’s a Lowe’s just down the street, so lets go ahead and spend extra money on replacing items we already have, but can’t use at the last minute.  Why buy $.99 paint tin liners, when you can just let let the paint dry in the $6 aluminum trough?
• While on the subject of home improvment stores, why plan out on what you need when you’re at home and the project is staring you in the face, when you can easily just keep dumping items in your cart whether you’re unsure if you need them or not?  In this case, I’m guaranteed to get mutiple size brushes, paint pans, and other impulsive tools of the trade…..most we’ll never use or ever need.

I’d gladly pay a professional to paint, but in this case, since we are already out $2K, and any bit we can do ourselves right now is fine by me.  So, despite not wanting to spend my free Sunday in an impromptu painting project, we did infact spend 7 hours priming the walls and ceiling and only got about 85% done.

Me, almost 4 hours in and taking a 'ceiling' break by sitting and painting the dining wall

As I pointed out earlier, at one point I watched my wife begin to prime precariously close to a faceplate.  I asked her, “Why don’t you take it off?”, in which her response was, “I can’t get it off.”  Well no kidding you can’t get it off if you don’t have a screwdriver in hand and “attempt” to remove it.  Instead of arguing, which I have learned after eight years of marriage gets me nowhere, I just went to the garage, got a screwdriver and…. (wait for it)….UNSCREWED the single screw in 10 seconds safely removing the already slightly painted on faceplate.  That shit drives me insane.

And after painting about 50% of the ceiling myself in just under two hours, my shoulder was aching.  My wife was nice enough to offer to take over for a while as I concentrate on the walls.  I handed her the roller and for the next 15 minutes I watched her paint all of…oh…2 square feet, and 1/2 of that was an area I had already painted.   She kept saying we needed to change the roller itself, but just minutes before it was working  just fine for me.  Are you kidding me?  F___ this.  At this rate the ceiling will be done by the middle of next week, so I just asked her to hand me back the roller (without changing it) and I just powered through it. 

While I returned to my overhead duties, I asked her to ‘cut in’ the primer about 1.5″ (to be safe) on the ceiling where the roller didn’t hit.   I then proceded to watch her do 5″ cut-ins instead, thus tripling the expected time.  It takes all of my power to bite my tongue and this is why we will both admit we don’t like painting when the other is in the room.  It’s not what either of us consider bonding time.

It doesn’t seem all that long ago that I remember sitting right here at an empty blog post thinking that I was going to take 2011 by storm and own it.

In fact, it’s been a year. 

A year exactly.  To the day.

Today is January 3rd, 2012 and I’ve been spending the last few days actually thinking on what I was going to say right here.  As usual, it just seems to be a mish-mash of ideas that really never solidified into something coherent….until now….and even just now, I’m just winging it.

If you’ll recall (or maybe your new here, so you won’t at all), I came up with a mantra that was to define my 2011.  Simply stated it was “Taking It Back.”  What exactly did I mean by that?  Well, I seem to remember that towards the end of 2010 I was taking stock of my last few years or months leading up to 2011 and not being overly impressed or happy with myself.  So many opportunities came and went as I stood on the sidelines like a geeky Junior High wallflower at the dance…..afraid to make a commitment or chance on anything.  In case you’re interested in all my pontificating back then, you can read that entry right here: “A new year to take it all back“.

Even stating it like that seems somewhat over dramatic.  The fact is I was 40 years old and just seemingly going through the motions of life: wakeup, go to work, pay the bills, watch a few sitcoms, go to bed….rinse and repeat….like I had for so many years prior.

Expect I was determined that 2011 was going to be different.  I wanted to take the bull by the horns if you will, and charge on, noting certain accomplishments and what-not.  Sorta like a bucket list of things I wanted to do. 

I re-read that post today, just now in fact, and realized that although I did indeed accomplish some of those tasks, others I failed miserable in, and in the end many of those cynical feelings I had back in 2010…I still have today.  One can even say that it rings true: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”  Amen.

A whole year, 2011, has come and gone.  Another year lost to the annals of time, more opportunities came and went, some good, some bad.  I checked some thinsg off the list, and left some untouched.  I had my fair share of heart break, highs, lows, and everything inbetween.  Some events I never want to experience ever again, and some I hold near and dear.

So what did I get done?

• I did build a 3.5′ x 6.5′ benchwork for my dream train set, although I haven’t progressed much on the train itself.
• I did infact lose close to 20 lbs from the beginning of January through April, but sadly put most of it back on.  Sad to say, I am a net -2 lbs overall from last year.
• I did manage to plan and cooridinate a mini-vacation with 8 of my closest friends to a cabin up in Big Bear, although the planning phase and getting everyone to cooperate and get on the same page at the time was a bit more stresseful that I would have liked, and I don’ want to that again (maybe a smaller group next time).
• I did make my own sauage and brew my own beer, but sadly, not as often as I would have liked to have.
• I did start a new blog, regarding my train hobby.  Visit WilloughbyJunction.com to learn more.

And my failures?

• I did not work at an animal shelter, but did start volunteering for the Billy Graham telephone ministry.  It’s not same, obviously, and I still want to work with animals.  I think deep down, I must be scared to commit to this.  I have a very soft spot and empathetic heart towards animals, and maybe I’m just not emotionally ready to watch an animal suffer or be cast aside.
• I didn’t do any podcasting.  Although the desire was (and still is infact) there, I just didn’t.  More on this later.
• I didn’t get a highschool reunion bbq put together like I had hoped, but that’s not entirely my fault.  I did invite people on more than one occasion, but peoples schedules and their own lives didn’t always cooperate with my vision, so we just had more of the same with a few new faces.  I did have a somewhat successful ‘Oktoberfest’ in November held in my backyard, but like I mentioned…I can only invite, not demand who shows up.  For those that were invited and didn’t make, you missed a good time…and I hope you’ll make the next one…but if you can’t find a babysitter or re-arrange things for a few hours with 2 months prior notice..then suck it.
• I didn’t post here on a regular basis: my funny bone just wasn’t tickled at times, at others maybe I was angry at something, or just didn’t find the humor in things.  Other times, maybe it was just inconvenient for me to sit down or have a PC nearby.
• My outlook on work didn’t improve much either.  You can blame that on the economy….2011 didn’t show for much in the was of people getting back in the saddle.  As a matter of fact, my wife lost her job of 10 years back in April 2011 and has been unemployed since.  Then all those self-centered, entitlement brats started that whole “Occupy” movement, which just bugged the shit out of me.  Yeah, yeah, I’m part of that 99% paying for you assholes to sit in a park and whine about your shitty and poor decisions that landed you over yoru heads in credit debt and whatnot.  Screw you.  No, seriously, screw you.  With a slow economy, my employer didn’t invest much into anything, including me, so….well…..you get the point.  I came to work every morning with one hand tied behind my back to begin with.
• Finally both my wife and I has found ourselves in some ‘family’ related issues with both sides of the family.  Some of it my business, some of it not, and none of yours, so don’t ask.   Suffice it to say, “No family I have ever met, or have been a part of” is going to win and family-of-the-year awards anytime soon.

So where does all this leave me now?

Why don’t you check back here in the not so far future and find out.

My wife and I have a deal when it comes to driving.

If we are required to attend one of my sparse family functions, I drive us in my car. If we are requested to attend one of her families numerous functions we take her car.

There are a couple of reasons for this: namely the cost of fuel and my lack of patience when it comes to sitting in traffic. I drive a V6 SUV which of course gets less fuel economy than my wife’s 4-cylinder Honda. The fact that most of her family functions take place either in the Inland Empire or Long Beach almost immediately mandates we will be stuck in traffic at one point, and my ire raises when we are only traveling 20 miles per hour for extended periods of time.

In so far as that goes, I’ve learned to combat that mind numbing time by bringing a book or magazine to help fill the time. However, even at lower speeds, books and written word tend to jostle around the page and it takes me twice as long to get through a sentence.

But my biggest pet peeve when it comes to my wife driving is her management of the in-dash stereo. In the close to eight years we have now been married, there are only two scenarios that take place within the confines of her unkempt silver death-box: 1) Hearing the same crappy “high school” mix CD over and over and over again, or, 2) her changing the channel every so often that nary one song (if she can even find one half the time) plays in its entirety.

So let me break each down:

1) We have a collection between the two of us of over 200 CD’s, and we both own computers that can burn/rip our own. That being said, she virtually has a plethora of genre’s she can choose from and make a multitude of CD’s. But nope, she made a handful of CD’s about 4-5 years ago, but I think only one ever made it out to her car, and I am subjected to the same B-side songs and artists every single time. It’s almost to the point I can tell how far we have traveled with my eyes closed just by what vomit inducing song is currently playing. Oh, Nelly Furtado….we must be near the Green River Exit. U2,…we’re on the 241 to 91 transition.

2) If it’s not the CD, then you can practically diagnose my wife with situational ADHD. She will change the channel every 30 seconds as her right hand basically hovers over the seek or pre-programmed buttons while she’s driving. I don’t think we’ve ever listened to a station broadcast song from start to finish in years. If a radio edit song clocks in at 2.5 minutes, rest assured, you’re only going to hear a 45 second snippet at best, so you better hope you got luck enough to hear the part you enjoy the most.

The whole thing is maddening and has caused some colorful discussions, in which since it is ‘her’ car, I end up losing.  This last time, I thought I’d outsmart us both. I ended up loading up my personal player with an Audibook, something I can listen to and enjoy by myself and not have to deal with her constant station fumbling. At least, that was my theory.

Instead, once I plugged my earbuds into my head, my wife must have taken this as a green light signal to now turn up the car stereo to the proverbial ‘11’ on the volume dial. Are you shitting me? Is this the “I’m still going to piss him off” mode and pretend I don’t know what’s going on? I couldn’t compete. Do you know how hard it is to concentrate on hearing and digesting one thing, when someone else now has to up the ante by intentionally blasting their repetitive crap at volume levels you weren’t even sure the little Honda could muster?

But even in my incredulous stewing and my eyes closed in despair once again, I knew we close to Antonio Parkway and thus close to home. Why? Because Stevie B was playing again.

Well, it’s a nother year, another summer, and I’ll be fit to be damned tied if I don’t get to go on any type of vacation get-away.  It’s been at least 4 years…maybe even 5 now the last time my wife and I went anywhere exciting that was more than an hour from our house for any length of time. 

And that was the Grand Canyon, and we drove, and we were only gone a total of 5 days (maybe 6), but I think 5….maybe all the hours in the car have affected my memory on the matter.  Since then, the best we’ve done since is a 2 night stay out in Palm Springs, one overnight at the Queen Mary in Long Beach and nothing else since.

Earlier this year I tried to rally some friends together for a camping trip.  One in which I’d rent a 27′-30′ RV with a slide out and go to Mojave Narrows near Apple Valley, CA.  There seemed to be a lot of buzz and excitement at first with everybody showing an initial glimmer of interest, but as I tried to spearhead this experience….I soon came to realize that maybe my friends were ‘all-talk’ and ‘no-action’.  I love my friends and I wouldn’t trade any of them, but the whole outing seemed to come a part at the seems when no one could commit to a date.  Mind you, I was planning on an outing with 2, almost 3, months advance notice.  Plenty of time to request time off from work, maybe find a sitter or two, put aside a little cash, and have plenty of weekends available.

I went through the whole process of finding the campsite, lining up the camper, breaking it all down to some more than affordable based on the amount of people that expressed interest, and the closer I got to signing a contract on the dotted line, none of my friends were now able to commit. 

Ugh…failed attempt.

Well, here we are again, a few months later and I’m trying to regroup…..re-circle the wagons… and try again. 

In an effort to make it a simple and cost effective as possible, I found some very nice cabins up in Big Bear, CA.  For those that feared about a home on wheels, cramped conditions, single sardine like toilet/shower combination, and an unproven campsite….I went the cabin route.  We’ll have bedrooms, a full size kitchen and living room, 2 full sized showers/bathrooms, plenty of parking, an outside porch and backyard deck.  We’ll be close to town (2-3 miles) and plenty of tourist attractions.  Big Bear is also pretty close to everyone…within or less than 2 hours away from all of us.  And the price is not bad at all!!!  At $199 a night, if you break that down between 4-5 people and we go for 4 days, we’re looking at $100 a person!!

So the initial email went out today, and I’m targeting a late July or early to mid August date.  Now perhaps I’m getting myself too pysched up, but I’m hoping I (we) can pull this off.  It would be great to do, and it’d be a shame if another summer year went by and we didn’t do anything or go anywhere.

The last few days have been a whirlwind of small personal triumphs (I’ll take them where I can get them, thank you) and frustrating moments.  Most everything here deserves a small entry in their own right, and perhaps I’ll expand on some of them in the coming days.  It all really depends on how busy I am at work, or for that matter how bored I am…which has been the predominant theme as of late:

-         My weight loss plan started out good, but came to a stall this past week.  After five weeks of eating semi-solid food (oh, how I miss the ‘crunch’), riding the bike more often at the gym, and trying to really monitor my overall diet amongst other things, I’ve lost just shy of 12 pounds.  But this past week I lost nothing at all which is a little disheartening, but no reason to get into a tizzy just yet.  I did have a few drinks over the weekend, but I don’t think enough to ruin my regime; but then again since I didn’t lose anything at all, so maybe it did after all.  The other issue is that my shoulder has been nagging me again and causing some slight discomfort overall.

-         I was able to make roughly 7 lbs of sausage, over the weekend, and brought some over to my buddies house yesterday for Super Bowl.  Not sure if they may have been grilled on the BBQ a little too long, but despite great flavor, they were a tad bit dry.  That’s weird, because with the left over meat that I didn’t stuff in a casing, I made a patty which was very juicy.  It was a lot of work, and while not my best sausage to date, the effort involved after not making for close to 6 years still was an accomplishment in my book.

-         Made my way over to Home Depot on Saturday and bought a lot of wood to start my train layout bench work.  On the downside, however, their arm saw was broken so I didn’t get any cut plywood that would have been the base of my layout, nor did I get any pink extruded foam because despite the online website stating they carry it, when I was there in person, they told me they didn’t.

-         My wife said that her sink at her vanity in the master bathroom was leaking.  A leak I can’t yet find, but there was water about underneath and onto the carpet.  Yet another item that needs to be fixed at the house that I wasn’t expecting.  Sigh.

-         My 7.5 year old plasma TV died on Sunday.  While I’m excited to buy a new TV, we weren’t planning on it until the end of the year when we had more money.  Another untimely expense in my book.

-         My job has been sucking bad this past week.  I’m at an all time low for morale right now.  My managers (yes, plural), cannot make a decision or a stand on anything if their life depended on it.  It is so frustrating to work under those who can’t commit to anything and seem wishy-washy on anything thrown their way.  I wake up in the mornings imagining ways to get out early or to look busy, but neither I nor my wife are in a position to quit right now.

-         The Motorola Xoom tablet is going to be too expensive for me to purchase here in the next few weeks.  Rumor has it that it will retail for $799.  As much as I would like one, I can’t justify that price right now, especially with a dead television that is going to be replaced.

-         I am reading a lot again.  Not my comics that I used to enjoy so much, but I’m plugging away at hardcover books (especially used ones I get from the second hand market) as of late. 

-         My efforts in organizing a camping trip with friends has been dashed due to my friends inability (sorry guys if you’re reading this) to agree on a date.  In my final attempt, I threw out 3 separate dates for April/May coming up (3 months advance notice at that), and no one has responded.  I give up.

-         Saturday, March 12^th, I have a date to brew beer up in Huntington Beach.  Another mark in the ‘Win’ column for my 2011 bucket list.

-         Looks like there’s going to be some turn over in my neighborhood.  One neighbor has finally had their house reposed by the bank (I won’t miss them), but my next door neighbors just told me they are trying to sell their house via ‘short sale’ which means it’s a gamble on who it may attract.  I like my neighbors now…they are nice and quiet and even younger than us.  The potential outcome is making me a tad nervous.

I have the unfortunate reality of sitting in a room with two bosses.  My direct boss is a female and sits behind me, so I can always feel her eyes staring at me at the most inopportune times.  Isn’t that the case?  I can be busy, solve complex problems, pump out paper work and work circles around some of my peers….and she’s never around.  It always that one time I’m 3 minutes late clocking in due to morning traffic, or that one time I want to read a news article on Fox or look at a new model train picture or read a joke someone sent me that she saunters on over and has something to say to me.  Never fails.

Then there is my departmental boss who sits in the same room, in the opposite corner that faces all of us.  Very Japanese in style, although he is Chinese himself.  It’a a cultural thing…many Asian companies tend to have their supervisors right in the mix of things, but it can be a tad stressful when two are presiding over six of us.  Yes, we have 2 bosses for 6 employees.  Overlap duties and decision making much?  No wonder we can never get anything done, we are so busy in repetitive meetings that the majority of tasks that need to be dealt with get talked to death and over analyzed before anyone even lifts a finger.

In all fairness, they are both nice people and not necessarily task masters, but due to their management finesse, (i.e. wrong prioritization and inability to make a decision on just about everything) I would have a hard time following any of them into battle.  It’s a little sad, as the six of us (well 5 actually, 1 person is just to shy to say anything (or is he really the smart one out of all of us?)) really don’t respect our managers as actual ‘managers’.

Anyway, all fluff aside this is an actual conversation I just had and decided to share with you.  This is very typical of a lot of stuff here and drives us all crazy.:

Boss #1: “Jayson, did we cancel all voice and data services for the property that closed down?”

Me: “Yes, all services other than the alarm lines have been terminated.”

Boss #1: “Including the data circuits?”

Me: “Yes, ALL services other than the alarm lines have been terminated.”

Boss #1: “And the tie lines between that building and ours?”

Me: “All data and voice services other than the 1MB alarm lines have been cancelled.”

Boss #1: “What about the ISDN?”

Me: -silence-

(At this point I figured I have answered this line of questioning already three times in the last 30 seconds so now I’m just ignoring shouting over cubicles again in hoping this conversation is over.  So of course Boss #2 (female) who sits behind me now has to chime in due to my apparent silence).

Boss #2: Jayson?

Me: “ALL VOICE AND DATA SERVICES…ALL OF THEM…EXCEPT ALARM LINES…HAVE BEEN CANCELLED AND/OR TERMINATED….ALL OF THEM….ISDN, VOICE, DATA, TIE CIRCUITS….”

Boss #1: Okay, I just wanted to make sure.

Me: Did you not receive all the official cancellation orders from the service provider I sent to you via email when I received them after I placed the termination orders?

Boss #1: Oh.

I could just scream sometimes.  That’s part of the problem; I have two bosses who rarely read their emails despite the fact that 90% of their questions would be answered if they just scanned their email.  Yes I get the most inane emails from them all the time asking me for this or that, and then I reply to those emails, and they still ask me verbally later.  Sigh.

So it’s that time of year again, the time of year where companies try and pretend to get into the seasonal spirit and motivate employees by attempting to throw a ‘holiday’ party to help boost morale.  Note I said *holiday* because in a nation founded under the principles of a single creator, the political correct police and ACLU have infiltrated all facets of our lives and God forbid (pun intended) we offend someone.

It actually started with the ‘no tree’ policy this year.  When I started at my current place of employment just over three years ago, I recall that the department I worked in allowed its employees to decorate their cubicles with lights, and cards, and in the main lobby was a large Christmas tree.  Our division had a potluck and our boss took our particular department out for lunch.  Amongst ourselves a few people traded gifts if they wanted to and everything seemed ‘okay’, although somewhat downplayed a tad.

Two years ago we were told no longer could we decorate cubicles with lights.  It was now considered a possible saftey issue that could result in a fire or someone tripping.  We were also told too many decorations, Christmas or otherwise, was not in the ‘spirit’ of making our offices look neat, organized, and professional.  The tree was still in the lobby, but now the optional holiday lunch was in the cafeteria, although we had to do it in shifts and there was no longer any adult beverages. 

Last year the ‘departmental’ lunch was not in the budget, and we had a mandatory all company party in the warehouse.  They rented one dilapidated pool table, 8 ping-pong tables (each in various states of disrepair), and a few blackjack tables.  You could tell this was asian thing…it was all about ping-pong, gambling and bad karoke.  And who the hell thought one pool table was going to be enough for over 500 employees?  And yes, I want to hear broken-english Japanese metro-sexuals singing Christmas carols.

This year, there is no tree.  I guess I wasn’t the only person who noticed, but the poor receptionist wasn’t given any information to quell our various inquiries.  It’s all speculation as to why there is no tree.  Perhaps its a budget thing?  Well, that wouldn’t surprise me as it seems anything that costs more than $5 these days needs a myriad of signatures and approvals both up and down the chain anymore.  We also just terminated 21 employees the week after Thanksgiving, so maybe it was one of those poor folks that did the ordering and decoration of this years said missing tree?  Maybe no one felt festive enough to put up a tree with the black cloud of despair so thick in the air?

Nothing says "Happy Holiday's" like a car dealership.

But here’s the kicker…..we have a MANDATORY party offsite at a…car museum…of all places?  WTF?  Seriously….WTF? 

And get this, the company is asking us to come in early that day so we don’t lose a lot of productivity time AND they want us to carpool together to get there and back.  Yes, not only is the party looking to be mandatory (an automatic buzzkill in my opinion to make it required), but we now have to adjust our schedules to make sure we get to work by 7am in the morning AND they won’t rent any shuttles or buses, so we have to carpool oursleves?  Why in the heck do I want to drive the opposite direction of where I live to attend a party at a car showroom I don’t care about and make arrangements to get there and back in the middle of rush hour traffic??

Okay, so you’re probably thinking, “Hey, why don’t you be thankful you get a party to begin with, jerk?”  Yeah, I get that.  Yeah, I’m happy I have a job, that I wasn’t one of those 21 people who was let go just a mere 4 weeks prior to Christmas, I totally get that.  It’s the fact that this ‘morale boosting’ project is at a location no one wants to go to, cares about, and the discussion everyone is having is “Do we have to go?” , “Can we leave early?”.  I get that part of it.  Again, why do I want to drive further away from my house and get stuck driving back in rush hour traffic playing either playing taxi driver myself, or being dependent on someone else? 

Look how much fun we aren't having.

And why Euromasters showroom?  At the end of the day, it’s a CAR DEALERSHIP.  My ‘holiday’ party is at a fricken CAR DEALERSHIP.  Go ahead, repeat that out loud.  Now say that again.  Our holiday party is at a honest to goodness car dealership.   I don’t care if it is 37,000 square feet.  Can I drive the cars? No.  Can I sit in them? No.  Can I touch them? No.  Am I getting a new car that day?  No.  So what the heck are we going to do there?  Look at them and marvel from afar while we eat Subway sandwiches and drink luke-warm soda (no alcohol folks) from either a can or generic styrofoam cup with 500 other employees?  On top of all this blur of excitement, our V.P. sent out an email today asking that we wear ‘holiday sweaters’.  Oh joy.  How original.  How 1950′s and clever we are.  He wants us to wear our sweaters because “it’s cute“.  Yeah, and it is also supposed to be 80 degrees in So. Cal. that day, so no, I’m not wearing a fricken sweater.  Really?  This is our motivational holiday party?

I think I’ll be calling in sick that day.

Let me post first a little disclaimer today before you continue reading here.  I’m a little cranky and tired today.  If you’re one of my friends, you know what this mean and how my moods work.  See, I had a long day at work yesterday, and of course when I got home my step-daughter was locked in her room (as is the norm) and my wife was out bowling so I made my own dinner.  I had just received a pretty shitty haircut an hour or so before because my wife kept nagging me to do so before Thanksgiving, and to be honest, I think I looked better before the haircut.  Anyway, I went to bed at 10pm, super tired, just to be woken up by my wife at around 11pm who turned our bedroom radio on pretty loud so she could fall asleep to it.  Well, within 10 minutes, not only was the radio just as loud as it was before, but now she began snoring where it would last basically all night long.  After poking her at least a dozen times, asking her to roll over, etc., etc., I gave up and tried to sleep downstairs on the couch.  Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep at all last night, and even two cups of strong coffee later, I still feel like I’m in a fog and have to put in another day at work.  I imagine it’s going to be a long day at that.  So, if you think this entry is a little harsh…well, you’ve been warned ahead of time.

Now, on to the main topic: Graduation Day.

Supposedly today is my almost 19 year old step-daughter’s ‘graduation day’.  We are all going out to a ‘celebratory’ dinner this evening with my in-laws and my parents and a few of my wife’s friends.  I only found out about this the other day and had no stake or say in any of the planning.

We’re going to P.F. Chang’s and it’s my understanding there will be at least nine of us, and I have no idea whose footing the bill.  I feel awkward that my mom called me and wanted to know if we were paying for the whole thing, or are we splitting the bill.  My wife never told me the details, so it will be a surprise to me as well, a surprise I really cannot afford.

Anyway, I have really mixed feelings about this whole thing and I don’t know where I fall yet.  On the one hand, I suppose it is a milestone and it signifies the closing of one chapter in her life and the start of a new chapter, however, in terms of my step-daughter her life is more like a comic book than it is a well written novel.  Her mother is happy as are my in-laws.  The cards have been coming in the mail, the phone calls have started, and tonight is the culmination party that everyone is looking forward too….but here’s where I fall short….I’m not sure why everyone is so damn excited.

My step-daughter shot herself in the foot when it came to high-school.  She made a concerted effort to ditch classes, ‘forget’ her homework, have a crappy attitude, always had a story or an excuse fro everything, and basically made it impossible for herself to go to a real high school.  We tried hard to get her enrolled, but by the time she came to live with us, she was already a grade behind, and would never make up the credits in time.  No high school in the area would have her.  She ended up on independent study, and I’ll be honest folks…..I took a look at some of the ‘homework’ packages and assignments she had to do on a weekly basis…..it was a fricken’ joke.  They were basically glorified ‘activity books’, and the whole time she was in this program, (about a year), I never saw her study for a single test, nor did I ever see her bring home an exam.

Now you might say, “Well, you’re the parent now…why don’t you get involved and take a vested interest?”  I actually did at first.  My wife and I sat her down and had a long and exhausting talk (more than once now that I think about it) about ther furture, her school, employment, etc.  My wife dropped her off at her once a week class, and I picked her up and brought her home.  I eventually gave up on my interest when after the first few times I inquired on how things were going, I got the typical rebellious teen answers. 

Yeah, it may not be nice, may not sound caring, may sound stand-offish, but I eventually came to the conclusion she still didn’t care and I never saw a really inkling that she ever would, so I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste my energy on this.  All it did was make me mad the more I continued thinking about it, and thus always put me in a bad mood.  It didn’t help that I also felt a little trapped being the step-father.  For whatever reason, I never culminated a ton of respect from her, and she may call me ‘dad’, but through her body language and other mannerisms it’s made clear to me almost daily I am not her father and never will be.  I’m just the guy who married her mother.

I hate that feeling and I’ll be honest…it hurt my feelings for quite some time and I still ocasionally get an emotional paign over it, but as time marches on, I have become increasingly immune to those feelings.  She has closed herself off and ignored my input and advice for so long that I began to form my own wall around myself.  I can honestly say unless she makes an effort to chip away at that wall, to let me in and treat me with some semblance of respect after everything I have put up with and endured over the last couple I find myself no longer caring at all.

Yes, that’s sad.  She’s a bright, creative, and intelligent young girl.  There is no learning disability or shortcoming on her end, just pure laziness.

So she’s done with school now.  Now what?  As far as I know she has no plan for college including the local community college.  I have heard no discussion on trade schools, hell, I don’t even know what she wants to do.  She doesn’t have a state ID card, nor a driver’s license, and shows no motivation to get either as well. 

There is no plan.

She will be 19 in 3 months from now, and has not one iota of direction.  Unless she marries rich, or lucks her way into something by fate, she is destined to be working retail and will be scraping by trying to makes ends meet for the rest of her life.  And we’re celebrating this tonight?  We’re celebrating the fact she ‘graduated’ a year after she should have to begin with?  Congratulating her on a substandard education?  On lack of motivation?  Recognizing she ditched regular school and put herself in this position to begin with?  Okay, call me a dick, but I just don’t get it.

She currently works part time at a retail store in the mall and takes public transportation during the week and has her mother pick her up late at night after the buses stop running.  As far as I’m concerned my wife is an enabler of this.  Why should she adjust her schedule to something more convenient as long as my wife keeps volunteering to pick her up?

On the flipside, she is my wife’s daughter and I do want the best for her.  I’d hate to hear she is struggling and depressed, but I can’t get through to her and no else can either.  She’s an independant soul, wanting to conquer the world on her terms.  I wish her the best and hope and pray something good eventually happens.  She’s a good kid…has an attitude right now, but most kids do at this age…and hopefully she’ll see the light sooner than later.  I just don’t know, and I’m surprised this entry is as long as it is at this point.

Yup, still here.

Just haven’t had the time or willpower to sit down and write at length.  Work has been busy, weather has been crappy, but I have been writing a few food reviews over at Yelp.  If you’re interested in following me, you can read some of my reviews here. 

As I eat at more and more foodie joint, I’ll write more reviews.  I suppose I could write a ton now, but seems a little bit like cheating if I write a review months after I’ve been to a restaraunt.  There’s plenty of BBQ joints, breweries, sports bars, etc. I could sling a few words at, and I suppose the next time I visit one, I’ll write a review and post here.

Been doing a few food truck foodie events lately.  Found a website dedicated to food trucks here in Orange County, called RoamingHunger.com.  I’ve gone to OC Bowling Galley over at Lake Forest lanes and the OC Din Din A Go Go over at Irvine lanes,  Had some fabulous meals, and I hope to have to a extended entry up here soon enough.

Speaking of being being behind the 8-ball, I have at least 2 (possibly 3) more YouTube videos to post on my slow brisket smoking.  I do feel bad about this as I’ve dragged this out much longer than I ever intended.  As a matter of fact I may be doing a smoked baby-back rib competition in my neighborhood within the next few weeks.  No sweat.  I’ve tasted the competition, and I know mine blow most of my neighbors away, although one neighbor, Paul may give me a run for the money.  He takes his bbq’ing seriously, as much as me, and he’s getting into it lately as well. 

So it looks like next week Governor Moonbeam will once again be in charge of ruining California.  All the major polls today (6 days out from the vote) place Moonbeam 10pts ahead of Meg Whitman.  Both are shitty choices, but with all the crap happening, or should I say ‘NOT’ happening here in California, I’m pretty surprised how many people here have a short memory of all the crap Jerry Brown did to this state back in the late 70′s.  It’s gonna be a hellacious 4 years, and we can all expect our taxes to go up and amnesty for illegal aliens.

Finally, can you believe the new (or not so new) news with Charlie Sheen?  Sheen, 45 and the highest paid actor in television today (he earns $1M an epsiode for “2.5 Men”) was arrested in New York the other day after a call from his hotel room.  Authorities found Sheen naked, the room a mess, a female ’escort’, and Sheen says it was a reaction to ‘medication’.  Yeah, turns out the ‘medication’ was ‘cocaine’ and he was also intoxicated from booze.  Oh and the escort?….well, it appears she is 22 year old porn star Capri Anderson (aka Christina Walsh) who said she feared for her life when Sheen thought she may have stolen his $100K watch and couldn’t find his wallet to pay here a few of $12K.

Yes, her ‘work’ for the evening has a rate of $12K, on top of the 5-star dinner she got and hanging out with him.  The cocaine was supposedly free. 

Now here’s the problem I have, and I’m not sure if anyone is to blame other than society who puts this value on people.  Charlie Sheen can do whatever he wants with his money, and she can charge whatever she wants.  I don’t give a crap.  But the fact is, he breaks the law numerous times, hires a prositute, wrecks a room, and gets a pass?  And she gets $12,000 for 6-8 hours of hanging out with Charlie Sheen, and she says they didn’t have sex, because he went insane.  I have to work everyday for almost 4 months straight to net $12,000 (after taxes), and this 22 year old gets it in one night for laying on her back……and because Charlie Sheen makes approx. $22-24M a year just for his sitcom, this is like chump change to him.  That equates to her getting somewhere in teh neighborhood of $1500-2000 an hour, plus a 5 star meal to boot! 

Um, shouldn’t he be thrown in jail for wrecking a room?  Cocaine possession?  Possibly threating an escort with his ex-wife and two children down the hall in a seperate room of the same hotel?  And shouldn’t Capri Anderson be in trouble for admitting to being an escort and using a ‘madam’ to arrange her ‘appointments’ (Remember Heidi Fliess?).

See, I’m pissed off because if that was me, or anybody else we’d be in jail.  But Charlie, who has a problem, and has been the subject of this behavior many times over and over in the past is allowed to leave and go back to a filming gig two days later.

Yes…I wrote that, and I am not apologizing for it.

Perhaps there will be a day when she comes across this entry, reads it, and digests it for what is.  I hope she is both mortified and embarrassed because of it.  She should be,….I know I am.  There is really no excuse at her age.  I don’t care if she gets mad at me, slanders my name, or chooses not to speak to me for weeks on end (like that would be a big change in her behavior anyways).

As of this writing she is rapidly approaching her 19th birthday (just over four months from now).  Her mother and I provide her a roof over her head, transportation, a room, laundry facilities, and even her very own bathroom.  Because she dropped out of traditional school (a long and trying serial story in and of itself), we requested that she pay us $100 in rent a month to offset all the additional costs she has incurred since moving in.

It’s not like we ask her to do a lot around the house anyway.  I suppose we kinda figured in this day and age we shouldn’t have to ask her to do certain tasks to begin with.  I’m of the belief that we should all chip in to make our house a home, a clean and livable one at that.  Both my wife and I work full time jobs….my daughter does not.  She’s not even is school…well, she’d argue that she is technically ‘in’ school…but I don’t count 2 hours of independent study, one day a week, school at all. 

I do my laundry as does my wife does her own.  We take turns cleaning our bathroom, vacuuming the house, mopping the kitchen floor, taking out the trash, dusting, dishes, weeding the yard, grocery shopping, watering plants, and then some.  I get tired of asking her to clean her room every other week, and by now, you’d think she’s offer to help her mother or I out once in a while and volunteer to run the vacuum herself, only if to not hear us ‘nag’ her yet again.  Is it really that difficult to take 5 minutes out of her life once in a blue moon and mop the floor in between repeating episodes of Spongebob Squarepants?  Is it unrealistic to think she’d take the trash out when she sees it full, or best yet, get her own G.D. trash into the trash can in her own room?

Apparently it does indeed seem to be asking too much.  One could say she has worn her mother and I down by ignoring common courtesy or our occasional inquiries or snaps.  Maybe we’re both too tired anymore to draw a line in the sand or afraid get firm after a long day of our own work just to avoid a confrontation with a teenager.  The point is there are a few main constants we are aware of: 1) She is lazy. 2) Unless it benefits her, she will not volunteer to lift a finger. 3) She is okay with filth and doesn’t seem to get too embarrassed by it.

I once threatened not too long ago that if I ever walk into her room (random spot checks) and found items on the floor again, they will indeed go into the trash.  Unless she likes dumpster diving, she will keep things off the floor or kiss them goodbye.  Well, to her credit and our dismay, she does keep ‘valuable’ items off the floor in her room.  No, instead her floor has become a repository for discarded gum and food wrappers, empty water bottles, tossed paper clothing tags, random scraps of paper, large dust bunnies, and the occasional errant penny.  Meaning that anything actually  “zero worth  or value” that anyone else would consider as trash, finds a resting place on her bedroom floor.  It doesn’t benefit me or teach her a lesson at all if I come in and pick that stuff up and throw it away.  She’d probably secretly appreciate it, just would never audibly thank me for it.

What really kills me is the fact that she actually has a trash can in her bathroom, which is in her bedroom.  How she cannot get said items into the trash can a mere 2-5 feet away from where they rest in that room is beyond me.  But then again, this is the same girl who comes down stairs after her mom and I cook a large meal, eats her share, and disappears again into her hovel never asking or volunteering to help clean up or put food away.  I recall my wife actually asking her recently to clear the sink of items and she had the audacity to act stunned and replied “Why?  It’s not my mess!”   No, that particular glass and bowl may not have been of her doing, but seeing that my wife and I clean 99.9% of the house and she doesn’t, I was surprised that she thought we asked her to the unthinkable.

So you may be saying…”Well, come on, she’s a teenager and we’re talking about a few pieces of paper and empty water bottles.  what do you expect?“  Heck, I was just being polite up to this point.  Let’s get to the ‘gross‘ shit now….and like I stated before, I don’t care if she reads this and gets mad.  What is she going to do?  Move out?  Heh,…I’m already formulating a timeline when I expect her out of the house.  My patience is running thin here, and it’s time to shape up, start putting some effort into things, or move the hell out.  If anything, maybe this will be the defining moment prompting her to take a proactive step from this moment forward.  Oh, hell…who am I kidding? 

Her bathroom is a toxic waste dump.  Both my wife and I have been witness to what we refer to as ‘period panties’ on the floor, for days on end.  Yes, by ‘period panties’ I mean underwear during that time of the month that never quite makes it into a hamper or the wash, but rather finds a cozy place on the bathroom floor to curl up and die for days on end.  There have been a plethora of used feminine hygiene products laying about as well…which seems like an inherent oxymoron…that of being hygienic in nature and yet in plain sight on the vanity next to toothbrushes, combs, and whatnot. 

Not very hygenic in my book. 

I can’t even tell you the last time her toilet got scrubbed, and even though you gals do indeed sit down to do your business, they  still need to be cleaned on occasion.  Same for the shower/tub.  Between the smell of mildew and dirty bath towels, the ring around the tub is palpable at times.

I don’t understand how she can want to have her friends over to the house.  I’d be disgusted, and no way, would I want to sleep in that room.  Now that I think about, I have no idea when the last time she even washed her bed linens.  Perhaps she has, but never in my presence. 

The day she does move out (sooner than she plans I’m sure) either my wife is going to have to dress in a haz-mat suit to do a X-Files type scrubdown and Silkwood shower, or I’m gonna have to spring for Molly Maid to send a team in to expunge that room.