A Horrible Warning

SoCal Girl at Heart

I've lived in Sacramento for 14 years this month. I turned 20 a few days after moving up here, so it has been the vast majority of my adult life. And it won't be long before it is half of my TOTAL life.

I've been watching news coverage and reading the newspaper about all of the awful fires in Southern California. I'm very lucky in that the area I grew up in does not have any fires (so far). Both my parents and my sister's family live in the south part of LA County, not far from Long Beach. So far they are essentially surrounded by fire ravaged areas, but they are all at least 30 miles away.

However, my sister's best friend's husband, the godfather of my nieces, is a firefighter who has been assigned to a strike team. My childhood best friend lives in Orange County, not far from the Santiago Canyon fire. Another childhood friend's father is (was?) a firefighter in the San Bernardino Mountains.

Mostly, though, as much as I live as a proud Sacramentan, I am still a SoCal girl. A SoCal girl who wants the fire to stay away from the people and places that still feel like home. A SoCal girl who has her fingers crossed that no one else loses their home, or dies.

And this SoCal girl? Has always hated the fucking Santa Ana winds. Never more than now. 

Evidence

First of all, hi!! Do I have any readers left?

Second of all, I will answer the obvious questions. No, I have not been gone for any good reason at all, other than I suck (and that's really not a good reason at all, is it?). No, I haven't fallen down since last we spoke (that development would have forced me to post because a blogger does not truly fall until the internets have been told about it). I have been to 2 physical therapy appointments, 1 doctor's appointment and 1 orthodontist's appointment, but sadly no one at any of these venues saw any part of either one of my boobs. And lastly: why yes, I did officially grow old in my long absence.

Exactly how old, you ask? 34 big ones, baby. I have been trying to explain to people who are either younger than 34 or older than 34, but not exactly 34, all day why this particular number tips the scales of old...and I find that the only answer I have is that it just DOES. The place that each of us eventually hit in which we say to ourselves, "when did I get so fucking old?" comes at different times for every individual. I think for me it's just that the thread between how old I am and how old I feel has finally been worn so thin that it snapped. Along with my sanity. I can no longer reconcile feeling 25 since I am vast approaching that 10 year chasm (and 35, that vile birthday that has it's decaying breath and a small amount of drool working its way down my neck, is such an ugly number...this one I can explain: it has been the traditional decline of fertility in this country and that makes me very nervous).

So, how about a list to bring some more cheer to your day? Here goes:

Evidence That I am, in Fact, Cresting That Bitch, the Hill (and that I've moved on from overuse of parentheses to overuse of commas! And random capitalization!)

~ My memory is going: when I went to LA, I may have forgotten to pack underwear. And this is not the first time folks.

~ When I went to Victoria's Secret to take advantage of their 5 for $25, I allowed my niece to pick out a particularly bright pair of floral boy shorts for me. AKA granny panties.

~ I spent the afternoon in my doctor's office today, my birthday, because my hip continues to bother me. Only time will tell how long it will be before I need a damn replacement. Or a cane.

~ Today I saw a kid in an old Chevy truck peel around a corner and fishtail a bit and had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming, "damned teenager! I'm calling 911! What's your mother's cell number?"

~ In that same vein, this evening I was sitting in the Personal Learning Environment (that's community college for library), attempting to finish up my homework in the last 45 minutes before class (some procrasinators never change), when I found myself giving several dirty looks to the clueless little chick at the table across from me that would just not use her inside voice.I finally got up in a huff, gathered my considerable pile of crap, and locked myself in one of the group project rooms for some fucking peace already. I used to do homework while watching TV and talking on the phone, and I got A's (California's quality public school system at work, folks). Now, notsomuch. However, I can comfort myself in the knowledge that at least I didn't get up and flick her in the head and threaten to tell the PLE monitor (or whatever the hell you call that useless guy over yonder).

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Before I mislead you guys into believing that this has been a bad birthday, I should tell you that I had a fabulous weekend full of sleeping in, group pedicures, trips to the ranches of Apple Hill, cooking EB fried chicken (and subsequently smoking him out of my living room, which was (almost) the highlight of my evening), and lots of sleeping in. Also, this morning I was greeted by chocolate chocolate chip muffin tops, coffee cake, and copious Bath and Bodyworks products.

Alas, my birthday is officially over, and I'm officially late for bed. So I will leave you with one thing about me that is still kinda young:

The black polish is what I'm referring to. But I'm proud of the shoes, too.

Parenthetically Speaking

Lori's latest post is all about blogging and pet peeves. One thing she mentioned was overuse of parentheses in the world of blogs.

This made me look at my own nasty habit. It is way out of control.

Particularly in my last post, which I wrote right before I read Lori's.

I counted 12 parentheticals in it. 12! Oh, and one of them had a parenthetical within a parenthetical (honestly, I kinda enjoy doing that), which probably makes the technical total 13.

Does that seem overmuch?

Wait, don't answer that. Also, don't look too hard at all the sentence fragments. It might tear a whole in the space/time continuum. Or shatter my delusions of proper sentence structure and grammar. Either/or.

Can't Take Me Anywhere

Ask anyone who knows me for reals...you really can't take me anywhere.

EB and Bree...oh, and my family...know, and are thoroughly entertained by, this in spades.

Don't believe me?

Yeah, of course you do. Duh. But I will give you some examples anyway.

Example the first: Last Friday I was rolling on fumes on my way home from work. Since I had to get off the freeway to get to my cheap gas station, I figured I may as well stop at the grocery store. OK, I was craving some Kraft 3 Cheese Macaroni (yes, that shit will turn my insides orange, and I DON'T CARE) and had a few other things I wouldn't mind stocking up on. One of those was chocolate milk (I've probably mentioned this before, but I will say it again...our coach says that chocolate milk is great for recovery because of a 4 to 1 ratio of carbs to protein (don't believe me? Maybe you will believe science) and also it is tasty).

So I walked my ass to the back of the store like you do. You know, because they keep the milk case there. When I opened the big glass door, I noticed that the first carton was all wet and sticky (and not in the good way, but more in a bovine product kind of way, which is much less sexy, don'cha know?), so I lifted it out and held it away from the case so that I could retrieve the second, more dry-like carton. Apparently the first carton was more wet than sticky because the damn thing slid out of my hand and landed splat on the floor. And I'm sure you're already imagining the glugging of the brown bovine product all over the damn place. That cap thing they put in the side nowadays? Either fell clean out or was not there in the first place.

Jeeeezuz. Yep, that's what I said in front of several people, all the while my head darting to and fro in a frantic and futile search for someone, anyone to know what the fuck to do. This happens in your house, you still say "Jeeeezuz," but you also scram quick to the kitchen and get some fucking paper towels already. In the middle of a busy market? Uh, apparently I don't have a clue. But the people around me were staring at me as if I should. Why yes random shoppers, I DO have some paper towels...I'm always prepared for any milk emergency that may arise.

Of course I ran away. That was the only course of action that did not completely gross me out (the options of either taking off my shirt and mopping it up with that or lapping it up with my tongue like a crazed chocolate milk loving puppy having been quickly crossed off my list). I figure that righting the carton (to stop the glugging, naturally) and telling the cashier (who, incidentally, was super excited to make her coworker clean it up 3 minutes before his rotation in that area ended) satisfied what was required of me given the circumstances.

Example the second: As I was leaving Bree's house after our run on Saturday (a run in which my hip swelled again, and in compensating I strained an ass muscle, which was totally awesome), I was trying to hoist all of my crap into my car without my soggy ass (we stood in the frigid river for 20 minutes after to aid in muscle and ass recovery) dripping on the upholstery and managed to dump the entire contents of my purse all over the passenger side floorboard (I found a baggy of stinky cheese in my purse today that I had completely forgotten about, if that gives you any indication of how voluminous the crap in my purse is).

So I very loudly exclaimed, "sonofabitch!!!" Naturally, one of Bree's nice older neighbors was happening by at the moment. So I very quietly said I was sorry.

Yep, that's it.

Example the last (no, not really...there are, and will be, countless more): While I was driving into work today, I was munching on a granola bar (stupid side story: tonight I bought no fewer than 7 boxes of various snacky bars...I had to clear a large portion of shelf in my laundry room to accomodate them all) and singing along with the little bit of the new Foo Fighters disc that I have learned (OMG, it is awesome...if I wasn't already totally in love with Dave Grohl before, I surely would be now). Since I was totally multitasking, when I felt the packaging on the bar rip a bit, I wasn't sure if wound up in my mouth or not. You know, because I had to watch the ass of the person in front of me to avoid becoming part of it.

I had awful visions of choking on that thin metal-y substance, or worse yet, having it cause a bowel obstruction. I'd be checking my dookie for days. So what did I do to avoid this?

Yep, I pulled a "see food" in the rear view.

Bowel obstruction averted.