cindy's world

Yesterday on the freeway off-ramp, I heard some metallic clanking. Rhythmic, like clank-clank-clank-clank. I was concerned that something may be loose on my car, but then I saw this 3-foot long metal strip shaped like an L rolling in front of me on the lane! I managed to swerve left and avoid it. THAT would’ve totally scratched up my car for sure! It looked like some 80s car’s metallic bumper strip.

And then this morning, I was driving surface streets to work on the right lane of the 2-laned street. After my red light turned green, the old Mercedes in front of me was going painfully slow getting through the intersection, and then I saw this dirty old-style (probably mid-late 90s) silver Eclipse fly by to my right, where there was no lane, to cut in front of the Mercedes. I know she was going slow so it was kind of understandable, but how freaking reckless! A block up at another red light, the Eclipse went into the left-turn lane so I turned and looked at the asshole. Dark brown-haired jerk in his mid 20s, wearing sunglasses in foggy overcast mildly sprinkling weather. “You think you’re so hard-ass, you loser,” I thought at him, and redirected my attention elsewhere. A couple of blocks down, I saw that same Eclipse in front of me! What the heck? He must’ve gone in the left turn lane just to pass up the cars going straight and cut them off in the intersection, like he did to my right earlier! Luckily his lane was going slow so I passed him up rather happily. I peeked in. Yup, same guy. Asshole. A few more blocks, another red light, and suddenly this same jerk passes me again to my right, and I’m still in the right lane of a 2-laned street so there’s no lane to my right he must’ve pretended like he was going to take a right turn at the intersection and then blown straight through to cut off the car in front of me at the intersection where no one was expecting a car to come from the right! What an ass! WHY are people like this not getting tickets? And then…this was all just too familiar. I called James.
Me: Hey, remember that car that was cutting people off from the right turn lane and left turn lanes at the intersections?
James: Yeah?
Me: Do you remember what kind of car that was?
James: Um, it was a foreign car. I don’t remember. But it was something older and souped up, like a Supra or something like that.
Me: Was it a silver Eclipse?
James: Yeah! I think it was! Why?
Me: He just did that to ME!!

It turns out that James has “the power” now, too, altho his is way slow. He commented in detail about this car way back months ago, and now, I run into him. What a reckless jerk!

Is this another bad sign? After my run-in with Ms. Tactless this morning, I looked up my horoscope for today. It says:

Loving Venus is now in your 7th House of Relationships, but your romantic life may be fraught with problems, for the love planet needs rules when in Capricorn. This can create an unsettling situation, for you may now be offered the security you seek, but with enough restrictions to make you uncomfortable. Think about what you’re willing to give up for emotional safety. Even if the circumstances seem out of your control, your response is your decision.

So what’s that supposed to mean? That my relationship is stable but really terrible? And I’m short-changing myself in order to be emotionally placid? The last few months of this horoscope has not applied to me so I’d been sending it on to college roommie Diana, who’s also a Cancer, and she’s been saying that it’s applied to her, so maybe this is her horoscope instead of mine again. I don’t know.

Our holiday shopping errands took Mr. W and I to Target at the Irvine Spectrum yesterday, and what do we see hanging on the shelves? GigaPets! There’s a GigaTomcat and GigaDogs…right next to — that’s right — Tamagotchi keychains!! What the hey?? I didn’t know they were making a comeback! I was just writing about what awful things those gadgets are. I can see a parent saying, “No, we’re not getting you a dog for Christmas. You can have this GigaDog, though, and if you can take good care of it and have it not die, then we’ll consider getting you a real dog. *snicker* “

Yesterday after work I was cleaning the downstairs rooms in my house (cuz I’m lazy, that’s why I did the house in halves), and walked by the kitchen. Something misplaced caught my eye. A photo of me and Grace with our arms around each other in high school was sitting on the counter next to the refrigerator.

This photo WAS on a French ribbon bulletin board that’s magnetically attached to my fridge. Grace had given me the bulletin board for a birthday or Christmas gift one year. On it now are some Happy Bunny stickers, a postcard childhood friend Karen had sent me (I think from Italy), many photos of me with my parents, me with other friends. Of all the doodads, many many photos and stuff on that bulletin board, the one of me and Grace had removed itself from the board, turned the corner, and laid itself neatly facing me on the countertop. I’m gonna take it as her acknowledgement of the recent post I wrote about her. If I had to list all the visitations I had from her already I’d scare some people. 🙂

I hate going to the maul in these holiday seasons. Is it me, or are we just way more populated than we were 10 years ago? Plus, people are freaking hostile. Especially large women driving SUVs. They’re just angry and they want you to be angry, too. My usual practice is to cross people off my gift list all year long. You know how sometimes you see something and you think, “Oh, that’d be perfect for so-and-so,” except it’s not so-and-so’s birthday and it’s not Christmas, so you don’t buy it? Well, I buy it and stash it in my Gift Closet. I haven’t started “Christmas shopping” yet this year, but the only person I have left to buy something for is my judge. I’m going to REI to get him a giftcard as part of his present package. He’s all into the vacations spent hiking and doing the dude ranch thing. There are some other people whom I’d like to get something for, but am undecided as to whether I should, because I don’t want to oblige them into buying me something and starting this future trend thing. So that being said, should I be buying presents for a boyfriend’s children? Oh yeah, boyfriend’s present Part I was a 3-year pre-paid membership to the gym which I gave to him early, and he’s been so good about using it! That makes me happy. =)

I’ve heard this song twice now on the radio and the words speak volumes to me. Beyonce’s got it right. Once you’ve betrayed us you’re dead to us. And why is it that every guy says, as he’s walking out (hopefully for the last time), “You’re never gonna find someone else like me.” Hello! You’re an ass and I’m leaving you for it, why would I want to have another guy like you?!

That’s all.

You know what I don’t understand? How lighting a match is supposed to magically eat up all the fart and poo stench in the bathroom. I don’t think it works. I think smelling the burnt sulfur mixed into the scent of flatulence just makes everything worse. It says, “My innards stink, I stunk up the place, and my ineffective attempt to cover it acknowledges that I know I stink.”

Okay, but what if you’re on a plane, and you stunk up that little plane lavatory? One passenger tried the ol’ match trick on the plane, too. Long story short, her flatulence LANDED the plane in Nashville, Tennessee. See short article here. And not only did she cause lots of inconvenience and money, she got herself banned from the airline.

This is why you shouldn’t eat broccoli, cauliflower, or dairy before you fly.

Is it too predictable for me to post something about how AWESOME the UCLA-USC game was on Saturday, and how by winning our cross-town arch rival ‘SC, we not only kicked them out of the #2 spot and trampled on their chances of being champions in the BCUs, but we also cut short their 7-year winning streak against us (right before their 7-year streak was our 8-year winning streak against them, and they were hoping to tie our record with this game)? Yes? Well, then, I won’t talk about it.

Go Bruins!

Okay, I’ll stop now.

Oh, one more thing. My childhood friend Vicky, who attended USC for pharmacy school, said in the final moments of the game as she sat on the phone with me, after I told her about UCLA’s interception when USC was on the 13-yard line, “AUGH! Matt Leinart may as well just stand there and have all the Bruins line up and slap him across the face!” HAHAHA!!

Okay, NOW I’m done. Right after you click here.

…I’m still alive. I did not accidentally cryogenically freeze into next century, because last nite, I pulled out the big guns. The heavy artillery. Uh-huh. I changed out the sateen sheet set and replaced it with a dense flannel sheet set, I removed the current pretty comforter and put on The Chinese Comforter. I’m talking the thick cotton comforter that is packed solid with enough cotton to scare the Old South, and feels as heavy on you as one of those lead blankets the dentist drapes over you to trap you into his chair when he hides in another room to take x-rays of your teeth. The raw cotton in these blankets are usually sewn into Chinese duvet covers that have one color on the bottom, and a large square of flower print fabric on top. The cotton pad inside is so dense that it can’t be washed in water; they used to be hung outdoors on clotheslines and beaten with a big stick. In fact, this may still be the method today. Despite the fact that the news said last nite was even colder than the night before, I was warm, and slept clear through till morning.

The bad news is, my bed is completely fob-ized now. I have the purple and gray floral bedskirt and sham pillows from the last bed set, but the flannel sheets and regular pillows are a dark hunter green, and the Chinese comforter has a pink base with pink and yellow and green flowers on the top, my hugging pillow is navy blue, and my space-age body-conforming foam pillow is cream. At least I don’t have mismatched floral print face towels covering each pillow.