Monday, May 30, 2005

Memorial Day

Monday, Memorial Day-We drove up the Pacific Coast Highway. It was a great day, sunny, warm, not too hot and all of the beaches were lovely. But it was really crowded. Every single beach we passed was packed with people. We tried to see Point Dume, which is apparently so pretty it's where Brad married Jennifer, but we couldn't park the car. Isn't that a terrible for LA? And boy, is Malibu pricey. There are some seriously walled off houses and they're huge!

Sunday, May 29, 2005

Flemming & Hamlen...sounds like a medical disorder, well, at least it isn't itchy

Sunday-Mike Flemming came over with his friend Louise Hamlen, who lives in Pasedena and who works at NASA. She's a rocket scientist! We all played Settlers of Catan just like the old days. And Daryl had been jonesing for a game for a long time. And I won! Louise showed us an ancient coin she got as a gift and it was so cool. We looked it up on the internet and we think it was from the time of Septimus Severus, Emperor of Rome (193-211 A.D.). Here's a url to find info on him: http://www.roman-emperors.org/sepsev.htm. Louise has offered us a tour of the facility she works at and we are very interested. I hope to have time because I'd really like to see NASA. Can't get any better than rockets.

Saturday, May 28, 2005

Santa Monica Beach/Pier/Promenade and Psychic Cats

Saturday-Daryl begged me to go for a walk on the beach, so we went to the Santa Monica Pier and walked on the beach at sunset. Lovely, but remember SF walking muscles have atrophied, so I'm walking on jelly legs, soft and squishy. We passed by a playground and workout equipment on the beach. The playground had balancing beams and swings and little mounds that were supposed to resemble boulders. They even had swings for adults, along with pull up bars and hanging ropes. Daryl and I tried the swings out and he jumped off and landed, sorry, bellyflopped onto the sand. Fun. It was like being a kid all over again. We saw a few people climbing up a rope and were impressed when they reached the top, which was about 20 ft up in the air. We also saw a few people swing from a series of rings, like monkeys. I walked over to them and they were all beyond my reach, even when I was on my tip toes. We walked on the pier as well. For those of you who don't know, the Santa Monica Pier has a carnival on it, complete with ferris wheel, carny games, and buskers. We saw a guy who was playing five instruments all at one time. He was pretty good. I saw a guy selling cotton candy, a bunch of carnival games, like skeeball, and once again felt like a kid. And we ended the evening walking down by the Promenade. The Promenade is a boulevard of shops and it's very crowded. It's about three city blocks and has a bunch of upscale stores and street performers in the same place. We saw a guy doing handstands, an acapella group, a guy (a hippe beach dude) playing a 14 or 16 string instrument that Daryl knew the name for but which I forgot immediately, and my personal favorite, the psychic cats. Apparently the cats will tell your fortune. How they do that I have no idea and didn't stay around to find out, but I did notice that the two cats, mostly black with a bit of white on the paws, were quite serene in the crowd and were calmly hunched together. One of them was taking a bath. I hope they're regulars there because I'm hoping to see them again next time I'm in the neighborhood. So, if any of you come to visit, check out the psychic cats!

Friday, May 27, 2005

Working long hours...Oh wait. I have to update my blog.

Tuesday-Just a quick note as I've been working long hours on the Hetch Hetchy project. We just found out, or really Daryl found out and told me, that our car has a 6 cd changer in it. We had no idea, but hey, nice. And I did drive again to return the rental to Budget, who just started a 5 rental discount offer. Well, thanks, now that we're not going to rent anymore. Lotta good that's going to do us.

Wednesday to Friday-First of all, Hetch Hetchy is pretty. I don't know what Yosemite is like, but this place is very nice. If I were living in SF still, I'd vote to restore it. And now for some disturbing news, I have started going to Starbucks for the soy chai latte. I'm sorry to all those folks who hate their corporate empire, but their soy chai latte is very nice. I justify going there by getting Christian a chocolate drink while I'm there. He loves their chocolate drink, the Chantico. He even got the Starbucks card. I am working at his place, which is only 5 minutes away and the Starbucks is halfway in between. It also gives me an excuse to get Daryl to be my chauffeur and drive me there instead of walking for 20 minutes, because, like, it's like a mile. I am so very lazy. All of my San Francisco muscles are having a break here. In a few months, I'll be like soft jelly. Wait a minute, I'm like that now. Daryl took pity on me and decided to do the cook dinner and do the laundry on Thursday. And then he cleaned the floors on Friday. He is the bestest husband in the world.

Monday, May 23, 2005

Yes, let's hope this is the last car related blog

Monday-Yesterday it was so hot, all we did was look for car insurance. Our damnable slatted windows, I curse you and the fact that you won't allow us to get an air conditioner.

The State Farm website wouldn't give us our insurance card online so we had to wait. I sent Daryl to do it since I had to work yet again. We picked up the car today. When they drove it out to us, the trunk latch was fixed, but there was a weird squeak every time you tapped the accelerator. Daryl did not like the sound of that and it just goes to show you that you should start the car from a cold start without any of the distractions of a blaring radio or air conditioner. (Just like www.edmunds.com says.) Once again we waited for a long time before the mechanic, who was at lunch, came back and fixed the squeak. More New Yorker articles, this time I read about Sonny Rollins. Cool.

So Daryl drove the new car, and I drove (gulp!) the rental back home. I didn't have a nervous breakdown so I think I may be getting used to driving...maybe...anyway I got home in one piece and drove to the grocery store and then parked on the street. Tomorrow I get to drive it again, this time in rush hour traffic to return it to the rental office. And then I get to work a long day for yet another documentary. This one is on the movement to restore the land where the Hetch Hetchy dam is.

Saturday, May 21, 2005

At last...a car...kinda

Saturday-You want to know what I was doing from the 18th to the 20th? I was working like crazy. I'll get you the details of our banal life, without all of the boring waiting around that I have to experience just because I'm living it.

I found three more 2002-03 Mazda Proteges on www.autotrader.com. Actually, I found about 12 more, but they were either sold already, too far away (Who's going to drive 144 miles for a car? Not me, or really, not Daryl.), or without power windows or locks. We looked at the same 2003 Mazda Protege that we saw last time only because I called ahead and they said they had another one on the lot. Liars! We almost went for that one, but I had one last Protege in East LA. It's a 2002, which, by the way, is pretty similar. We (Daryl) drove all of the way over there and test drove the car. They had it running while it was being cleaned so it was already cold from the AC. Daryl liked the way it drove and it had not only power windows and locks, but a moonroof as well. Well, fancy that. The seat belt worked in this one so I was fine with it. Daryl checked out all the switches and discovered the trunk latch didn't work. Minor problem, they said they'd fix it. We were sold, so we went into the dingy little office. They offered us a deal, we said no and then they left for a long time. They offered us another deal, we said no and then they left for a long time. They offered us another deal and we said yes, finally because by this time we'd been waiting for around two hours. I actually read through two articles in The New Yorker before we left. At least they let us sit in the air conditioned office. They were very nice salesmen and I think the fact that some of them didn't speak English actually worked in our favor. Or maybe we've been duped. In any case, we were all happy with the deal and our payments will definitely be under $200 which is what I was working for, and Daryl finally found a car he'd like to drive. We couldn't take the car with us since they had to fix the trunk latch, so we have to pick it up Monday. So we bought a car, but we don't really have it...yet.

By the way, it was scorching hot. Our apartment was very nearly unbearable. We haven't got air conditioning and we can't really get a window unit anyway because our windows are slatted. We have ceiling fans, but heck, we're on the second floor. with a southern exposure. The funny thing is that when we left the apartment it was cooler outside and when we got into the car, which does have AC, we audibly sighed from the relief. Now that's hot. It's funny, our apartment in SF was always cooler than the outside temperature, here it seems that the apartment is hotter than the outside temp.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Fun with Auto Salesmen

Tuesday-On the 10th, I got acupuncture so I don't remember the rest of the day except it probably involved looking for a new (used) car. From the 11th to the 16th I was mostly working with a day off on Sunday so that I wouldn't go insane. Working on a documentary is not lucrative and it's a lot of work. Working on two at the same time is even more work. So I needed that Sunday to veg. But what I probably did is look for cars...again and clean the hardwood floors.

(For info on the two documentaries I was working on, go to www.natural-leaders.com and http://www.freebatteredwomen.org/mariasuarezisfree.htm for the story on Maria Suarez.)

Spent the day looking for a car...again, this time without the benefit of acupuncture and a midday nap. Drove all the way up to Burbank and those Valley regions and it was incredibly annoying. We, and by we, I mean Daryl, test drove three Honda Civics, 2001, 2002, & 2003. (I rode in the passenger seat and turned the interior car lights off and on and checked to see if the seat belts worked. Not a big job, but important in it's own small way... Hey, I gotta look like I'm doing something in the car other than saying, "Is the air conditioning on?" And, wouldn't you know it, one car's seat belt didn't work. So there you go.) We didn't have our loan yet, so all we were doing was seeing what we (Daryl) liked to drive. We told the salesman, nice guy, by the way, that we liked the 2003, but at $15,999, we were going to look elsewhere, since our loan is only for $10,000. He went inside to get his card for us and he was followed out by a guy in a suit asking us to sit with him to figure out a way we could get the 2003 Honda Civic for under $12,000. He did his car salesman math, which I understood, but ignored because a car like that usually goes for around $15,000, not $10,000, I don't care what kind of calculus he's using. Then he asked us if we'd like to have a 72 month payment plan with a monthly payment of around $285. Still, I'm not interested. We, and by we, I mean Daryl, tell him we're still not going to buy a car today. We leave with the salesman's scratch paper of calculations and are in the parking lot heading towards our rental car, when another salesman runs out after us begging us to go back in. I'm serious here, they really wanted to unload that car. We, and by we, I mean Daryl, rebuff him politely and giggle a little in the car. Daryl wanted to see what kind of math gymnastics they'd do to sell us this car.

And we finally, finally found a car that Daryl found worthy of driving. As good as Civics are, Daryl never felt they had that much pick-up (or get up and go). When we tried to go to a Honda dealership, they didn't have any Civics in our range but they suggested a Nissan Sentra and a 2003 Mazda Protege. Daryl drove the Mazda last and got so excited by the car that he looked about ready to pop. Once again, we were going to leave and got stopped by a salesman. The car was going for $10,999, we were told, incorrectly, that it was going for $9,999 and then when we tried, once again to leave, the salesman offered us the car for $8500. We very nearly went for it, but it didn't have power windows or locks so I told Daryl that we should wait until we get the car we like. Now that I know he likes the way this car drives, I want to look at all of the other options available for this type of car.

Oh, and I cleaned the floors again. Hardwood floors require a lot of cleaning. Also, it doesn't help that we have a cat that sheds like the dickens. But now I know what they're talking about in all of those Swiffer ads. What they don't tell you is that it takes about six or seven of those wipes to clean two rooms.

Actually cooked in the new kitchen. By cooking, I mean, something more than heating up frozen food. Made vegetarian Indian food, masoor dal, ghisoda, and brown rice. Found a Indian dessert place nearby and most of their desserts are gluten-free. Score!