malibu rocks
Originally uploaded by cindigodotcom.
I forgot to post this pic from our Malibu trip. This creation is Andy’s, but I made some pretty spectatular ones myself.
Now, wherever we walk, it’s hard not to pick up two random rocks and balance them in impossible positions.
From a overheard phone conversation. My funny husband was talking to his sister:
“Yeah, Cindy and I were going to put each others blood in vials, and wear it around our necks (a la Angelina and Billy Bob). But, as it turns out, we’re both too squeamish”
I guess you had to be there. It made me laugh.
Getting to much paper junk mail?
www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailinglist
I’ve been doing some research since we’re having our mail coming to our friend’s house here in Vegas when we have no more stationary home. I didn’t want loads of junk for them to deal with. I found this link through the federal trade commision website.
All you have to do is send a postcard or letter to:
Mail Preference Services
Direct Marketing Association
P.O. Box 643
Carmel, NY 10512
Include your name address and signature. There is an option to do it through the website but it costs $5. If you mail it, it’s free.
Again, I don’t really feel like writing about it. But I’ll just say, beyond the major electronics a *hides face* open safe of important papers were swiped. Now, I REALLY don’t feel like writing about this, but it makes for a good story even if it makes my beloved and I look like major dum dums.
Besides the passenger side widow, wrecked door lock, dashboard console and ignition, a small safe, not locked, tucked under the couch was pillaged. It previously contained: our marriage license, my and Mr. X’s birth certificates, my social security card, (oh god, I don’t even want to admit this one to you guys) the titles to BOTH of our vehicles, also possibly, we weren’t really sure, bank account information and credit cards.
We feel incredibly grateful because they tried to steal the whole thing and couldn’t. If these incompetents had the presence of mind to look in the wooden lock box, that wasn’t locked on the dash in between the front seats, they would have found…..a spare set of keys and current insurance papers.
So, in review, the thieves had keys to start and drive away the vehicle with proper insurance and title in case they were pulled over.
Think about that for a minute. We did. After the horror, it was kind of funny. On top of loosing the RV, we would have nothing. No clothes, food, shoes, bathroom stuff…..nothing. Thank god I’m not telling you that story.
Okay, one last thing. Seriously, it’s embarrassing, and again, the only reason I’m telling you all of this is because it will make you laugh and hopefully brighten your day that you are not as silly as us. My mom through some weird convoluted deal that was manipulative yet generous at the same time had given me some checks to pay as principal on the house as an addition to the monthly house payment we we’re paying. The deal was, she had some extra cash so she gave it to us in a series of checks filled out for $2000 each to be paid each month on top of our house payment, to be paid back to her when the house sold. At some point, I felt not right about cashing the checks and didn’t want the baggage that came along with the whole thing, so I just stopped cashing them. While standing in the middle of the broken safety glass and ripped out dash, the first thing that came to my mind was that the five signed, un-cashed checks with a blank “pay to the order of” line. I thought they were in the safe. I frantically dialed my mom and briefly explained. She got in the car and broke every speed limit to get to the bank to cancel her account. It was five checks at $2000 apiece. Yes, do the math…$10,000 freaking dollars of idiocy.
On further inspection, they were still in the RV. They were in a plastic three door organizer under the bed, but in plain view. This is about the only time I can think of that I’ve been grateful for incompetence. I called my mom back just in time for her to not cancel her account.
We’ve cancelled our credit cards, changed our checking and savings accounts and activated fraud watch with the three major credit bureaus. I couldn’t sleep well last night and woke up early and went to the county recorders office and got a new marriage license. I thought it was going to be a nightmare, but ended up taking less than two minutes and cost $20. I was especially queasy because the house sale is contingent on me having documented proof that my maiden name has changed to the married name shown on my drivers license. The claims adjuster came out today to check out the damage and said “not bad at all”. All we have to do is take the RV in and they fix it minus our deductible. I was really shocked at how nice and efficient everyone at AMEX insurance was. I was, once again expecting bureaucracy, suspicion and nausea and was surprised at how easily these things can be replaced and how nice people can be.
Over all, it could have been worse so I’m sticking to my life motto: If you’re able to laugh and it makes for a good story….it’s worth it.
subtle entry
Originally uploaded by cindigodotcom.
I just don’t have the energy to write about this right now. Click on cindigodotcom (and then photos) if you want to see pics of the dash.
We were sleeping in the house, not the RV when it happened. Although a ridiculous day, it turned around in the end.
When I was six or seven years old, we went to a family reunion. It was in some sort of outdoor park or campground. My cousin Christopher and I went to the playground. I think it was just him and me but maybe my sister remembers some of this. Although at the time, she would have been four or five. We were walking around the sandy jungle gyms and swings and came to the teeter-tottors. While playing and lifting one end up, we found a gun.
I was nervous and didn’t want to touch it and said that we should go and get our parents. He said “no” and that “it wasn’t real anyway”. He picked it up and was sighting things like trees, playground equipment and then me. He pointed the gun to the center of my chest, with his free hand out using his thumb as a guide. He was five feet away. I told him to stop it, and not to point it at me.
He turned forty five degrees to me with the same posture, hand out, eye squinted and pulled the trigger. A shot rang out but I don’t remember much else. Christopher had shot himself in the thumb that he was using to sight.
I remember running back to the party screaming and then sitting in someone’s RV where some women relatives had a bunch of towels and a pot of water. They were washing all the blood off of my face and arms. My teeth were chattering and I couldn’t stop shaking. My mom kept repeating “there’s so much blood”. They took Chris to the hospital. I don’t know what happened to his thumb. I also remember that all the men got together in some sort of lynch mob looking for the jackass who put the gun under a teeter-totter in a kids playground. They didn’t have any success.
I hadn’t thought about that story in years. When we were in Malibu Andy, Vlad and I were talking about some sort of family get togethers, and that story came to the front of my mind. Now, after not really thinking about it for years, it’s come into my mind a few times a week since then, making me queasy every time.
I’m hoping that putting it on the page will purge it free from this cycle.
I’ve been MIA on the internet since power situation has been sketchy. We were going back and forth on getting solar power. Now I think it’s been decided that solar is the way to go. I mean really, I’ll give up many comforts to live a foot loose and fancy free lifestyle, but on demand internet is not one of those things.
The house sale seems to be moving along smoothly. The closing date is set for May 26th. Today is the first day back at the house to start the finishing process of ejecting most of our stuff from our lives and finishing up the small details on the RV. The house is mostly done, except for the remants and questionables in the garage.
We’re driving home from LA.
Friday it rained. Saturday and Sunday were fairly sunny. Our four days consisted of lounging on the beach, balancing rocks in impossible positions, drinking teas (mostly me and Vlad) and rum and cokes (mostly Vlad and Andy), a campfire, 20 questions, spotting seals and dolphins, leisurely driving and helping Vlad buy a partial new wardrobe.
Fun was had by all.
Andy and I are sitting in a crowded coffee house in Malibu….doing our taxes.
We are rediculous people.
We accepted an offer on the house tonight. They want to close on May 26th. We were minutes away from driving to Malibu when the realator called. We signed all the papers at 9:30 tonight and then continued on our way.
It’s supposed to be rainy and cloudy in LA for the next week or so. We thought about not going, then decided to go anyway. It’s worth it for us just to hang out in the clean air by the ocean.
We’ve been living at Bally’s, The Rio and Harrah’s this week. I haven’t updated because we’ve been….actually, I don’t know what the hell we’ve been doing.
Wedensday we’re going to Malibu for a week. I’ll update you on Britney Spears’ every move.
We’re staying at Harrah’s. Our friend Vlad (the Russian Oracle) is in from Denver for the start of baseball season. He has a free room here for four days. The potentially profitable play that he was in town for a few weeks ago, didn’t turn out positively, but overall it wasn’t a big loss. Also, the perks of free rooms and meals and the upgrade to a diamond player’s card made it a bit easier to bear. The diamond card gets Vlad and one guest into the Diamond Lounge. A place where the comp drinks are all mixed and chocolatey and the free fruit plates are all blueberries, rasberries and strawberries.
The window is open and from the nineteenth floor we can clearly hear the pre recorded jungle animal sounds from the Mirage that start 15 minutes before the volcano erupts and work into a fever pitch until the event. I almost feel like a tourist.
I’m sitting in the darkness of the RV‡. I’m listening to the radio looking out at the sparkling lights of the Stratosphere, Hilton and Sahara casino/hotels. PT’s Place is in front of me. This is the bar where Andy and the rest of the hockey team will be drinking beers after the game in the next twenty minutes or so. I haven’t been updating but I have been on the internet…alot. Embarrassingly enough I’ve been hanging out in an online world called Second Life. My friend Jane has sucked me into this other addictive dimension. You can make real money by selling things that you make, things like clothes, avitars, furniture for your virtual house. The thing that really interested me is that I sometimes really miss designing, but I don’t miss the headaches associated with itº. I like the creative part but hate deadlines, customers, the level of detail it takes to produce a garment from thin air, dealing with people that barely speak English on the other side of the globe and just generally being beholden to anyone that is not myself or my rockstar husband. So, I’ve been spending all my time walking around Second Life learning and thinking.
Also, in SL all my ideas that “ARE SO CRAZY THEY JUST MIGHT WORK!”, could actually work. For instance, I can make a lawnmower that you can fly around on and cut down the tops of scripted trees. Also, that fantastic idea about making a car out of the futon that I came up with, and at the time really thought could work perfectly, while laying on said futon and tripping on acid could be a reality.§
‡ We’ve been trying to come up with better names than “RV”, but none of them are sticking. If anyone has any ideas on that subject, feel free to comment.
ª For those of you who don’t know every detail of my very life, I designed clothing for a large “urban” company (urban: read all the gear you see on BET) for about six years. It started out great but an unfortunate set of circumstances eventually sucked the life out of me. I thought I would never want to design another thing in my life. It’s very similar to the feeling I have at the mention of screwdrivers (the drink, not the tool) after a exceptionally spectacular night of binge drinking and almost drowning in a bathtub.
§ In this post, I’ve made a few references about being exceptionally drunk and stoned. This was quite some time ago. Age and the desire to not be hung over and live life in a general depressed malaise has wizened me up some.
My husband is supposed to be programming. The first game of the baseball season is tomorrow and then a full schedule on Monday. Instead, he’s looking at this:
Really…..can you blame the guy?
