Demolition Derby

Thursday, the 29th-Daryl had to work today on the documentary (for no money, btw) so he didn't get home until nearly 6:30p. It had been super hot the past few days and after I cleaned the house I had to take a shower just to cool down. You know it's hot when you take a cold shower and it only kinda cools you down. Anyway, traffic to Pomona was crowded and I wanted to eat at In-N-Out in case the LA County Fair didn't have anything for me to eat. So, when we got to the parking lot it was 8p. It took us 20 minutes to walk from the parking lot to the Grandstand of the fair. They had people on bikes with little chariots hooked up in the back to provide transportation from the lot to the fairgrounds. You had to pay so Daryl and I passed. We missed the first round, but Christian and his date Carmelina were also late so I don't feel like we missed that much. They arrived just as the second round started up and Christian had gone and bought a bag of cotton candy to be shared by all. I realized I was no longer a kid when I started to not want the cotton candy halfway through the bag, and this is while sharing it with three other people. I just can't take that amount of sugar anymore. The derby was just a mud pit surrounded by concrete barriers. They paraded around about 20 cars to be destroyed and there was a prize of about $4000 for whoever lasted the longest. The contenders were a souped up car painted like the American Flag, #70, a serious muscle car painted yellow, #69, another black muscle car, #707, and my favorite, a black station wagon, #99. The numbers were painted on the cars with what looked like graffiti paint and more than a few of them were sponsored by auto parts shops, whose endorsements were also spray painted on like graffiti. The cars had only enough gas for the evening, the better to prevent an explosion, but there were still a few fires. One even started up inside the interior of the car. One was so bad they had to stop the derby for a few minutes while they put the fire out with extinguishers. The crowd was wild over these cars and there were lots of NASCAR fans as well. One guy even said as we walked in, "I like your hat!" Score one for the Pioneer Trucker hat! The Derby was loud and there were a few cars that just stalled right from the get go. There was quite the fight from the cars mentioned above, #70 crashed into #69, #707 also crashed into #69, and then #99 crashed into #707, and so on and so forth. At one point, #69 looked completely dead and the other cars moved on to destroy each other and then #69 came back from the dead and rammed #70. In the end, #707 stalled out, #99 got stuck, and #69 finally got crushed by #70. I was hoping for another round, but apparently that was it for the evening and we all went out to enjoy the fair. Christian even paid for us to all play in the bumper cars, which was fun, even though I could only go backwards for while. Daryl, as we were walking into the fair, said, "Tonight, I'm gonna eat somethin' fried." And he did. He had a corn dog on a stick and a funnel cake the size of a pizza. Christian almost ate a deep fried Twinkie, but Carmelina talked him out of it. He actually had one last year and got really sick later. Too bad, I wanted to see him eat one. Christian also made us get foot massages, which made my feet itch. But I suppose that's what I should expect for $0.25. The LA County Fair is huge, btw. Aside from the Grandstand, there are carnival rides, shopping booths, a large variety of food stalls, and whole restaurants, scattered all over the place, a petting zoo, a whole row of Clydesdales, and an animal section. And I'm not even including the quilting, pottery, and needlepoint galleries. They each took up whole buildings. I'm sorry to say we missed the animals. There's nothing like feeding a goat from your hand. I recommend it to everyone. But they were all asleep by the time we got there. I looked in the pamphlet we got at the gate and I noticed we missed the donut eating contest, too. Darn. While we were there we saw many, many rides which looked really, really dangerous. One ride was basicallly a chance to do some bungee jumping off a crane, one ride was basically being strapped in a gigantic slingshot, and one ride was called the Flyer, where they harness you to a wire then pick you up about 80 ft., then let you swing like a pendulum back and forth. And the clearances here are very slim. You are just about skimming the ground and just missing the huge stadium lights as you swing back and forth. The slingshot one was fun to watch because it was miked. Anything you said was then pushed out of speakers on the ground. There were quite a lot of expletives and screaming. We walked from one end of the fair to the other and then took a chair lift all the way back. It was just like when you go skiing. Next year, I'm going to go to the Monster Truck Rally and the Demolition Derby.

The cat is finally happy

Wednesday, the 28th-Daryl's back! And he's just in time for the Demolition Derby tomorrow. We finally got the Pioneer Trucker hats from his stepfather so we are ready to go. It's a good thing he left to make money, but I was seriously lonely when he was gone. And I walked all the way to Whole Foods and back for some items I forgot and boy, is that ever a long walk, especially when you've got a bag of groceries to haul. I definitely got my exercise when the car was gone.

Stella and Jack and introducing Daniel

Friday, the 23rd-Luckily, Christian had to go to Whole Foods as well, so he decided to let me tag along since I am currently carless. My cousin Stella stopped by today with my other cousin Jack. (Hoon is the name I know him by, but he's decided to make Jack his American name.) They're going to be here for a day then drive up to SF on Saturday, then drive back to LA on Sunday to catch their plane at 6:30p. It's a whirlwind trip. They went up to Malibu to Pepperdine to see yet another cousin, David, then down to Palos Verdes for another cousin, then back up to Malibu to drop off David at Pepperdine. Then they got stuck in traffic heading back to my place, but I tried to get them good directions. We evenually ended up at Hite, a Korean restaurant, which is so Korean there is no English on the menu at all. While there, I met up with Stella's mom, her mom's sister, and her mom's sister's son, Daniel, who goes to UC Riverside. It seems I've got even more cousins than I realized. After dinner, we, which includes, Daniel, Stella, Jack and I, went to In-N-Out so that I could eat a real meal since the restaurant barely understood the whole gluten thing. Jack had never been to an In-N-Out and his sole goal in visiting was to finally eat at one. Afterwards, we went to a bar called Rainbow on the Sunset Strip. It seemed to be populated by a great variety of people wearing leather, with eyeliner and 80's metal hair. But apparently they're all friendly drunks. There was also a contingent of people that were smoking a variety of substances and drinking beer, so it kind of made me curious what kind of evening they were looking for. The bar was located outside, under an awning so people could legally smoke. It reminded me of Chicago bars. After last call, we drove home and Stella and Jack slept at my place. Although I'm not the bar-hopping type, let alone an alcohol drinker, it was still fun to catch up with my cousins and meet a new one.

Daryl leaves for SF

Thursday, the 22nd-Daryl decided to go to SF to work. The IATSE up there is desperate for people to work the Green Day Concert. I am happy that he's going to actually make money this month, but sad that I won't be going with him. He leaves so suddenly we have no time to restock the house while he's gone and the fridge is mostly empty. But I don't want to distract him so I decide to walk to the store later in the week. The cat is oblivious to everything. But when Daryl doesn't show up when it's time to go to bed she paces throughout the house looking for him. I think she's pissed.

Spending most of the AM in bed hurts the back

Saturday, the 17th-Was so very sad for most of the day I didn't even get out of bed. Daryl was worried about me. But I had a thought, is it better to be sad and poor, or happy and poor? I think happy and poor is better. Daryl applied to yet another company on the internet, which he thinks will lead nowhere. I sent him the contact info of a guy that does sound restoration work so we'll see if Daryl actually tried to contact him. I am working, but even if I work every day until the end of the month it won't be enough. Things are very, very bad moneywise and I was sad because it means that I will, at some point, have to call my family members and ask them for money. Not. Fun. At. All. I did email my sister for her birthday, though. But I didn't ask her for money. That would be just tacky on your birthday. Luckily, Maurissa stopped by and ended the gloom. We went to her place later that day, because she forgot her writing notes at our place. It was a good thing anyway because Daryl forgot to tape Survivor and luckily Maurissa did. I am starting up another 12 week weight training program (This will be the 5th time through.) and this time I'm really going to try and use the 8 lbs. weights. My shoulders are huge anyway, from fat, so I thought why not try and make it muscly instead. But I also want to increase my strength, I mean, I can't even pick up my new wok with one hand. It's a little embarrassing.

First LA Game Night

Thursday, the 15th-Today was our first offical game night. Maurissa showed up and Daryl, once again, bought tons of soda and cheese, which we ate, not Maurissa. Other people were supposed to show, but didn't and for a minute I felt like I did in high school when no one would come to my birthday party. But Maurissa is so much fun I didn't care. We played Yahtzee, which I surprisingly won, and Trivial Pursuit, which Daryl won in a very close game. I should mention that Maurissa gave me some plants which I hope very much not to kill. The "cold" season is coming up and I hope the basil survives. For the time being, the neighborhood cats really like the catnip. Oh and I almost forgot Christian has invited us to go to a Demolition Derby. He says we should all wear trucker hats. I can't wait.

Struck by lightning

Wednesday, the 14th-I've been actually working for money these days so I'm in a little bit of a better mood, although I did get a call from my mother which destroyed me for Sunday so it wasn't all jumping for joy for me. Today I woke up after yet another nightmare, this time where I get struck by lightning in my home, which wasn't actually my home, but whatever. I woke up thinking, "I'm paralyzed!" and I swear I actually felt pain shooting through my belly. I finally realized it was a dream, but I did test to see if I could lift my arm and then I realized I had to pee. Man, if this keeps happening I may just start waking up everyday at 4a, just to avoid the nightmares.

Christian's back

Wednesday, the 7th-Christian's back in town. I stopped by to work some more on that tutorial, which I can't seem to get any headway on. In fact, at one point it crashed on me and I lost all of the changes I had done. I had to leave the room at that point. Daryl was away working on the documentary and I was sneezing like crazy at Christian's. I got so mad I took some Benadryl and got really sleepy an hour later and couldn't concentrate on the tutorial. At that point, Christian was deep into trying to install a new battery in his car and he didn't have the right tools so I got a ride back to my place to pick up tools that I knew we had. Although I had to get Daryl to explain where everything was. Everything worked out in the end and his new battery worked just fine, although he refused to put the heat shield back on since it wouldn't fit. Then he started to unload his van from Burning Man which was coated inside and out with fine, dusty sand. Every time he'd take out another box of stuff and dump it on the lawn, you could see a cloud of the dusty sand poof up into the air. It was like watching Pigpen in real life. He had his friend TJ, who also went to Burning Man helping him unload. And he also had a friend from Chicago visiting, too, Leslie. Her hair was so tangled from the previous week at Burning Man that she thought she'd just leave it that way and try dreadlocks. Everyone was still trying to decompress from the week and get back to civilization. I hope that Burning Man refreshed Christian. He says that it always perks him up for the rest of the year. As for me and Daryl, we've totally emptied out our fridge so I made him go shopping with me. We hadn't gone since his mom came to visit two weeks ago. We still have the Costco food (tons of meat in the freezer and some frozen vegetables), just not a lot of anything else. He came home late from working on the doc and by the time we finished shopping and cooking food it was time to go to bed.

Gwen

Tuesday, the 6th-First of all, let me just say that Hurricane Katrina was awful and that the response that the victims got was the inevitable result of a government that subsidizes corporations, cuts taxes for the rich, but continues to cut the budgets of agencies that are primarily there to help the helpless, the poor, and the infirm. I kept watching the news on the internet waiting to see if things would improve and they didn't for a very long time. And when a journalist wrote that our government's response to the tragedy was shameful I had to agree. I mean, this is America. What kind of country are we when we can't even take care of our own? There's a lot more to be said about this, but the journalists I've read have been so much more eloquent about it, so if you want to read some really good editorials about it, go read the editorials from Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd in the New York Times, or www.nytimes.com if you're a member. When we first moved to LA, we met a lovely lady named Gwen, who was evicted from the little bungalow she'd been living in for about 30 years. She told us of her plans to move back home to New Orleans to take care of her elderly father. Well, you can imagine how we felt when we found out that she didn't go to Burning Man, but that she stayed behind to help her dad. There was a listing on craigslist New Orleans about her. No one had heard from her since the hurricane hit. I was at Christian's vainly trying to learn another program from the tutorial book I'd been reading when I heard the phone ring. Now normally, I won't answer Christian's phone while he's gone, but for some reason I answered this one and it was Gwen. She was in North Carolina in a refugee center and she was trying to reach Christian. He was still driving back from Burning Man, but I thought she might be able to reach him on his cell phone. She got separated from her dad and is currently still looking for him. She lost everything she had and she doesn' know what happened to her pets. Eventually, I think she will move back to LA. I hope so. She's a really sweet person. Also, we got to see Maurissa's ImprovOlympic show, Emperor Penguin, with her friend Josh. And then we went to play pool, or really everyone else played pool and I watched.

Non-Labor Day

Monday, the 5th-Well, it's Labor Day and neither Daryl nor I have any actual real labor, or to be honest, real money-earning labor, but we did relax today. Daryl will continue to work on the movie as long as he continues to get the music and audio from the composer and editor, but I think it's taking a toll as the facility Daryl's using is getting a little antsy about the whole "no money" job thing. I tried to do some more tutorials at Christian's but got distracted and organized his CDs instead. Is this a problem? Although I do have to say that it's nice that we finally finished playing Myst IV. It's basically all we did Saturday and Sunday. It makes me sad that there aren't going to be anymore Myst games like that for a long time. They made another game, but it seems to be not as much fun and you actually have to create an avatar, which seems beside the point for me. And then I found out they had to fire everyone because they have no money. So, I guess it'll be while before we get any new Myst games without avatars. In the meantime, I've been keeping up with Red Vs. Blue and I can't help feeling it's getting better and better.

What is up with the nightmares?

Saturday, the 3rd-And of course, I have another bad dream. I dreamt I was pregnant and I went through all of the pregnancy except the baby was born at 7 months. The nightmare part of this dream was that the baby had a 50-50 chance of surviving. Let me tell you that is not the sort of thing that puts a smile on your face in the morning. Daryl has been playing Myst IV while I've been at Christian's and now I'm hooked. He was trying to play it while I was gone so I wouldn't get obsessed with it, but I came home before he could shut it down. Now I'm obsessed and we've played it all day today.

A nightmare is a road trip with your mom

Friday, the 2nd-No word on work possiblities and I'm still keeping an eye on Christian's place. Today the cleaning lady came and I couldn't find the parking permit anywhere. In which case we usually just move Christian's car out of the garage so she can park. Well, that would work if the car worked. It was dead. And so it turns out that she had to park in a neighbor's spot with a note in case the neighbor came home and wanted to park. It was pretty funny, looking for the parking permit. There were 5 grocery bags full of paper and mail and such that I went through to find the permit, which turned out to be at Burning Man with Christian. I actually organized the mail and paper and had to put them in catagories by year, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005. And this is not even all of the piles of paper that were laying around here. At one point, I found his tax return from the year 2000. I also found unopened mail from 1999. So there was quite a bit of paper to sift through. I hope he doesn't mind, but I just couldn't help myself. I did find it ironic that there was a flyer from a company that organizes your home for you. Heck, I'd do it for free because I'm insane. And speaking of insane, I had a dream later that night where I was in a van with my mother and my "brother", Michael, who was someone who I'd never met before. It was night and we were driving down a road that had a rocky cliff to one side of the road that fell down to the coast, and at one point we tried to manuver like we were in a Hummer over some very large boulders. We eventually got to a seedy hotel and there were people there with axes who were attacking other people. They seemed like normal, non-zombie-like people, just homicidal. They surrounded me. One of the homicidal axe-wielding people, a young girl with short brown hair in what looked like a flannel nightgown, turned to one of the other homicidal axe-wielding people and said, "If this is hell, I like it." Which was incredibly creepy. My "brother" Michael then grabbed me and said that my left side was paralyzed. I repeated it, screaming. And then I woke up, I think, trying to scream, "My left!" But it probably came out more like a moan. And while it may have woken me up it wasn't nearly loud enough to wake up Daryl, who was sound asleep the whole time. I even told him I had had a bad dream and he said not to feel scared because he would protect me. Later on, when we were both awake he had no memory of that conversation. And I think the moral of the story here is to not go on road trips with your mother in a van along the coastline because you may end up the victim of a group of homicidal axe-wielding people.