cindy's world

SPEAKING of Paris Hilton, a coworker saw her today at, of all places, McDonald’s. “What’s she doing at McDonalds over HERE?!” people asked him. “How should I know?! I just saw her, that’s all.” I said, “She CAN’T go to McDonald’s. She has a contract with Carl’s Jr.” I remember reading about how a particular star who was the spokesperson for one brand of product had to sign a contract that he was not to be seen purchasing or using the competitor brand. My coworker said, “Maybe she was just going in to use the restroom, I don’t know!” So what happened was he was sitting in his police car at the Norwalk McDonald’s (across the street from work) driveway about to go in at lunchtime and she left her new silver Aston Martin sports car, took the long way so that she deliberately walked in front of his squad car to cross the parking lot to enter the walkway to McDonald’s. And she was wearing a skirt that was entirely too short. And of course he looked and of course said she was beautiful, altho he didn’t get a great look at her face full-on. I guess her ass and legs were beautiful.

This post’s for you, James, because you’re impressed by the unlikely “coincidences” that happen to and around me.

I just got back from lunch with some coworkers and I gave them a ride in my new car to the restaurant. They were really impressed and one declared the IS350 to be her next car. At the restaurant, we met up with a retired coworker who announced she’s selling her dark green 1998 Toyota Supra (only 65,000 miles on it! How does she do that?). When asked why she’s selling it, she said because she bought a new car. What did she buy? That’s right, the Infiniti G35 Coupe. Again, I’m so glad I didn’t get that car.

I have Paris Hilton’s uppity calypso beat song “Stars are Blind” stuck in my head. When I first heard this song, I wanted to hate it because, come on, it’s Paris Hilton and most women want to hate her. She’s got what we want — nice body, fame, fortune, youth, connections, and oodles of idle time in a life of leisure. We want to resent her because she doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t appreciate it, didn’t earn it. We hate that we have to pause a conversation and wait for our men to regain focus on us when her Carl’s Jr. burger-chomping, car-washing, wet-b0dy commercial played on TV. But I really liked that song when I heard it. It makes me feel bouncy and happy. And hey, at least she’s DOING something productive and making a living.

Her CD comes out today, I think. The reviews slapped her with a back-handed compliment, something to the effect that it wasn’t as bad as expected by all the critics, but that it also fell short on its delivery because like Paris herself, the album had a cotton candy quality of tasting sweet initially and quick fade immediately thereafter. The recurring theme of the album, critics said, is, “I’m hot, I know I’m sexy, everyone wants me.” That’s the theme of many female singers these days (like Fergy of Black Eyed Peas), so I don’t know what the big deal is.

I still think, however, that whomever wrote the song wasn’t a particularly huge fan of hers. I think they wanted to plant some inside jokes at her expense. The most blatant one is that they played up her reputation of promiscuity with the line “If you show me real love, baby, I’ll show you mine.” It alludes to the age-old American scenario of a boy and girl standing across from each other, exploring their physical gender differences and bargaining, “If you show me yours I’ll show you mine.” That endearing image of childhood naivete has since been turned into a dirty inside joke to proposition someone, and now Paris’s line implies, “If you love me, I’ll sleep with you.” But it does still put her in the position of the power female — she has no emotions at risk, and the guy is the one whose heart is vulnerable. She is instead a bee going from flower to flower. Whomever wrote the song didn’t expect Paris to “get it,” and they topped it off by calling the song “Stars are Blind.” Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. We all laugh at the dumb spoiled blonde’s expense.

I must be overcaffeinated to be analyzing a Paris Hilton song. Anyway, I like the beat and I still think it’s great she’s working. For now,

I don’t mind spending some time
Just hanging here with you
Cuz I don’t find too many guys
That treat me like you do
Those other guys all wanna take me for a ride
But when I walk their talk is suicide
Some people never get beyond their stupid pride
But you can see the real me inside
And I’m satisfied, oh no, ohh

Even though the gods are crazy
Even though the stars are blind
If you show me real love baby
I’ll show you mine

I can make you nice and naughty
Be the devil and angel too
Got a heart and soul and body
Let’s see what this love can do
Baby i’m perfect for you

My love, ohh oh

I could be your confidante
Just one of your girlfriends
But I know that love’s what you want
If tomorrow the world ends
Why shouldn’t we be with the one we really love?
Now tell me who have you been dreaming of
At night at home? oh no, ohh

Even though the gods are crazy
Even though the stars are blind
If you show me real love baby
I’ll show you mine

I can make you nice and naughty
Be the devil and angel too
Got a heart and soul and body
Let’s see what this love can do
Baby i’m perfect for you

Excuse me for feeling
This moment is critical
Might be me feeling
It could get physical, oh no, no no

Even though the gods are crazy
Even though the stars are blind
If you show me real love baby
I’ll show you mine

I can make you nice and naughty
Be the devil and angel too
Got a heart and soul and body
Let’s see what this love can do
Let’s see what this love can do
Baby I’m perfect for you

Baby I’m perfect for you

Even though the gods are crazy

Even though the stars are blind

Even though the gods are crazy

Even though the stars are blind

After driving around all Sunday to the Bower’s Museum to see the mummy exhibit, to Disneyland for the 1st free day for our annual pass (and meeting Vicky and her new man at California Adventure), I still haven’t gotten totally adjusted to the new car. The drive from my house to work this morning, I didn’t even have any road rage, despite the fact that it took me 30 minutes to drive 7 miles, which on any previous day would’ve sent me through the roof. I didn’t realize the drive was that long. I was distracted by admiring the radio display on the nav system screen, which lists all your preset radio stations AND the song that’s currently playing on each of these stations so you don’t have to change stations rapidly to see what’s playing on each. I also received a phone call mid-drive, which I answered on the car’s speaker system without ever reaching for my purse for my cell. It was some financial service or other that was checking to verify that I did indeed authorize Lexus to finance a new car over the weekend. I’d totally forgotten that I’d put a freeze on all instant credit, recorded on all 3 credit bureaus, because I’d been the victim of credit fraud. They’re supposed to call me personally to verify that I want credit opened, so that’s what they were doing. It did scare me, tho, cuz at first I thought there was something wrong with my financing and it had fallen through. I still gotta sign up with Costco and get that cheapie financing this week so I can get out of the higher-rate Lexus financing.

When I got to work (on which drive I passed 2 Infiniti G35s, they’re ALL OVER the place!), I parked way out in boonesville, BFE, to lessen the chance of people dinging my car. My poor little Accord was never so dinged as it was parked inside our work parking structure, which is just ridiculous, considering everybody’s coworkers there, so you’d think they’d be more respectful with their coworkers’ property. But I’ve had an attorney in the building open the driver’s side door of his SUV so hard into my car, as I was sitting in my car, that it shook my whole car for a few seconds. I was SO PISSED.

Anyway, I guess I’m gonna need to find time to wash this car on a regular basis to keep it all shiny. There’s already a few tiny spots of yellow, like maybe a birdie sprayed me and got a few droplets on the car. I made the mistake with the first car to put it through an automatic car wash while it was new and I got spider scratches up the yin yang. I didn’t know! I was young(er)!

Tah-dah!!!

As you can tell, I did it. I got an offer that I couldn’t turn down. My ex came through BIG TIME. (No, not that one.) Through some connections, I got an offer (through the phone) from Longo Lexus for an IS350 with navigation system, which I wasn’t even considering because I couldn’t afford it (it was either gonna be the IS250 with nav or IS350 without), and the offer was lower than what I’d expected to pay for the 250. Just on a whim, I then called another dealership that had internet sales specials, and that guy gave me a quote on the same car for $200 less than the connection’s quote! I was pretty set to go on that, but I called the connection guy back as a courtesy to let him know to not bother running financing numbers for me. That guy, once I told him the offer I got from the 2nd dealership, told me to hold on while he checked for permission to go below what he’d been authorized, then called me back within minutes and beat the last guy by $111. So we took off and drove there. The car was being primped and gassed while I signed some paperwork that was already laid out for me, credit check was run and my amazing credit score was 127 points higher than what qualified for their best financing offer, so I got the lowest APR ever offered to me by any Lexus dealer I’ve spoken to, with 5 work days to find a better offer to switch over financing without penalty. Costco’s car loans, by the way, seems to be 2.5% lower than the best dealership offer on Lexuses. So I’m gonna get that going in the beginning of the week and drive up a check to the dealership.

I bought that car sight-unseen without a test drive. The drive home was amazing. It was quiet, the dealership guy programmed my home as the first hot-key destination for the navigation system, my cell phone has been synchronized to the car via Bluetooth and I can now take calls thru the car’s speakers without ever taking the phone out of my purse, the ride was smooth and the car is incredibly responsive to the gas pedal. There are so many luxury things inside and around that car that I’m having trouble absorbing it all into my head. Perks like starting the ignition with a push-button instead of a key-turn, and oh yes, oil changes that will come to YOU, at your home, place of business, school, wherever, without an additional fee. So I can have my oil changed while I work and have it done before lunchtime, and I don’t miss a beat in my day. The navigation is wonderful, too, the way she talks to me and dings at me to alert me to when to turn and how many lanes are on the freeway, and which side the freeway entrance is on. My only complaint is that gas mileage is crap compared to my Accord, but everything else is so sweet I’m sure I’ll get used to it. I haven’t even seen my new car in daylight yet. Can’t wait.

Many thanks for doing research, listening to me contemplate the decision aloud, offering advice, tolerating me re this car purchase, to Mr. W, Gary, James, Dwaine, Diana, Jordan, Vicky. And of course, all the blog readers who had to read all these posts. The salesguy, Martin, is awesome; extremely efficient, no-nonsense, funny, informed and informative. Let me know if any of you want his info for your own purchase!

Yesterday after work, I went over to Mr. W’s house, we grabbed his daughter and went to a local college where she was taking Geometry as summer school to fulfill a HS requirement, she dropped off a transcript request order, and we went to dinner at Orange Mining Company. In those drives, I must’ve passed 6 or 7 Infiniti G35 Coupes on the road. When we were parked at the restaurant, there were two immediately next to us! I don’t want to buy a car that has apparently already saturated the SoCal driving market! Okay, Lexus IS it is.

Yeah, I’m thinking of cars again. #1 enticement is that Mr. W wants to buy my current car as a starter car for his kids, and he could pay a tad more than a dealership would give me as a trade-in, but less than if he were to buy this car off the market. #2 enticement is that my ex (no, that THAT one) has some connections to car dealership people and he’s trying to find me a good deal. I hope that happens. I also discovered that if you’re a Costco member, you can go thru Costco to affiliated dealerships and pay just $500 over dealer invoice for a car. So it looks like the most I’d be paying is $500 over invoice even if my ex’s connections don’t go thru. AND…I think I can do this without touching my prior fund that I was gonna break to make this purchase with.

Strangely, tho, the car that still keeps turning my head is the new Civic Coupe (2006 North American Car of the Year). I can’t get a Civic, tho, it’d be like trading down; I’d lose 10 horses, it’s still 4 cylinders. It IS darn affordable, tho, and it gets 30 miles in the city, 40 miles on the highway.

#1 My mom used to tell me, as an incentive to lose weight as a pre-teen, that if I needed emergency heart surgery or something like that, if I were thin the doctors could just cut right in and fix me up. But if I were fat, they’d have to cut through all these layers of fat and move them aside before they could get to the heart of the matter (pun intended), thereby causing potentially life-threatening delays. So this had me thinking… if I were obese and the doctor has to cut through fat in the surgery anyway, does he or would he just cut off the fat rolls and discard them? Cuz then, free lipo! Kill two birds with one stone! Or would he charge to cut the fat out? I suppose if it were that easy, all these heart patients who undergo surgery wouldn’t have to go thru the “You must lose weight to keep your heart well, we barely saved you this time. You need to change your lifestyle” doctor-patient lectures.

#2 Why would someone willingly drive a convertible really fast with the top down through wooded areas like the car commercials show? Wouldn’t you get bugs splattered on your face the way they splatter on your car? And what if you have a passenger and you’re trying to talk to him/her and you have to yell really loud to compensate for the wind noise, and cuz your mouth is open, you SWALLOW a bug?

I found out last nite that I really, really like belly dancing with a veil. She taught us 4 simple veil moves: a high and low “teardrop”, the “Roman cape,” “butterfly wings” and “around the world.” I like the “around the world” because it’s a two-handed swirl of a 3-yard veil around the body. The veil Vanessa got me and refused to let me reimburse her for is of a black chiffon-like fabric with black sequin detailing around the trims and around patterned crocheted hearts. Very cute. We also found out, much to our disappointment, that yesterday was the last belly dancing class for the “semester.” “Then why only start the veilwork today?” I said, bummed. Vanessa said it must be to tantalize us into signing up again next “semester.”

Another bummer yesterday was what happened to Vanessa after belly dancing last nite. She was driving home and was hit by another car. The guy who hit her was drunk, and altho they both got out of their vehicles, he refused to exchange information with her after telling her he is not insured and he does not have a driver’s license. And then he took off! I was so pissed when I heard her voice mail. She’s okay, but how many reasons does this guy have to NOT be on the road?! She did call the cops, tho, and apparently she just followed the guy to his house which was a block and a half away. Genius drunk people.

I got a taste of a bad telemarketing job today. I had to call 15 jurors while we’re in session and whisper, like a creep, to them that altho they’d been ordered back for 1:30p this afternoon, we’re now postponing their group to 9:15a tomorrow morning. Those whom I didn’t reach in person I kept calling alternate numbers I have for them and leaving messages and voice mails everywhere I could. I had called them all yesterday already to postpone their appearance from 10:15a this morning to 1:30p this afternoon. I’m probably going to get a bill at the end of the month from my managers asking why there’s incessant phone calls going out from my line these couple of days. Oh well, that’s what happens when we have a dual jury for a trial and one jury’s picked WAY fast and the other is going WAY slowly.

On the brighter side of things, Vanessa ordered and received (per her voice mail to me left last nite) two belly dancing veils from Ebay. She said in her message that they look awesome. Our instructor had advised us to bring in twin-bed-size sheets or blankets for our veil work this evening. Now we get to learn how to dance with a veil while using actual veils! Yay!

I got a comment on my site from someone who received a letter from Ms. Elizabeth and decided to do some research on her online, and the search engine brought him to this post of mine.

Curious how high up I ranked in the search engine for him to have stumbled upon my site, I googled “Miss Elizabeth.” All the hits were on some recently deceased wrestler named Miss Elizabeth. I then added the word “psychic” to the end of my search words and voila!, directly underneath the 2nd hit of Miss Elizabeth’s solicitious (I know that’s not a word, but it should be) web page itself, were my two posts on her in Cindy’s World.

I also found this scam site listed right after mine, 4th one down on the list, which lists her and 3 other mail “psychic” scammers. I’ve already received a similar mail solicitation from a Dr. Marissa Von Trapp, which means I’m likely waiting for 2 more, from a Skye Alexander and a Maria Duval. Because those 2 names sound familiar to me, I’m not sure I didn’t already receive solicitations from them in the past and just discarded them because they were SO poorly written.

I guess my spirit guide saw to it I got more of my curiosity answered: how many people are getting letters from Marissa Von Trapp, and are they identical? I guess they’re identical enough, and have reached a broad enough audience, to have made a discussion thread on its infamy google-able.