This page may contain harsh language and content.
You may use the quicklinks below to skip ahead to an entry on
this page.
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2005 18:24:51 -0700
Location: work
Music: streaming trance techno
QOTD:
Mood: sad
Last night as I was trying to fall asleep, suddenly I realised
my head was full of memories of my paternal grandma. I heard
her voice on the tapes she made for us back in 1975, and I
saw images of my brother and I playing while the tape recorder
was recording us. I recall the feeling of KNOWING we were being
taped and so I kept hamming it up. I recall hearing grandma's
voice come out of the tape player on the tapes she'd sent us,
and I remember exclaiming back at the tape recorder "HI GRAMMA!"
as though she was on speakerphone...only speakerphone didn't
exist back then...at least in our house.
I was 3 1/2 years old.
As these images went through my brain, it was pleasant.
Then, without warning, severe emotion overcame me and my stomach
turned as though I'd realised someone had died.
...only...it wasn't gramma I was crying for.
It was my dad...her son.
And no matter how I tried to rationalise with myself that I'd
have received a call if my dad died, I couldn't shake the
overwhelming grief.
I ended up sobbing for several minutes as I acknowledged the
fact that someday my parents WILL die. It's even overwhelming
me with emotion right now just to type it all up.
But we all KNOW this about our parents and everyone else on
the planet. It's not news to me. I've thought about this before,
you know...not like it's the first time it dawned on me. I had
to sign my dad's Will for chrissakes.
...Just called my dad; everything's okay with him, but his
wife has a torn ligament and pneumonia. She sounded fine
though when I talked to her - her usual Virgo-GO-GO-GO
self. ;)
They've been super busy running the motel - it's their last
year there because some huge business entity bought it from
them. So the stress is going to be high to accomodate customers,
get used to the idea that they'll have to look for another home
(thank gods for the huge RV home they already live 5 months a
year in), and all the packing up of their life once more.
After that, hopefully by the new year, they can finally relax
and dad can enjoy his second retirement.
Back to my irrational emotional outburst last night - sure
I know that my parents will die one day. But what hadn't
dawned on me til last night was the fact that after my
parents die - especially my father - I'll have no one to
work hard for to be a success and an accomplishment and
someone to be proud of in this world.
Friends and spouses just don't count in that.
I tried to analyse why it's so important to me to have
parental units there in order for me to work hard at
making something of myself.
I wondered if after they leave, will I continue trying.
Goddammit, I'm tearing up again. WTF.
I certainly didn't mean to upset grandma's visit to me last
night. She's visited me before, but by the time she comes
through to me, my emotions garble it all and I end up crying
and she fades off again.
BAH.
Stupid emotions.
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 16:04:00 -0700
Location: work
Music: streaming trance techno
QOTD:
Mood: depressed over money issues again
Something nice before we get started: I will have many nice pictures and even a movie of the ocean, from the trip we took to Carmel. :)
This past weekend, my bf and I were able to finally get away to
celebrate being together for five years.
However, things are guaranteed to go wrong during Mercury Retrograde.
Let's start at the very beginning, shall we?
Our anniversary fell on the 14th of July (Bastille Day).
George was due that weekend, though, so I told my bf please schedule
a weekend getaway for the next weekend.
Well.
George didn't show up until that Monday. And my bf had pushed very
hard to secure our weekend away for the very next weekend. So I
reluctantly relented and george hadn't even appeared, yet.
So when he showed up on Monday, I thought about it all day and
sat my boyfriend down and told him no fucking way is it a good
idea to go out of town this coming weekend. I told him how I'd
felt really pressured and asked why he felt he needed to celebrate
five years ON THE DOT and why was he in such a hurry.
I chalked it up to nookie on The Date Of sort of thing for him.
I also told my bf that in light of all the recent layoffs at
work the week of July 4th and July 11th, and the fact that my
contract is now finite - due to expire September 30th - I really
didn't have the moolah to be going out of town now. He was truly
upset over that.
So we cancelled and rescheduled the date. I should have held firm
ground, but I caved for a second time.
On July 21, after having my first mild period in years, george
woke up and realised I'd been having it easy, and he killed me
dead. I had to leave work within an hour of getting there. I
came home and spent the day drugged to the gills.
Mercury Retrograde occurred on July 23rd.
Now, I may have said this before, but since my ruling planet is
Mercury, I always have a very rough time during Mercury Retrograde.
I have an especially rough time the week leading up to and the week
coming off of retrograde.
And everything inbetween is well...fucked.
So george went away and the next weekend, on July 29th, we took
the day off of work and went out of town for our anniversary
weekend getaway.
We were an hour into the drive when I realised we hadn't brought
any cold-weather clothing with us, because it's always much colder
by the beach.
On the way to Carmel though, we stopped at The Little Red Barn antique store, and let me tell you, it's a REAL antique store! Not like all the junky type stores purporting to sell antiques, no. This is the real thing. We must have spent an hour in there gawking at stuff! I found an entire collection of books and framed art and photo albums from some woman by the last name of Cree who had moved to California from Indiana. The store owner, Bonnie Turner, told me that Ms. Cree's children had all her stuff stored in a huge pay-by-the-month storage unit which was raided for drugs. The kids who had charge of the stuff went to jail and everything in the storage was confiscated and ended up at the Little Red Barn. Good thing Ms. Cree's passed on from this world, cuz she'd probably have killed them kids.
We got to Carmel after 4pm if I recall, and we checked in at the Edgemere Cottages.
You know how things advertised never look quite as good once
experienced in person?
Yeah.
The room we stayed in was The Devon room, and it's not arranged like
in the picture, nor is it that cozy as the picture alludes. It looked
like it was a converted garage. The wall you don't see shows three
closet doors all on the same wall; all hammered together and looking
like they used to be storage for the garage. The garage mind you is
just to the right of this converted cottage room.
I immediately asked my bf if this would suffice. He said yes. I did
my best to like it, knowing that it's Carmel and likely everything
else in town was booked.
The lady described our accomodations and led us to the main house
to show us where the breakfast would be (but only after we insisted
because she didn't feel it was necessary at first!). Along the
way, she introduced us to her outdoor cat and made us wait while
she whistled to summon her pet hummingbird to the lemon tree in
the court yard. She told us about how magical her cat and hummingbird
were.
She'd just moments earlier tried to guess my bf's astrological
sign as Pisces.
I knew then that we were going to be at the mercy of a total
fruit loop all weekend.
By the way, the door of our cottage may face towards the beach, but
the beach is two blocks away, down hill, through two blocks of housing.
The website info is misleading when it says, "Front door aiming straight
to the beach".
What is also not only misleading but a downright LIE is this from
the main page of her website, "Edgemere features quaint private
cottages..."
The cottages are NOT private as we quickly found out. Our cottage
was directly attached to the Picadilly cottage, and the Rosemont
cottage is attached to the main house.
The walls are paper thin. We heard guests in the Picadilly cough,
clear throats, talk, and moan during sex.
The pull-string fabric window shades hang a full inch away from
the windows, allowing for peeping toms.
That night, we discovered the sheets on the queen bed were meant
for a double bed, not a queen. I dragged out two spare blankets
in the middle of the night in the dark from the closets in the room.
The next day, we discovered that one of the extra blankets had a
long-since-dead bug carcass stuck to it. Looked like a June Bug.
The other extra blanket was full of sand and dirt and dust.
We staggered to the main house to have breakfast with the other
people staying at the cottage. There was a couple from Ontario
and a couple from Fresno. I did my best to be social. My bf took
quite awhile to put on his happy face because of the gross lack
of sleep he'd gotten the night before. We both didn't sleep well
but he slept a lot less than I did.
Breakfast was not to make up for the horrible night we'd had.
The lady of the house heated up little quiche pies from Trader
Joe's and served each of us ONE HALF a quiche along with some
fruit and a slice of store-bought banana bread. To give size
on the quiche - a whole Trader Joe's quiche is about 5" diameter.
I knew it was a Trader Joe's quiche because I eat them regularly.
And the lady has Trader Joe's paper bags in the cottages as
extra garbage bags so I know she shops there. The banana bread
was probably from Trader Joe's, too.
Now, I love Trader Joe's. I do 98% of my grocery shopping there.
But if I'm going to be paying $165/night for a bed and breakfast
in Carmel, I want a full homecooked meal, goddammit!!!
This was a snack before breakfast, only there was no REAL
breakfast to follow!
After a short time, the lady of the house interrupted everyone's
conversing with piano playing right there in the dining room.
She wanted to show the Canadian girl she'd been talking with
a piece that she'd come up with herself cuz she was self taught
on the piano.
We stayed silent for minutes on end while the lady played.
As soon as she finished, the Canadian guy excused him and his
wife for the day. So I took that cue and excused ourselves as
well. The Fresno couple did the same.
My bf said later, "I didn't sign up for that [a piano recital]..."
Heh, no kiddin. Although I admit the song was pretty, my growing
anger at the lady of the house was overshadowing any desire to
give compliments on her self-taught musical abilities.
After we left the main house, my bf expressed that he was so
upset about the lack of sleep that he wanted to
spend the day searching for another bed and breakfast, or
cottage or something to stay in. I told him that since it was
already past 11am (normal checkout time), that we'd be forced
to pay for the 2nd night where we were anyway, and that the
lady could keep our money by law if we bailed. I further
noted that the brochure for that place said cancellations
were subject to late fee AND five days' notice.
But he was really upset, so I caved for a third time for him.
We went looking all over town for another place to stay.
There was nothing.
Finally, after 2pm, I sat down and declared I was fed up with
his refusal to see that we were stuck there for the 2nd night.
I told him I was about to cry. I told him we need to stop this
right now and ENJOY our weekend. I told him he could take a nap
but he refused.
So we talked it out and then carried on with our weekend plans.
I brought in a sleeping bag from the trunk of my car for us
to use later that night for extra bedding, and then we took off
to meet our friend Blark in Monterey for the day, since he lives
near there now.
We had a great afternoon, and topped it off with dinner at
The Old Bath House.
After dinner, we went out onto the balcony of the Old Bath House,
where there were benches to sit on, and acrylic blankets set up for people
to wrap themselves up in to watch the ocean.
It was so dark and foggy that we couldn't even see the ocean, but
we could hear it, and we could hear what sounded like cicadas, and
watching the fog zoom past us and the restaurant was mesmerising in
itself. We had a lovely little stay out there until some brash
loud drunken middle-aged white idiots came staggering out.
From the Bath house, we drove around Pacific Grove and followed the roads all the
way back to Carmel. From there, I put on tights and jeans and another
shirt, and my bf put on his bowling shirt. It's the only thing we
could do to brace against the ocean breeze, since we hadn't brought
any jackets with us.
We walked down to the beach and spent quite awhile staring at the
waves in the foggy darkness. It was very special.
We came back to the cottage and eventually got to sleep. The next
day, my bf reported that he'd slept a lot better with the new
blanket arrangement. We decided not to go to breakfast because of
how much it sucked the day before. We showered and packed up all
of our stuff and hauled it out to the car.
Around 11am, the lady of the house phoned my bf on his cell to
inquire why we'd not made it to breakfast.
She didn't walk out of her house, across the small yard and
speak to us in the cottage, no. She phoned him on his cell.
When he told her we just didn't want breakfast, she tried to
guilt him by saying she'd MADE all this breakfast and wished
we would have told her we'd not be joining.
We laughed at the hideousness of her statement.
MADE breakfast. PAH.
So we went into the main house to turn in the key and again she
made a feeble attempt at guilt, and so I told her straight up
that breakfast wasn't to our liking the day before. My bf added
that it was sparse.
The lady was shocked! Shocked I tell you! "Nobody has ever in
four years told me that breakfast was sparse!"
She then tallied up the remaining balance, and we paid her, and
then she pressed to know if we'd enjoyed our stay other than a
sparse breakfast.
So I drew a deep breath, looked her in the eyes, and in a low
parental voice, told her the following:
"You need to make sure the bedding does not contain bug carcasses.
We found a huge bug carcass on the red down blanket."
"You need to make sure the bathroom walls are not dripping with
brown staining mildew and that the blankets are free of dirt and dust.
The striped blanket was full of filth."
"We have allergies!" I exclaimed in a low exasperated tone.
I urged her to go into the bathroom and see the drippy mildew on
the walls for herself.
After I finished my lecture, I stared at her wide-eyed shocked
expression. My own expression was thin lips, cold eyes and partially
furrowed brow - the kind of look that my father gave me whenever I
was in deep shit.
She whispered back to me and nodded, "okay..."
And we turned and left.
After we left the cottage, we went out for a real breakfast at Friar
Tuck's in Carmel. It's the usual diner type breakfast food, but it
filled our bellies and tasted good (except for the hot chocolate which
was like muddy water consistency with next to no flavour).
Then we did the touristy 17-mile drive. Now, you have to pay $8.50 to drive on this road, because you pass richy rich housing and the ever-so-famous golf course, but you
also have lovely views of the ocean, the meadows and woods, and you can
oogle the rich bastards' houses.
So, because you pay $8.50 to drive on this road, you want to be able to
take it slow and enjoy the sights, riiight? And the speed limit is even
posted 15 and 25 MPH.
HOWEVER...time and time again, these assholes would zoom up behind us
in their cars, doing anywhere from 35 - 45 MPH, and getting impatient
and even mad at us for doing the posted speed limit. We found out that
they were racing from numbered point to point to be the first to park
at the limited parking vista spots, before the rest of the tourists
caught up on the roadway.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the essence of what a U.S. citizen is.
They are greedy, they are impatient, they are always looking at the
next point ahead instead of focusing on what is right in front of
them, and they are just plain assholes.
Once again, I'm sorry to have been born and raised in the U.S..
After I'd had enough of the drive, we got the hell out of there
and headed for Santa Cruz. However, the day had gotten late, so
we decided to skip Santa Cruz and go for Half Moon Bay to have dinner.
On the way there though, we made a side trip to Brookdale to see
the famed Brookdale Lodge.
We didn't have time to linger, as we had reservations up in Half Moon
Bay, so we went in for a quick look at the dining room, which is
situated right on top of a live brook running right through the
place!
The place is also purportedly haunted, so I told my bf not to tell
me anything about the place so I could see what all I could pick
up naturally. I always hate it when I'm told up front about a
haunted space. It ruins it for me. Ah well, in any case I at least
knew the place was haunted. Whatever...we went inside and had a look
at the dining room, and suddenly I was overcome with the need to
leave. I kept feeling, "gotta go, gotta go, gotta get outta here,
gotta go gotta go NOW". This in turn made me panicky and I said
to my bf, "I'd like to leave now, please."
I made for the nearest exit and once outside the door, I was fine.
I told my bf I couldn't be sure if I was feeling weird walking in
on diners (even though there were only two parties seated in the
big room) to gawk, or if there really was something there. I let
the feeling sit with me for a bit, and then told my bf that it
felt as if I were living my last hours and knew that was it, there
was no way out, yet I was still trying to think of a way out and
growing more frantic about it. I supposed that someone was held
there and murdered. My bf stayed silent and said he wasn't going
to tell me a thing.
Good.
I'm still not gonna look the stories up either. My bf and I made
plans to go back there for dinner and lodging one of these days
so we could have our very own ghost hunt. :D
After that, we made our way out of the lovely woods that had led
us to the Brookdale Lodge, and arrived just in time for dinner
at the Moss Beach
Distillery. We both had the Coquille de Mer dish, and savoured
every bite. It's our favourite dish there, hands down. We're even
on their mailing list to find out about deals, so they knew it was
our anniversary, too. They took our picture and gave us dessert
on the house. I love that place, even if their associated ghost story
is nothing but a gimmick. ;)
Oh, also on the way to dinner, we had stopped at Pigeon Point.
I've decided to finally go ahead and outwardly indulge in my fascination
with the mariner's way of life. My paternal grandmother's side of the
family consisted of a long line of sea captains, and my dad bought a
boat and sailed all over the Great Lakes with us - the same Lakes as his
great grandparents and great uncles - and so it's in our blood so
to speak, to be fascinated with the water.
While in Monterey, I had bought some sandstone drink coasters, and on
them are painted an image of an old sailing ship.
Then, when at the Pigeon Point lighthouse, I took many pictures and
felt very drawn to it. I've always liked lighthouses. I want to frame
pictures we took of the lighthouse and the ocean, and I want to find
more pictures of actual vessels my ancestors sailed on and display
those, too. Had I the money and time, I would take courses on how
to navigate a boat of my own. When I went out on my dad's pontoon
(he's retired from 32-foot SeaRays and 31-foot sailboats) on Lake
Havasu a couple of years ago, I discovered I still have my sea legs,
too. ;)
So that's a Good Thing that came out of the weekend trip, definitely.
There's other good stuff, too, of course.
A visit to a gallery graced me with such artists as Paul Braslow, Pino Daeni and Alexi Butirskiy, for example. Pino's "Deborah, Revisited" piece nearly made me weep, I swear.
|
|