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I turn 31 today, which for some reason is scarier to me than when I turned 30. I’m not sure why it’s scary, but it is. (95% of my friends are older than me, and they’re probably all scoffing while reading this, but you know you felt this way too once upon a time!)I know things don’t always work out the way you plan (Hello! My job!), but I still feel like I’m behind in the grand scheme of life. I’m 31 and have no kids, no job, and no house (technically, since we’re just renting). I know it’s not a competition or a race, but it still feels like I’m missing out.
The funny part is that despite the fact that I feel like I’m behind, and that I’m unemployed, I have never been happier. I have awesome friends and family, and an amazing man who loves me more than I ever thought anyone could. I have the time to do the things I want to do, like learning to cook, planting flowers, and line dancing. I am just plain happy.
I was taking a FREE line dancing class at a nearby senior center every Monday for the past month and a half. A little over a week ago I got an e-mail from the instructor informing me that someone had actually complained that I was not old enough to be in the class, and therefore I was not allowed to come back. Apparently, you need to be 50 to enter the senior center. (Might I point out that 50 isn’t even technically a senior citizen? Oh, sorry. Logic need not apply here.) I was angry at first, because it’s just a stupid rule. If the class was full, and I was taking a spot from an actual senior, then I might understand it a little. But the class isn’t even half full, and while I’m a large woman, I’m not so big that I take up more than my share of space. I wonder if it were a fee-based class would I still be kicked out? In that case I’d be providing money to the center, so I’m actually helping them, rather than using up their precious air for free. Now, I think it’s funny. I got kicked out of a line dance class because I’m not old enough. At 31.
I have years and years to buy a house, find a job, and have kids. I need to keep reminding myself of that. Because while I feel like I’m getting old, I guess I’m still not old enough for some things.
Last Thursday morning we piled into the car and headed off to the Colorado River for the first trip of the season. The river is one of my favorite places to be, and I had been looking forward to this trip for a long time. Normally we’re on the California side at Big River staying in a 5th wheel, but for this trip we tent camped up on the Arizona side at Buckskin Mountain State Park.
 I am not a fan of tent camping. I’m a bit of a princess in this aspect. But this was not the tent camping I expected. There were clean restrooms and showers close to the site, electrical hookups in every cabana (which is a little like a carport with some shelves for your stuff), and running water easily accessible. Everyone brought air mattresses, and Kathy & JG brought a mini-fridge for food, so it’s not like we were roughing it.
By mid-afternoon we were all unpacked, had the tents and canopies set up, and were ready to relax and hang out. We drove into Parker for a delicious dinner at El Sarape, one of the only Mexican restaurants I actually like eating at. The food is always good, but the service is usually terrible. Thankfully, it was a Thursday night on a quiet weekend, so we had no problems with the service at all. The food was good, as usual, and the company was great. We spent the rest of the night hanging out and chatting before going to bed.
Due to the sun, and the loudmouth birds nearby, we were awake by 7am on Friday morning. Those of you who know me well know that this is not my best time of day. I was cranky and tired, but I think I hid it well. We lazed around for part of the morning, and then packed the coolers and headed out to the boats. At this point there were 12 people in our group, and 4 boats. This was more than a little amusing to me. It worked out well that we had extra boats, however, as Jen and Red’s boat had some problems and had to be brought back and tied up. We drove up to Parker Dam and floated most of the way down river. We eventually ended up at the south dam where we anchored and hung out for a few hours. I’d never seen this part of the river before, as there’s a dam in between Big River and Parker Strip, and we’re usually south of it. Parker Strip is really busy and crowded, and kind of made me miss the (relative) quiet of Big River. We did have fun hanging out there, however. My friends are quite entertaining when they’re drunk. When we got back, we took turns playing Beans (just a simple bean bag toss game, that everyone is quite competitive about) and then settled down to eat dinner. Kathy & JG had purchased a brand new barbecue just for this trip, and on the drive there it managed to jump out of the back of the truck, missing both the truck and the boat they towed behind them, without making a sound. I still contend that a band of Fast & the Furious type barbecue thieves drove up next to them, lifted out the barbecue and drove off without notice. Sadly, I think the gust of wind theory is more likely. So they bought another barbecue and we all shared it for dinner. The food was delicious (it’s amazing how tasty a barbecued burger can be when you’re outdoors) and we spent the rest of the night just sitting around the fire pit making s’mores and waiting for the rest of our friends to arrive. (It took them 6 hours to make a 3 hour trip.) They finally arrived at around 1am, and I went to bed, though a bunch of them stayed up and were loud for a while longer.
Saturday was much like Friday. We were up at the crack of dawn (in my world) and drove down river to one of the many food places that you can dock your boat at. We had a nice breakfast and then went back to camp to pack the coolers for another day on the river. I discovered I failed Sunscreen 101 on Friday, when I saw that my foot had visible finger marks on it where I had put the sunscreen. Apparently I forgot to rub it in. I also missed a stripe on my inner arm, so that was a lovely shade of pink as well. I rock. I made sure to fix those lovely mistakes on Saturday, and ended the weekend with a light tan (which for my fair skin, was exactly what I wanted). The water was colder than I liked, so I spent much of the time alternating between sitting on the boat getting fried, and standing in the water trying not to shiver. When we got back to camp Saturday night, we barbecued steaks and chicken for dinner (and by “we” I mean everyone else did. Donald was tired and went to bed before we had dinner, so I just ate some of the chicken and salad that Kathy put in front of me). We passed the rest of the night around the fire pit, watching Claudia create a huge fire.
Sunday morning came early again, and most everyone was gone by 9. It seemed like such a waste of a day to me, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Donald and I stayed to help Kathy & JG pull their boat out of the water, and the 4 of us left Buckskin around 11. We all had a really great weekend, and I’m looking forward to spending many more weekends at the river this summer.
Big thanks to Kathy & JG for letting everyone hang out on their boat all weekend, for feeding me on Saturday night, and for just being great friends. You guys are awesome!
- I started taking line dancing classes twice a week. I am having a blast and a half. Everyone there is wonderful and helpful and just so damn nice. It’s a great way to kill some time (and exercise!) while I’m out of work.
- My Ontario Reign didn’t make the playoffs this year. It was a fun hockey season though, and we became pretty good friends with the people in our section. I’m already looking forward to next year.
- My LA Kings, however, made the playoffs for the first time since 2002! I’m cautiously optimistic about their chances this year. I’m not sure we’ll make it to see a live playoff game, but you can bet I’ll be planted in front of the TV for them!
- My Anaheim Angels (no, I will not call them the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, because that’s the DUMBEST NAME EVER) started their season yesterday, and for the first time in my life, I was at the opening day game. It was awesome. We were two rows off the field, within shouting distance of Bobby Abreau. The Angels defeated the Twins 6-3, and the new halo was lit for the first time!
- I bought this to start keeping a record of all the new dishes that I cook. I love it. I’ve written most of the things I’ve made so far, as well as entered things I want to make in the future. It’s far easier than having a ton of loose pages of printed out recipes floating around my kitchen.
- I joined a book club of sorts, and am halfway through the first book, entitled “The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion. I’m not going to lie, I don’t really like the book so far. But I’m going to keep at it because I’m hoping it gets better.
- I’m ditching my old (pre-3G) iPhone & AT&T this week in favor of a Motorola Droid and Verizon. I am so SO happy about this. The only negative about this move is that I can’t play Bejeweled Blitz from my phone anymore. I guess I’ll have to go back to playing online.
- I’ve discovered a slew of new (to me) blogs to read lately, and find myself spending a huge amount of time reading and thinking about different ideas and issues. This has also given me some ideas on how I want to improve my own blog and will hopefully prompt me to write a bit more often.
- In that same vein, I’m currently looking for some voice recognition software that I can use on my phone, because I’ve been spending a lot of time in my car (the line dance classes aren’t really near me) and I swear my best blog posts are written while I’m driving.
I think that’s it. What have you been up to lately?
I want to thank everyone for the great e-mails and comments of support. It really does mean a lot to me.
One of the first things I was worried about after losing my job (aside from the complete lack of income and my desire to stay fed and sheltered) was figuring out what to do with myself and all my free time. I didn’t just want to sit on the couch and watch TV while feeling sorry for myself. I also didn’t want to gain a whole bunch of weight by not being active. So I’ve made a schedule for myself. I make a mental list everyday of things I want to get done. Exercise, cleaning, running errands, writing letters or postcards, whatever it takes to stay busy. Last week I decided to start learning to cook. I made Challah (Jewish bread) from scratch, and it looked and tasted awesome (if I do say so myself). I’ve also made meat loaf and mashed potatoes from scratch, and both turned out to be fantastic. I’ve always collected cookbooks, as if that would somehow make me a good cook, and now I’m finally getting to use them. It turns out that I really like to cook (and based on the comments I got when I posted that info on Facebook, everyone who knows me has a cracked jaw right about now). I’m just not all that fond of the cleaning up part. I keep trying to learn to clean as I go, but I get frustrated when I clean and put away things that I take back out 5 steps later. Measuring cups for example. Do you have any idea how many times you have to measure things while cooking? People on the Food Network never seem to measure anything, and I sure hope someday I can get to that point. Because I’m pretty sure my measuring cups are going to fall apart at any moment.
Aside from cooking, I now have time to do all sorts of fun stuff that I was always too busy to do before. A couple weeks ago I helped my sister set up her classroom before school started. This is her fourth year of teaching, but only the first year I’ve been able to help her, since my work hours and her school hours were always the same. (I’d like to take a brief moment to thank all the teachers I had over the years for all the work they did to get things together before we all showed up and destroyed everything. I had no idea how much work went into getting a classroom ready to be taught in. Also, if you’d like to show your appreciation for your local teachers, try donating to their classrooms. I know they can use anything they can get, especially since they’re still using the same text books that I had when I was in elementary school. I’m 30 now, and somehow I think there’s probably more updated material they could be using if they had the money. Seriously.) Jen and Mom and I got a lot of work done while we were there, and I finally got to see all of the fun toys she’s been talking about for the last 4 years. I’m not ashamed to say that I had a lot of fun testing out some of the toys to make sure that they were safe for the kids. Or something.
Last week I also got to have a full day date with my Dad, which is something I can’t remember ever getting to do. We started off with lunch and then drove out to Los Angeles and the Griffith Park Observatory. It’s been a LONG time since I’d been there, but it’s still just as entertaining and educational as it was when I was a kid. It’s also normally a beautiful spot to take pictures from, but since there are huge fires not too far away, it was really smoky, and also really hot. We caught a show inside the Planetarium which talked about the earth and the universe, and constellations. The mythology of the constellations has always interested me, so I enjoyed the presentation immensely. Dad enjoyed a nap instead. Then we drove down to the Dresden restaurant (as seen in Swingers) and had a fantastic dinner. The Dresden, along with several other restaurants in the area, provides a “Dine & Ride” package if you’re going to see a concert at the Greek Theater, which is right down the hill from Griffith Park, and right up the street from The Dresden. The Greek Theater is known for it’s horrific parking, so we took advantage of the Dine & Ride shuttle service to catch The Pretenders at the Greek. I’d never seen The Pretenders before, but I knew a few songs and liked them, so I was excited to go. The first opening act was Juliette Lewis (yes, the actress) and her band. Juliette was energetic to the point of being spastic, and while she seemed to love what she was doing, she’s not really quite that talented in the musical arena (Read: She. Was. Awful.) I could not wait for whoever the second band would be, just to get Juliette off the stage. Karma, however, kicked me right in the ass for making such a wish. Cat Power was the next band, and where I once thought Juliette was awful, I thought she was phenomenal in comparison to Cat Power. Every single song they played sounded exactly the same: slow and drawn out. And while their name is Cat Power, the songs sounded very much like a recording of a cat in heat, only with the player running low on batteries, therefore stretching the moaning out into long horrible sounds. They did a few cover songs (if you can even call it that) that we only recognized from the lyrics. “Thunder only happens when it’s raining” is a pretty recognizable phrase, and it took me a full 3 minutes of hearing the “song” before I even had a clue as to what it was. By the end of the set, people were shouting at the stage “Play something good!” and mimicking slashing their wrists. In the blissful pause between the end of Cat Power’s set and the beginning of The Pretenders, the only conversation that could be heard in the entire amphitheater was about how bad that was, and how so many people wanted to leave. Dad predicted that there would be more energy in The Pretenders first 3 notes, than in Cat Power’s 11 whole songs, and I’m pleased to say he was totally right. The Pretenders came on with a bang, and didn’t let the energy stop for the entire time they were there. I only knew 4 of their songs, but they were so good that I enjoyed the whole show. Chrissy Hind was amazing. The woman is 58 (as of yesterday. Happy Belated Birthday!) and was bouncing around the stage in killer high heel boots playing guitar like no ones business. As a 30-year old who can’t walk on flat ground in sneakers without tripping, I was impressed with her guitar playing in those kick ass boots. The show was awesome, and I’d happily see them again. All in all the day was great. I was glad to spend some time with my Dad, even if it did include a smoky day, and a horrible band. The rest was worth it.
Lots of things have happened over the past 3 months, so I’ll give you a quick recap:
- Donald and I finally moved everything in to the new house, and we’re 90% unpacked. We have a few boxes still waiting to find a home (you know that stuff that you don’t want to throw out or give away, but you don’t really have a place for it either?) but everything else is pretty much done. We redid the planter in the backyard (a disaster story for another day) and I finally planted flowers! Some of them look awesome, and others…well let’s just say I’ll be replacing them when the temps cool down a little bit.
- I turned 30 on May 17th and hated every single second of it. I fought it all the way until the night before when a friend said “So you’re 30 now, huh?” I calmly replied “I am 29 for 4 more hours, thank you very much.” I’m not sure why I hated turning 30 so passionately. Maybe it’s because I thought I’d be in a different place in life, or because I’d always (stupidly, yes) considered 30 old. But I’m over that now, and am embracing my 30-ness. (The fact that I am the youngest of my friends, save one, helps me get past my hangups)
- Donald and I took a 9 day vacation in June/July and it was wonderful. We spent 2 days in Arizona visiting three of my best friends (and watching the Angels pound on the Diamondbacks) and then spent Donald’s birthday and the 4th of July out at the river for the rest of our vacation. I love the river. It’s relaxing and fun, and such a great time. Lots of our friends were out there that week, so I did quite a bit of socializing while being lazy. Two of our friends, who we seem to only see during the summer, were there with their 3 boys, and man did they all get cuter over the past year (the boys, not the parents). I had a great time playing with their kids, as well as watching Donald’s newest nephew enjoy his first river trip. (He was 3.5 months on the trip, but seriously looks like he’s 6 or 7 mos. He’s a beefy baby!) We also had the sad experience of watching a fire very close to where we were staying, as it burned on the opposite side of the river. I’d never seen a fire that close before, and it was a little unnerving. But they managed to put it out before it could jump to our side, so we still have a vacation spot to go to.
Aside from all that, I’ve just been working, reading, setting up the house, and spending time with friends. I love our new house, and am very content to stay home curled up on the couch watching a movie, rather than going out and being social.
What have you been up to?
Four years ago my Grampa went into the hospital, and none of us thought he'd ever go home again. The cancer was making it impossible to eat, and he was getting worse by the day. It was a few weeks before my wedding, and we were already sure he wouldn't be able to make it to see me get married. I went in to visit him, and he didn't know who I was. I didn't think anything could have hurt me more. They told me it was the morphine he was on, and that in between doses he was fully aware of what was happening and who everyone was. But the morphine made him forget and hallucinate. Moments later he mimed eating oatmeal because he really thought it was there. I suppose that should have made me feel better, because it really was the morphine and not his memory going. But the pain never went away. I cannot imagine what the family and friends of Alzheimer patients have to deal with. I know I'm just not strong enough to deal with that kind of hurt.
They said he was getting worse, and when I left for my honeymoon, I was sure I'd never see Grampa again. But he made it. And the medicine began to shrink the tumor in his esophagus. He went home a while later, and while he never got back to his full pre-hospital health, he had a great two and a half years, before he started getting worse again.
On Friday I got a call from my mom telling me what I'd hoped to hear for almost a year. Grampa was almost gone, and it was finally time to say goodbye for good. His quality of life had been so awful during the last year, that it's hard for me to feel guilt about wanting it to be over for him. It was so painful to watch him struggle to eat, to breathe, to walk. Saturday I went to see what was left of him. It wasn't my Grampa. It looked like him, but the important parts were missing. The twinkle in his eye, the laughter in his voice, the strength in his face. All of that had been gone for a while, and all that remained was the shell of the man he'd once been.
He died in his sleep early Sunday morning. After the majority of the family had come to say goodbye. I am relieved and miserable all at the same time. He's no longer in pain, and that makes dealing with the loss a tiny bit easier for me. But the pain is still intense. I think part of me still clung to the hope that he would miraculously get better, despite every single sign pointing to the opposite. It's hard to believe and accept that your Grampa will die, no matter how obvious it is. The worst part right now, for me, is that I can't remember him healthy. I can't get past the frail old man he'd become and remember the healthy strong man he was. If someone says "Remember when…" I can remember the situation, but the image of him is of the sick man, not the healthy one, despite the fact that he was healthy at the time of the memory. I know that will pass in time, but right now it hurts more than anything. I'd give anything to have a memory of him being healthy.
I love you, Grampa. I'm so glad you're not suffering anymore, and are no longer in pain.
Ignoring the fact that the picture is slightly out of focus because my phone camera sucks, are those not the prettiest keys you've ever seen? I had no idea that they made keys with designs on them! I was like a kid in a candy store when we went to get key copies made at Lowe's last night. There were so many options! I settled on the Hawaiian design for the pool key, and the Dragonfly (which I can't find online) for my gate key. Since they're changing all our locks on the house, we just got generic silver keys made, which seems so sad and dull in comparison to the other keys. But fear not, dear friends! Once the house has been re-keyed, a glorious new designer key shall be made, and the house key will no longer be the drab generic key on a ring of fabulousness!
Also, I think I've lost my mind. But at least I've not lost my keys!
So after all that whining last Wednesday about not finding a house, Thursday we found one. We were actually pretty familiar with it, as it's 2 streets over from where Donald lives now. It had been for sale for AGES, but was always outside our price range. When it came up on a website we'd been looking at for rentals, we called right away and made an appointment to see it. It's exactly what I wanted. I walked in and felt right at home. Donald was running late, so I did a walk through on my own, and it was all I could do not to skip through the house. It's lovely. 2500 SF, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, an office, a loft, and a decent sized fully concreted backyard, with pretty planters along the back wall (so now I have to learn something about flowers. And gardening. And being somewhat domestic). When Donald got there, he looked at all the things I'd skipped: DirecTV dish, outlets, washer/dryer hookups, etc. All I cared about was that the layout was nice, everything was clean, and Mia couldn't get out through any holes in the fences. We submitted our application and got the call on Saturday that said we were approved and tonight we do our walk through and get the keys! I could not possibly be more excited.
I gave notice at my apartment complex last Friday, so I have a full 3 1/2 weeks to move my stuff out of the apartment and into the house. I like that I am not forced to do all the moving in one weekend. I'll be moving a few things every night, since it's less than 10 minutes from me, and once all the little stuff is moved, I can do all the big furniture at one time. I'm not packing as much as I should, since I just plan on throwing things in the car and taking them over, but I'm still finding a ton of things that I'd rather give to Goodwill than move into the new house. If you're in the Corona area and looking for some useless junk, you should stop by the local Goodwill in the next few weeks!
Tomorrow afternoon I'll post all the pictures I'm planning on taking tonight, so you can all share in my joy of this fabulous new house! Happy Key Day!
I have an extremely annoying habit of setting my expectations way too high, and then being disappointed when they don't get met. Sadly, I'm aware of this problem, and am constantly vowing to be more realistic next time. Except that never seems to happen, and I'm stuck with a string of let downs.
I thought finding a new place to live would be easy. We'd narrow it down to a few houses, go take a look, and then the clouds would part, birds would sing, we'd sign a lease and it'd be done. Except that only happens in the movies. We've scoured the net, the papers, and driven through countless neighbourhoods looking for places to rent.We've called a dozen listings, and received a handful of callbacks. (Note to potential landlords: If you are trying to rent out a residence, it's helpful to actually return the call of the renter who is interested in the property. Just a thought) (Also, if you tell someone you're going to call them back, then DO SO. Don't just forget about them until they call the next day wondering what the status of the house is. Even if you were unable to get an answer, a quick call back to the potential customer letting them know you're working on it is better than silence. Schmuck.)
I need to work on patience in my life, and this process is just proof that I am sucking at it. I am an instant gratification kind of girl. When I decide I want something or want to do something, I don't want to wait. I decided several months ago that I was done living in my apartment, and I wanted to get the hell out. The fact that this did not instantly happen was annoying to me. Now that I'm actively looking and trying hard to find some place new and not getting it done, I'm really irritated. And it's irrational irritation. I understand that. I should be looking at the wait as more time to get my apartment cleared of clutter, and more time to get the things I want to keep packed up and ready to move. But logic has a way of escaping my notice sometimes. Like on days ending in Y.
Every day she gets up and goes to work with nary a complaint to be heard. She gets kicked, punched, beaten, pinched, her hair pulled, toys and chairs thrown at her, bitten, and slapped. She comes home, talks non-stop about how much she loves her job, and then does it all again.
She has the difficult kids. The ones with labels that the system feels is right for them. The behavior issues. The ones dealing with Autism. The kids the other teachers silently thank the heavens that they don't have to deal with.
She loves her job, and loves those kids even more. She is fiercely protective of them, and it infuriates her to see other teachers throw away the hard work her kids have done when they move up into a new class. She pushes them because she knows they can do it, even if they don't.
She believes in tough love, not only with her students, but with her coworkers. She won't baby them or hold their hand. She'll let them make mistakes, knowing the whole time that their plan will blow up in their face. Also knowing that next time they'll think it through a little harder and do a better job.
She spends hundreds of her own dollars to get her kids the things they need to learn. The things her school can't afford to provide them. She writes proposals on Donors Choose to get the things that she can't afford for them.
She's the only teacher in her school who's hung up the phone on her principal. The student having the meltdown was more important to her than being politically correct. When other teachers have a student with a behavioral problem, they come to her for help. Because she knows what she's doing.
She got her Master's degree while working full time. When asked if she'd go on to get her PhD, she said no. She doesn't want to be overqualified for the job she loves. She doesn't want to teach other people how to do her job. She just wants to do it.
She can't go 15 minutes without sharing a cute or funny story about one of her kids. Her eyes light up at the thought of them, and she'll talk about them for days if you don't change the subject. And yet you never want to, because her excitement and enthusiasm is contagious.
She teaches her kids the social skills they can't learn on their own. She wants them to sound like kids. "That's so cool," and "You're a rock star!" can often be heard in her classroom, rather than "Good job". She taught them to say "Peace out" and has been known to tell a kid to "Man up" every now and again.
She's only in her third year of teaching, and she's one of the final five nominees for Teacher of the Year in her district. A fact she's quite indifferent to. The fact she was nominated in the first place is enough for her. She doesn't need to be recognized for her efforts. In her own words, she knows she "kicks ass."
Whether or not she wins is irrelevant. Ask any parent of any student she's ever worked with, and you'll hear just what an impact she's had on their lives. There's no award that can come close to that.
In the immortal words of one of her favorite students: Hooray Miss Jen!
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