| Here�s the past week in review... Wednesday: A few weeks ago I was told that my senior computer class at San Marino would be moved to the community room in the library. That stunk, and I openly wondered if that was a good idea. There was talk of possibly canceling the class until the City Manager moved back to City Hall. That talk went nowhere, and I had my class in the community room for the first hour, and then the last half hour in the computer lab. I worked my regular shift after the class and lunch. Nothing major. The new monitor started working last week. She's cute. I think she smiled at me. She did joke around with me before I left work. H-O thinks I should make my move. I need to know if she's single first. I went over to TheGirl's to pick her up and take her out to dinner for her birthday, which was on Monday. She wanted to have dinner at San Antonio winery near Chinatown. I was cool with that, they have good food. After battling traffic we made it there just a little after 6pm, thinking we made it with a lot of time to spare since the restaurant usually closes at 7pm. Wrong! The restaurant closed at 5pm. Likely because it was the middle of the week and they probably have less business during the middle of the week. So now we had to scramble for a second option, which I didn't even think about since I was sure we were just going to eat at San Antonio. I pulled out my iPhone and used FourSquare to find a good Italian restaurant. I double-checked my choice on Yelp and we were on our way to downtown Los Angeles, Broadway between 1st and 2nd, to be exact. I parked the car down the street and we walked to a place called Maccheroni Republic, which is across the street from the Grand Central Market. We started out bad because we found out they don't have booze. Terrible. I wanted to throw my hands up, nothing was going right tonight. But we could bring our own bottle, the fella said. The market was closed, but we were told there was a nice liquor store up the street. We ordered our food and made the trek down to what turned out to be a very hip liquor store. The fella there gave us a good tip on a bottle of riesling, TheGirl's favorite. They didn't have her brand, but this one supposedly was close. We went back to the restaurant and opened the bottle and it turned out to be very good. The food, excellent. The night, salvaged. What could have been a disaster turned out to work out perfectly. Good food, good wine, good times.  We ended the night watching a film crew working on something. The marquee said Blythe Danner, and I could see her from across the street as they filmed. Like I said, the night turned out to be really awesome. TheGirl wants to visit downtown again soon. I do too. I saw where The Last Bookstore is located, and can see that in the time when I was last there downtown is much different. I've been waiting for Clifton's to open, but really I should have been visiting downtown as often as I used to.
* * * * * *Thursday: Last week there were a ton of books on the route, this week not so much. Usually not much happens on Thursdays. Today was a busy day. On the route I got to see AE after not seeing her in a couple of weeks. I actually remembered to bring her my Ikiru DVD, which I told her I would bring to her last month. I'm sharing it with her because, frankly because I like her. I want her to connect with me. I don't know if a movie is going to do that, but I'm trying everything. TheGirl's friend was there too. She's recently married, and this was the first time I've seen her since. I congratulated her again, and asked her how married life was treating her. She responded with what I could distill down to a meh. I would have thought she would be glowing, but she told me that she was relieved that the ceremony was all over and done with. That doesn't sound like someone who is excited about being married. But what do I know? Maybe she was tired. Maybe something else. Outside later she asked me how TheGirl was doing. I told her OK. I didn't want to say that TheGirl has written her off as a friend. It's not my place. Kay, as I'll call her, mentioned how she posted a birthday greeting on TheGirl's Facebook earlier in the week, but that TheGirl didn't respond. She also mentioned how she noticed TheGirl hanging out with TheChisel. She noticed a lot of things. It's pretty amazing how people will automatically go and view a person's entire Facebook profile and review every little entry to see how their lives are going. Why not just ask? That's not the way we do things nowadays. After work I talked to my buddy Dane. We chewed the fat, but I couldn't stay long because that girl Gina texted me during my route. She wanted to take some pictures. I agreed to take them after work, letting her know that I had plans for later in the evening. I took some pictures of Gina, emailed them to her, and then made my way to Pasadena for some fun.  My co-workers from San Marino invited me to some tequila tasting at El Portal. I didn't want to go at first, since it was a school night and I didn't want to go to work all hungover. But, they convinced me and I went. It was a good time. I don't think I got my $30 worth of tequila, but I did have a great time. I didn't get home until way past midnight. I also have to stop getting so tanked when I know I'll be driving home alone. I waited out my buzz as long as I could, but I still felt a little buzz as I drove home. I hated doing that, but it was fucking late and I needed to get some sleep. The buzz wore off about half way home, but then the tired eyes kicked in. Still, great night. * * * * * *Friday: Work was work, nothing special. I asked to get out early because I wanted to get a jump on going to Disneyland with TheGirl tonight. My boss said it was fine, and told me that I was about 12 hours over my projected yearly allotted hours. I think I'm going to be fine since I'm losing an hour at Montrose and next week I'll be going to Big Sur on Friday, and that's eight hours right there. So the trip already helps me erase eight of twelve hours. Done! Traffic wasn't much of a problem, though the we did have to deal with some traffic on the way to Disneyland. It was the clusterfuck just as we arrived close to Disneyland that jacked us up, and threatened to make me want to suggest bolting. I didn't take the usual Disney drive exit, believing that going to Harbor and doubling back would be better. Wrong! Harbor was backed up, and a complete mess. It was impossible to make a left turn without having to wait at least three light cycles. After spending what seemed like an eternity waiting to get from the freeway exit to Harbor I bolted and figured I would hit Disneyland from the West. That began a big circle up Harbor, West on Broadway, South on Euclid, and then East on Ball Rd. When we hit Ball road close to Disneyland the clusterfuck was there too. I then figured I would try one of the satellite parking lots, the Toy Story lot would be a good option. Down Walnut I went until Katella, turned South on Harbor and then left into the Toy Story lot. Surprise, it was packed. They turned us away, placed a piece of paper that said "exit" on it and directed us to go straight to the "parking structure." Ah, if it was THAT easy, wouldn't I have gone already? Well, I followed the guy in front of me and boy was that a mistake. No one with a the piece of paper I was given was going the direction I was going, which made me think that something went wrong. Me! In the wrong direction, obviously. Well, it turned out to be OK since I got in a line of cars that wen to the Downtown Disney parking lot. It was nearly packed, but an employee told us to park in an area that is usually the buffer. Finally, we were able to get out of the car. It was crazy. I left work at 5pm, left TheGirl's house at 6pm, and didn't actually park the car until part 8pm. We had some drinks in the outside patio of Trader Sam's, and then headed to Disneyland. It was packed, and I had some trouble getting in since I updated my pass and for some strange reason the old pass becomes invalid. Makes no sense to me, especially since the old pass is supposed to be good until September 15th.  Oh well, we finally made it into the park, which was packed as you can imagine. Being Friday the 13th the park had some different things going on. There was a DJ playing music on Main Street, right in front of the train station. There was also a DJ at the Frontierland station, where I took the above photo of one of the trains. We had dinner, walked around, and got on a couple of rides. What could have been a horrible night turned out to be pretty damn good. * * * * * *After struggling to get someone I know with DirectTV to help me get Sunday Ticket I went ahead and bought the next best thing online, Game Rewind. I watched this past Thursday's Patriots vs Jets game instead of watching the blow-out that was on TV. And because I can watch on my iPad I'm going to be able to watch the Patriots play instead of having to endure some cocksucking San Diego Charger game. Bullshit! OK, time to get ready for the week ahead. Come Friday ill be heading up to Big Sur. Big Sur V: The Voyage Home. Ha! Perhaps. End Communication. |
