The crash at 6 this morning turned out not to be the garbage truck or someone dropping a bunch of cans. It was someone hitting our room mate’s car. All of us kind of heard it, but half woke up and then went back to sleep. His car is undrivable. The front left axle is broken. We deduced from the parts on the street and the paint on Ben’s car that it was a red Honda that did it.

Andy was just driving to hockey and found the culprit vehicle. It’s parked two blocks down in a driveway. I took pictures of everything but the police told us that Ben has to be the one who calls. He’s in Utah until Monday. He hasn’t gotten the news yet.

Life here is so much more exciting than the stuffy Signature hotel of last baseball season.

Did I also mention that the other neighbors have chickens and a rooster? It’s kind of nice swimming in the pool to the soothing sounds of farm fowl.

It saddens me to see my husband perusing the internet and clicking on my blog and then having nothing new to read. Every time I see it, I think about putting something in that space. Then I don’t. Really I didn’t want to update because then I would have to admit something really, really dumb and sad that I did.

Normally I don’t swear that much but, f*ck (I know, not all the way swearing, but I’ve had a few weeks to get over it).

I lost my Kindle.

I know, right?

Do I really need to say more about that? I am heartbroken and sickened.

Despite my irresponsibility and the blatant display of the fact I should not have new expensive technology, my awesome husband encouraged me to buy the new Macbook Air. Although conflicted, I did it. It was too expensive for what it was, and I told myself I wasn’t going to buy a new computer until baseball season was over. But, against my better financial judgment and the voice of my mother and grandmother in my head that tells me to pick up furniture in the trash and eat things that are far beyond their expiration date, I did it.

Other than that, it’s hot here. I could write paragraphs about the heat. But I won’t. Just know, it’s a huge component in our daily life.

I have not updated in six days because the laptop cord is halfway broken. The computer has to stay in one position on a hamper thing next to the bed to work. To type causes my spine to be twisted and my left shoulder to go numb. But, I love you guys so much, I’m willing to bear the pain to bring you the up to the minute information that you crave.

I drove to Utah and dropped of Mika to the Boxer Rescue. They have a couple picking her up today. The woman at the rescue said that their Boxer died a while ago and they wanted another one. They don’t have any kids and told me that their dog was the love of their life. I’m glad she went to a good home. I miss her a little, but it is much more tranquil around here.

The traumatized cats are slowly creeping out from their hiding places and cautiously walking around the house. Nicole and I washed the floors and it’s actually not smelling like a petting zoo in here any more.

I’m going to San Diego tomorrow or Monday. I’ll be back Friday night.

mika and her wubba
Originally uploaded by cindigodotcom.

I think we’ve found a home for Ms. Mika. She’s either going with Robbie’s parents or to Mooney’s Boxer Rescue in Elsinore Utah. I called Moony’s and they seem really nice and said they actually have a waiting list of people who want a Boxer.

On top of it all, I get to go on a road trip with a cute dog.

I decided to go with the uplifting entry instead of the taking her to the vet and waiting four hours pissy entry .

Mika in bed
Originally uploaded by cindigodotcom.

You know you want to take her home.

I’ve contacted Boxer rescue already. If you know of a good home, I’ll drive her anywhere.

We are down one puppy and one sketchy room mate. Davis, the roommate, went to New York on a “business” trip. I volunteered to take care of Mika the boxer puppy because she’s a sweet dog that was underfed, neglected and I didn’t want her being locked in a cage for six days while he was gone. The other, smaller puppy Davis had a friend take care of. Davis was supposed to be back on Tuesday night.

Wednesday we got a phone call from Davis. He was offered a great job opportunity and wouldn’t be coming back. He said his friend offered to take Mika, but Andy and I felt any friend of Davis would probably not offer the best placement for Mika. So, suckers that we are, asked if we could find her a home.

She’s a purebred, but I doubt we’ll be getting any papers. We’re getting her spayed and up to date on all her shots in the next few weeks. She’s super smart, affectionate and a really great dog. So, if you know anyone who would make a good mom or dad for our foster dog, let me know. I’ll drive her anywhere if it’s the right fit.

I should be posting pictures tonight or tomorrow.

And as far as me not updating for eight days….nothing new happened. The best I’ve got is that there was an earthquake in Columbia, so my Spanish lessons were put on hold for two days, and for whatever reason, Bikram wasn’t as hard as it usually is yesterday. See, boring.

It has been brought to my attention that I haven’t updated in a while. I guess for an avid reader, I only know of one (who totally never updates his blog), a week is a long time.

It’s been interesting and crazy since we moved in here on the 15th. Since I’ve been involved in the interesting and crazy, documenting it has fallen by the wayside. We now live with a boyfriend and girlfriend, a guy, a girl, one boxer puppy, one schnauzer puppy, a chiuhauha and two cats. The chiuhauha dislikes the boxer and the cats dislike both puppies. Two of the room mates own an ice cream truck which is parked out front. One room mate is a stripper and came home sobbing yesterday. She went directly to her room and closed the door. We were eating dinner and no one else seemed concerned. I guess it’s not an unusual event.

I’ve been taking Spanish lessons through 1to1languages.com. $99 unlimited lessons a month over Skype. It’s a pretty sweet deal and is improving my Spanish radically.

I’ve also still be doing alot of Bikram Yoga, at least four or five times a week.

Boring, I know.

Before I go out in the world today to forage for food and pick up my free birthday fragrance compliments of Aveda, I have one more thing to share.

I got this for my birthday from Andy. I am in love with my husband. He is an awesome guy.

I’m back again. I forgot if I even told you that I was leaving. I spent the weekend with a bunch of couchsurfers in Sequoia National Park. From LA it was supposed to take about four hours. Someone, okay, I put the wrong destination in the GPS adding about a 5 hour detour to our trip. We were almost in San Francisco.

There’s plenty of material for stories, but, now, I just don’t feel like it. Here’s some pictures if you’re interested.

naked_lady_oil_lamp
Originally uploaded by cindigodotcom.

My mom has this lamp priced at $40. I’m shocked that it’s not selling! We bought this lamp as a gift for my grandmother when I was seven. I’ll be thirty seven this month. I don’t know if you can tell from the picture but those plastic strings have beads of oil sliding down them like rain. The lady is dusty, oily and some of the strings are broken. The motor is making motor noises and the whole contraption smells like the lower well of Jiffy Lube. I really think that $40 is a steal, but if any one wants it, for you guys only, I’ll throw in a few weird funnel things that were used to fill up an ancient humidifier, a thirty year old Halloween scarecrow from the attic, a few old school telephones and a bag of mystery wires.

I’m leaving for Vegas in an hour.

I hope I wasn’t too harsh on my mom in the last entry. I mean, I love the woman and everything. I’m here lugging around dusty quasi junk for a garage sale instead of doing yoga, hiking in Red Rocks and hanging out with zombie couchsurfers. Actions speak louder than words right? She’s just a hard woman to eulogize, especially when she’s in your face asking for the thousandth time, “Are you sure you’re okay with not having a job? I mean what to you do with your day?”.

I could say she was very involved with people’s lives.

Alright, so I’ve got:

Helene: She was a different kind of lady. She had moxie. Some say her kids were pretty cool. She liked to be involved in people’s lives and give advice that she thought would be helpful.

She is pretty funny, but I don’t know if she means to be all the time. One small thing that makes me giggle to this day is when she and Bob visited us in Las Vegas a few years ago. We were at Quarks bar at the Hilton Casino. It’s a replica, or at least a faxcimilie of the real one in I think Deep Space Nine. The menu had all kinds of regular food renamed as “Star Trek” food. Isolenear chips and dip, Ferengie fries and so forth.

My mom straight faced asked the waitress for a ham-Borg-er, knowing absolutely nothing about Borgs or anything about Star Trek at all. I crack up. Andy cracks up. My mom looks at us in confusion and says, “what’s so funny? It says hamborger. Right there, ham-borg-er”.

Maybe that one was only funny if you were there. But trust me, it was funny.

Today we came across a small woven basket of nail clippers. I remember compiling this basket when we were cleaning out her and Bob’s house after he died. There’s like 40 clippers in there. Apparently Bob could never find clippers, so he just went out and bought more. My mom wanted to put the basket of clippers next to the guest book at the funeral with a sign that read, “please take one in remembrance of Bob”. Sick and wrong, but funny. Also showing restraint because she didn’t actually do it.

Seriously, any eulogizing bones you guys want to throw me are welcome here.

How does the Chicago font come across? From this end, it looks really cold. Like damp, chill you to the bone cold. It also looks a little crazy reminiscent of my childhood. This f-ing weather is giving me flashbacks of standing outside, on the corner, freezing my ass off in what seemed like pre dawn waiting for the obnoxious, yellow school bus to drive me to what felt like a prison sentence every day.

This is a short conversation I had with my mom ten minutes ago before I took a shower.

C: What’s the big soup pot full of scummy water doing in your shower.
M: Well the toilet is doing a weird thing and (leaks? flushes? I can’t remember what she said) every two hours. So instead of flushing it, I just pour that water in it.

Here’s another while we were in the garage organizing things for the garage sale.

C: Do you want me to bring the big box of greeting cards out?
M: No, they won’t sell.
C: Should we throw them out?
M: No, save them for the next garage sale in August. (The neighbor lady has epic garage sales that my mom likes to piggy back onto)

I know, from years of experience, that in that last conversation my mom was overwhelmed and didn’t want to deal with what I was saying at the moment. She just said some random thing to try to get me off her back. But this is the way she communicates. This is the opposite way I try to communicate. I have a very strong feeling that words mean things. You don’t just throw them around. I think I have such a strong opinion on this because of being raised dealing with this kind of communication, among other wordly slaughter.

A few weeks ago she sent out cards to all of her close family and asked in lieu of mother’s day presents that we all write some nice things to put in her obituary. No need for me to comment of the request, she’s a kooky lady, we all know it. I started writing some stuff, but I’m having a really hard time. I asked her what she wanted to be remembered for and she said, “her kids”. If she really meant it, phew, that gets me off the hook. I’m really good at writing about myself.

Alright, I’m working on it. But, if any of you have some good stuff that you want to write about your mom and then send to me so I can plagiarize, ummmm, I mean, study for style, let me know, I’d appreciate it. Unless, “Helene: She was a different kind of lady. She had moxie. Some say her kids were pretty cool” would cut it.

I’m sure by now you can tell by the font that I’m back in Las Vegas. It’s subtle, but if you look hard enough you can detect more moisture in the San Diego font.

The upstairs prostitute/drug addled neighbors flooded our bathroom for the third time in three weeks. The second time was a few days ago. Water was dripping through the actual ceiling in the living room, not just through the bathroom vent in the ceiling. That was two days ago.

Today I was out and Andy didn’t even bother going upstairs. When the water started pouring in, he called maintenance directly. When the maintenance guy and a girl from the office came down to talk to Andy after seeing the upstairs disaster, they said that there was inches of standing water in the bathroom and girls just laying around on the couch ignoring it.

I’m not even going to start telling you about the roaches that are coming out of everywhere and dying. I mean good job for fumigating and all, but, yuck.

Call me a masochist but, even after all this, I still like our living arrangements here more than the swanky Signature of last baseball season. Yes, I know, I guess I’m just ghetto like that. It’s way cheaper, I can get to my car and escape any time I want (no 20 mile trek to a parking garage or tipping a valet) and I don’t have to deal with throngs of tourists every time I want to go anywhere. I think few roaches, some toilet water pouring into our apartment is worth it. Although I’m a hobo and most might not agree with me.

Also, I’ve been assured that it’s clean toilet water. If it wasn’t, you might be hearing me sing a different tune. It helps too that Andy deals with the “clean” toilet water. If it were the case that I would have to deal with said “clean” water, you for sure would be hearing a different tune. To say I don’t like dealing with toilets and their water is an understatement.

In other non toilet related news, my mom has almost completed the transaction to sell her house, my childhood home. She should be moving to San Diego in August or sooner. I’m flying to Chicago Thursday to help with the mammoth garage sale, visit with relatives and help clean anything that needs to be cleaned.

We’ll have to see what the Chicago font looks like.

I’m in San Diego. I bet you couldn’t tell by the font, could you? I decided to give Andy some space to program and watch sports and eat Taco Bell all day and night and not have him worrying about what his wife was thinking. I’m staying with Nova Bella as usual and spending my time sitting out in her new back yard and throwing a slobbery ball to Cooper the yellow lab.

We are leaving for yoga in six minutes and then going to a friend’s house for champaign drinking celebration. They are celebrating the sale of their family company. I’m telling myself that I’m just going to drink club soda with lime, but we all know that I’m lying.

programmer or serial killer test?

I really dislike any artificial sweeteners and don’t understand how they are at all popular. They give me crushing headaches and I don’t think they resemble sugar in the slightest.

I am a pack rat that doesn’t own alot of stuff. I enjoy picking through the trash. It’s a trait that I inherited from my mother and she inherited from her’s. I don’t act on my impulses often. My favorite thing to find is chairs. Some of my fondest memories of my grandmother is being put in a dumpster in the back of the Piggley-Wiggley so I could hand her cabbages, boxes of crackers and other items that had been tossed. We officially picked this stuff for the birds that lived in the aviary in their expansive backyard, but we all knew that much of the stuff ended up on the dinner table.

Although I had a tough time going against my vegetarianism to buy myself a pair of Ugg boots, after three months of ownership, they are by far my favorite most comfortable shoes that I have ever owned. I thank that sheep every time I put them on.

I do not like using air hand driers in public restrooms. If there is no other option I usually just wipe my wet hands on my shirt. It’s the hobo way.

America’s Funniest Videos make me laugh until I can’t breath. It’s an embarrassing secret, so don’t let that one get around too much.

I like to give people makeovers in my head and have actually come close to giving complete strangers advice on their clothes or hair. Especially guys at the gym obviously working out to try and look good for the ladies but completely negating all that hard work with a hideous haircut.

I have never shot a gun but would like to.

We are thinking about building a small cabin in the mountains of Colorado depending on what happens this baseball season. We are also considering spending a chunk of the winter being snowboarding bums.