My Trip to Lowe's

Have you ever met one of those guys who can build, fix or basically do anything? If not, allow me to introduce you to my father-in-law. That man's idea of a relaxing vacation isn't spending the day at the beach or going to Disneyland. His idea of vacation is changing the floor plan of his house. He actually lives in a double wide Mobile home, but to look at it, you'd never be able to guess that is what it is. His handiness isn't limited to construction either. He's also a mechanic and a journeyman electrician. Basically, he can do just about anything (except get a computer to work for him). I, on the other hand, am not so inclined (except for the computer part). You can imagine the significant disappointment my wife must have felt the first time she told me that our washing machine was leaking. I just stared at her unblinking. I didn't have the first clue how to fix it. I did, but not completely and to be honest, it was a pretty terrible job.

I said all that to say that because of my deficiency in the area of handymanliness, I don't have many occasions to go to a hardware store. However, as it happens, I was in need of something specific that I was sure I could find at my local Lowe's. So I jumped in my little pick up truck and drove to the redneck Mecca.

When I arrived I began playing the game of "Where Do I Park". I haven't been to enough Lowe's to know whether or not they are all built similar, but I'd be surprised if they weren't. The problem is that the entrance door is at one end and the exit door is at another. So you have to choose: short walk from car to building; or short walk from building to car. There is always the third option of parking all the way to the right of the building where you can pull up after you've made your purchase and load your truck. The problem here is two fold.

1. Unless you're buying 2x4's in bulk, you're gonna have a long walk to whatever section of the store you actually need.

2. It's is generally populated by construction guys buying 2x4's in bulk and they tend to make snide comments about how "cute" my truck is.

So I opted for "short walk from store to car" in case I actually purchased what I was looking for, I wouldn't have to carry it too far.

I found a place, parked side ways in two spots (don't want any hard hat wearing, hammer jockeys to scratch the paint job), and entered the labyrinth of hardware. Another uncomfortable thing about Lowe's is its employees. The front end is completely peopled with women (and a couple of men who are management and know next to nothing about tools-this is the part of the store in which I would work) and most of them are either enraptured with a book they're reading or waiting for the next cute construction guy to walk in. After I've disappointed the watchers, I make my way to the stockers and specialists.

I say that, because there are two kinds of Lowe's employees out on the floor. First, is the guy who actually knows what he is talking about. He is extremely helpful and eager to be so. The problem is that he is usually speaking to the guy who walked in right before you. If you happen to get this guy, your Lowe's experience will be favorable and you will return frequently (even if you don't get him on subsequent trips, you'll return in hopes of finding him again).

The second kind (and the coincidentally the kind I get) is the stocker. This is the guy who works at Lowe's because that is where he is employed, but could just as well be working at Office Depot or Kohl's for that matter. He doesn't know a rotary tool from an oscillating tool (neither do I but then I don't work at Lowe's). He is just as friendly but lacks even rudimentary knowledge. He smiles as you approach and welcomes you warmly. He even asks if you want any help. The difference is that the whole time inside him there is a normal dude without a red vest screaming, "just keep walking, there's nothing to see here-these aren't the associates you're looking for (complete with an attempt at Jedi mind control)". If you make the mistake of asking him for assistance, you will spend the next few minutes traversing the store hoping to stumble on the item you were asking about or the specialist who knows all about it.

This day I knew exactly what I was looking for and headed straight for it, turning aside all offers at assistance. This is when my real problem began. You see I was looking for something specific that could only be found on one specific aisle. So as I made my way to that aisle I heard a slight commotion and turned down my aisle to see a couple making out with ferocity. She had him pinned against the shelving unit and they were deeply involved in the kind of passionate, wild kissing that you would expect to see in a couple that is truly in love and haven't seen each other for 10 years.

As soon as I had seen them, I caught my self and stopped at the entrance of the aisle. I turned away quickly and began examining the items immediately in front of me. They continued on undisturbed. I cleared my throat but they paid me no attention and kept on going. The problem (other than the obvious) was that what I needed was right next to where they were desecrating the sanctity of Lowe's. I was torn- do I walk away and leave them be, or do I get what I had come all the way to Lowe's to get? At this point, I figured it was my duty to put a stop to it. After all, there were children present and sooner or later someone would stumble on this unholy activity and have to put a stop to it. I figured if not me, who; if not now, when! So I cleared my throat, summoned all the fortitude I could muster and pulled out my cell phone and began talking loudly to no one at all.

As I got closer and closer, my true horror was revealed. The talking loudly thing worked and they broke up the little tryst. That is when I discovered the grisly truth. This couple who had just been locked in Love's strong embrace and had been slobbering all over each other like he had just gotten out of prison had a combined age of no less than 120 years. If either one of them was a day under sixty then I'm cupid.

My stomach began to churn and I no doubt turned a greenish hue. They smiled and began walking away hand in hand. I kept expecting him to ask if she wanted her gum back and for her to ask if he wanted his teeth back.

Now, I suspect that somewhere there is a girl who is gonna read this and say, "How sweet, after all these years, they are still very much in love and desire each other." I tell you it's not sweet. I do hope that my wife and I will be that much in love when we're sexagenarians (no pun intended). But you can be certain that it will be reserved to our home or sneaking little kisses in public, not holding an entire aisle at Lowe's hostage.

The sad thing was that the thing I went to Lowe's to get wasn't what I was hoping it was and I left empty handed but with a mind full of things I couldn't un-see.

My Christmas Parade

I have lived in the Temecula Valley for 10 years and have never attended the Old Town Electric Lights Parade. To be perfectly frank, I don't care for parades. I think they are generally a line up of poorly constructed floats decorated with a bunch of self important people. However, last night I felt oddly compelled to grab the wife and kids (and by that I mean she dragged me out there) and trek out to old town to join the denizens of this fair valley in all of this festive fanfare, which I was sure would produce a generous portion of blog fodder.

As we arrived a little over an hour early, traffic had already begun to back up significantly. My wife myopically suggested that the majority of people were just headed home. She was wrong. However, we decided to grab some dinner at the golden arches, which turned into a great idea because we discovered another parking area that was not nearly as far a walk as the other secondary lots. So we enjoyed our dinner and walked over to the parade staging area.

We found a spot near the tail end of the parade. We were warned that we might miss some of the parade because we were technically outside of the parade route. I was sure that once they saw the hundreds of people with us, the floats would extend their parade route to include us. I was not wrong. We did miss seeing the marching bands in all of their glory but we still heard five different renditions of Jingle Bells and one version of Angels We Have Heard on High (thanks Calvary Chapel Murrieta for marching to the beat of a different drum).

While standing around waiting for the parade to begin, the sidewalks began to resemble a line crush at a black Friday sale. People were elbowing and pushing their way through others to get a better seat. Just as the parade was to begin a woman with two little girls and three pink lawn chairs stepped in between me and the rest of my family and tried to set up camp. I didn't say a thing (I'm much to non-confrontational for that); I just resumed the position I had been in prior to their trespassing. Once the woman saw that this giant of a man had every intention of looming over her she quickly assessed her position and found it less than desirable. She picked up and moved on, presumably to sit in someone else's lap.

The parade began and the first entrant to make it's way past the end of the route was the Great Oaks Marching Band with a rousing rendition of the aforementioned Jingle Bells. They were decked in Christmas lights and looked very festive. Then there was a line of City Council members, Community Service representatives and a few other civil servants waving and bequeathing a merry Christmas on all of the parade revellers.

We then saw the first of what seems like a thousand different boyscout troops walk through the parade. I didn't know we had so many different troops in the valley. I am not entirely sure why we need so many different troops. It seems like they could start one and just let anyone from the valley join. But they had a plethora of them. It was comical at times. There was a stereotypical "nerd" troop leader. He was walking in full camping gear (backpack, sleeping roll, pots and pans and a fishing pole, complete with fake fish). He had his little scarf tied around his neck and was wearing the trade mark cargo shorts with hiking boots and brown tube socks pulled half way up his calf. He looked like a hairy, nerdy version of Shelley Long from Troop Beverly Hills. I yelled, "We don't need no stinkin' badges" but he either didn't hear me or was pretending not to because he just kept walking.

The highlight of the scouting portion of the parade was when one boy scout, walking along side the float holding the rest of his troop, chided a crowd member by irritatedly calling back, "I'm not a cub scout!" I hope at their next den meeting they discuss the meaning of the word "semantics".


Next followed a few local businesses and clubs. There were cheer groups and martial artsy people along side a dachshund club and a bus of retired people on "holiday". At one point, Arby's made an appearance with two people dressed as the hand thing that stands out front and waves people in and two girls dressed as elves. One was dressed as a male elf and the other-well, based on her costume, I can only assume she is Arby's hood rat.

There were some local celebrities on hand, but the highlight for me was meeting Drippy, the water drop. He represented the Rancho Water district and I had a few questions for him about my water bill. I suspect it's some sort of conspiracy because he flat out refused to answer any of the hard -hitting questions I asked.

Then a float of little beauty queens passed by. It was full of little girls who wore enough makeup to disguise congress as a bunch of zombie's (okay, that analogy maybe lacking in sufficiency) and who will no doubt wind up on an episode of E! True Hollywood Stories as a cautionary tale of toddlers and tiaras (at the very least they'll wind up on The Soup being made fun of by Joel McHale).

The next set of "celebrities" to walk by were some of the contestants from various reality TV shows. There were a couple of the tap dancing dads from America's Got Talent, some Survivors, Amazing Racers, and two Big Brothers. They passed by with Santa close behind, which made me speculate as to what Santa might bring these people. I surmised that fire and a compass would make suitable gifts for the Survivors and Racers respectively; the tap dancing dads might get some new tap shoes and I am certain the Big Brother contestants would receive industrial- grade antibiotics.

There were some 95 different entrants in this small town parade. One of the best was the Volkswagon Club that included 25 different VW's. There were Bugs, Buses and one Kia Spectra. I didn't just make a typographical error. For some reason the VW club was anchored by a 2001 Kia Spectra.

The grand finale to this little parade was a float with St. Nicolas himself riding a sleigh bedecked in lights and tossing candy to the kids in the street. Or at least that's what I imagined it would look like. We left with about four entrants to go. Both boys had seen enough (as had their parents) and were ready to go. All in all a good time was had by all.

I have not yet decided if we will make a repeat appearance at next year's parade. I think I have gotten all out of it that a spectator can get. I say spectator because, although I am not sure how, I think it would be great to be in next year's parade. So this year I shall endeavor to be an exemplary citizen. One so worthy of note that the parade planners are compelled to replace Santa with me. I will be so loved and admired that they'll make me honorary Mayor. Either that or I'll just start a Boy Scout Troop.

My Pops

I want every one to know that I love my Pops. I have always loved my Pops. I can't remember a time in my life where I didn't respect and care about my Pops. If you aren't familiar with my family allow me to inform you that "Pops" is what my brothers and I call our dad. I can't really tell you for certain when we started calling him Pops but whenever that was it stuck and we have been calling him that ever since.

Anyway, I really do love my Pops. We've never had "issues". I never resented him for anything he did while I was a child. We've had one semi-serious argument since I was 12 and we both admitted we were wrong and hugged and made up within 20 minutes of the dust up (for the record, I was more wrong than he was). Basically, we'd make for a really boring episode of a day-time talk show.

My Pops never claimed to be the smartest man alive, but he was always ready with an answer for any query we threw at him. I remember a time when we were driving down interstate 5 in central California and I asked him what the giant stands with the large propeller things were for. He quickly told me that they were called windmills and they kept the earth spinning on its axis. A little farther down the road we saw the other kind of wind mills, the kind that look like giant egg beaters. When I asked him what that kind was for, he without a moments hesitation told me that they kept the air in our atmosphere circulating so that we wouldn't breathe stale air. In other words, my Pops was a creative genius.

I would like to tell you about an event in our family's history that has become a story that will be passed down from generation to generation until it is only spoken of in distant memory but with the utmost respect for my Pops.

One day in 1992 my Pops came home from work and told my mom he needed to speak to her privately. Now this was weird because in a family of 7 privacy is a foreign concept. But he stressed that it must be private and it must be now. He led my mom back to their bedroom, closed the door behind them and told her she had better sit down. What happened next is legendary.

My Pops had a very concerned and pained look on his face. He began pacing back and forth in front of my mom and wringing his hands. He kept muttering things like, "I need to tell you something important."; I'm not sure how to say this"; "This will be hard for you to understand."

My mom is a worrier. She (not unlike me) can see the worst possible outcome in a situation and it makes her nervous and causes her discomfort. She is not a worrier to the point that she stays up at night wondering and troubled about unimportant things. But when something gives her adequate cause for concern it will bother her. As she was sitting there on the bed a million terrible thoughts were rushing through her mind: Is he having an affair? does he have cancer?did Tom Selleck die? (you'd have to know my mom to understand that one).

My Pops just continued pacing back and forth. He was completely distraught at how exactly he would drop this difficult news on his wife. His worry was how she would look at him after she knew his secret. The pain of the task that lay before him was evident in every aspect of his demeanor. His countenance had dropped. A line of perspiration had appeared across his forehead. He was so fraught with worry and anguish.

At this point my mom was really concerned. She was trying to gather herself, to summon all of her courage, in order to pry this troubling information from him and begin to deal with the fallout. In her best "calm" voice she said,

"Rod, just tell me."

My Pops stopped in his tracks. He turned and faced her. He leaned in close, and with an ashen face and in a raspy voice he told her his secret.

"Kay....I'm Batman!"

Yep, that's it! My Pops is brilliant. This maybe the greatest practical joke a man has ever played on his wife. This story is often rehearsed in our family, usually with a tone of awe and raucous laughter. My Pops is a comic genius! I love seeing the expressions on people's faces as I share this story. I wish I could be sitting next to you in person now just to see your face when you read the line above.

I love my Pops for many reasons, but I will always fondly recall this moment of triumph. Every time I think of it a smile spreads across my face and my heart swells with pride. I wish everyone had the same kind of relationship with their dad that I have with mine, but let's face it, not everybody grows up with batman as a father.

My Montezuma's Revenge

Have you ever met one of those people who always orders the same thing at a restaurant? It doesn't seem to matter that they've been there eleventy-hundred times, they will without fail order the same exact thing. It doesn't matter if the restaurant were to mark up the price a bazillion times, they'd either quit eating there or shell out the money! Do those people annoy you? Do you find yourself wanting to grab them and shake them and scream, "For the love of everything sacred and holy, will you please just pick something else!"? If this is true of you, putting aside your obvious need of therapy of some kind, you may want to discontinue your perusal of my blog. For yes, as you may have guessed, I am one of those people.

If that bothers you then I am sorry that I don't really care about your personal issues. If you haven't caught on yet, this blog is not about you--unless you have the misfortune of being one of those people that annoy me enough to write about. In which case, it is very much about you, but not the way you probably hoped.

As I mentioned earlier, I am one of those people who gets the same thing every time I go to a particular restaurant. If I may (which again, this is my blog, so yes I may), I would like to let you know why I have become such a creature of habit. Pure and simply put, I find security and comfort in it. If I don't try anything new, I am never disappointed. Every now and then at the behest of my wife, I will sample a new entree and almost every time, I am disappointed.

Despite my predilection to culinary invariability, I feel that I would make an excellent food critic. You may scoff at such conjecture but what I lack in variety I more than make up for in ability to aptly describe what I am eating and can be very persuasive when called upon. If you are one of those narrow minded sorts who thinks that you have to have a variety of experience to know what's the best, I would just ask, Who is more of the fool-the man who knows what he likes and orders that or the man who tries a hundred different things, only to settle upon the exact same thing that another man chose at once?

However, my point is not to tout my own prowess, but to pass on to you what I have learned from my trip to several different Mexican food eateries. First off let me state, I lack the consent of these places to mention them in my blog, therefore I will be giving them fictitious names. However, I will be leaving clues so that you might surmise the identities of these establishments and steer clear or patronize them at your leisure. Secondly, I would like to say that my findings may be somewhat tainted as I am a fan of tex-mex and not Mexican food in its traditional form. I have been to Mexico and I feel that we in America make it so much better. ( I here illustrate my point by directing your attention to Chinese food. It was just mediocre until they brought it to America and some genius said, "Why don't we try deep frying it?" and a succulent sensation was sired).

Let us now turn our attention to the first restaurant (these are listed in order of my favorite from least to most). Let's call this restaurant "The little bull". This restaurant is considered tex-mex but it may be more accurate to refer to it as mex-tex because it is far more Mexican-y than it is Texas-y. Here I ordered, the taquito/flauta platter. Mostly because I don't like this restaurant very much and feel it is next to impossible to mess up a taquito. I will say that they were good and the Mexican Cesar salad was delicious (the pine nuts add a special twist). I would have quite enjoyed my meal if it hadn't been for the woman seated at the table next to us. I am not sure how old she was but I am quite certain that she is too old to be that plastered at 5:00. She was so tanked that when she had finished drinking her meal, she refused to tip her waiter, preferring instead to give the money to the bus boy who had been shuttling the drinks she was imbibing from the bar, fueling her booze soaked repast. Overall, I give the restaurant 4 stars (out of a possible 100). It was good, but if you want me to return you'll find someway to quarantine the alcoholics in the bar!

Next on my list of lunch is a little restaurant we shall call "Blevy's". Some people think it is named thus because it was founded by actor Blevy Chase, but that is just an urban legend. Here, I ordered the flautas and empanada platter (are you beginning to see a pattern?). The food was terrific. I especially like this restaurant because if it is your birthday they give you a big sombrero with "Blevy's" written on it. The thing I wish to address here is the hostess. When we walked in the man with whom I was eating said to her, "Tres, Senorita!" She looked at him perplexedly and said, "I am sorry, I don't speak Spanish." I interpreted for her and we somehow made it to our seats. As much as I love Blevy's, I am concerned that they employ such people and am forced to ponder-if this is who they have as the face of their company, what kind of mental midget is working the grill?

Much of my young life I considered Blevy's to be my favorite but only because I hadn't learned that our next restaurant existed. As my #1 favorite restaurant I give you, (drum roll) Over the Boarder! They have the best empanadas, flautas, nachos and pretty much anything else you would find at a tex-mex restaurant. If you have noticed, I have mentioned multiple items because this is one of those rare instances in which I was not disappointed by venturing outside of my comfort zone. As a matter of fact, I have never been disappointed by Over the Boarder. Their food is excellent, I have never met a waiter/waitress, host or cook I didn't like. They are even selective in their clientele. They don't let just any one eat there. If you choose to eat there, you are obviously a person of high taste and astute discernment.

Well, I suppose I have ignored my boys long enough. They are threatening to get me banned from Over the Boarder if I don't stop and play with them. I know they're probably bluffing, but that's not a hand I'm willing to play!

My Driver's Education

When I was a kid I can remember watching the cartoons on the Disney Channel (mind you this was back when they showed Disney Cartoons-you know Mickey, Donald and Goofy not Miley, Lindsey or (insert name of latest "tween" sweetheart to foster the image of a rebellious harlot to get back at Disney for forcing childhood innocence upon them into their teen years). One of my favorite cartoons was the one about Goofy becoming a different person behind the wheel of a car. I remember distinctly how he was very calm and polite and would go out of his way to avoid even stepping on a bug and then he would get behind the wheel and transform into a Mr. Hyde- type character. This once caring and concerned citizen became a tyrannical despot who felt that all others should yield to him and allow him the right of way. He didn't just feel that way, he considered it his right and demanded others' observance of it.

I only bring this up because I have been contemplating my own driving skills and feel that I also make a sort of Hyde-esque transformation when driving a vehicle. Before you get on your high horse and "tsk-tsk" me, just seriously consider your own driving habits. It amazes me (as I think from the safety of a desk and not behind a wheel) how I almost always assume the other guy is at fault (although, in my defense that is usually the case). I am not so level headed behind the wheel and it is at those times that I "know" the other guy is to blame-not me!

Case in point: Near my home there is a shopping center on either side of the street and an island in the middle of the road almost completely blocking access to the other shopping center depending on which side of the street you're on. The only way to turn left out of the strip mall on the east side is to turn right and pull a U-turn from a turn lane which serves as the only access to the strip mall on the west side of the street (still with me?). The point is the other day I found myself needing to turn left out of the east side of the street so I pulled into the turn lane and waited for traffic to clear so that I could make my safe and legal u-turn. The problem was that while I was waiting for traffic to clear, a car prepared to make a right hand turn out of the west side shopping center. This woman pulled up to her stop sign (I had no such posting impeding my progress) but only looked back at the traffic coming at her and failed to even look at the lane in which I was patiently waiting to make my turn. Now the sensible and kindly thing to have done would be to wait for her to proceed knowing that she hadn't seen me. However, the Hyde-ian part of my brain was triggered and instead of ensuring safety, I felt it was necessary to assert my personal rights-specifically that right to proceed first when I don't have to stop and the other person does. As you may have guessed, I pulled out, she did too and was completely shocked and awed that there was now a silver mini-van where she expected only black top. What happened next is what baffles me and is really the point of my rambling today. She began to lay on the horn and yell all manner of cursing and insinuations about me and various farm animals. I did not appreciate this! My window happened to be down at the time so that my ears received the full brunt of her slander and calumny. My window being down also afforded me the opportunity to defend myself from this salacious speech. In a calm rational voice (that never exceeded a decibel above a normal talking voice), I stated that I didn't have a stop sign and that she would do well to heed the advice of my kindergarten teacher, Ms. Saul and, "look both ways next time!" Except you know from the tenor of my introduction that this is not how it went down at all. No, I yelled at her that I didn't have a stop sign and went on to imply that she was a woman of low moral character. I am not saying this was right. But when she began to yell at me because I was adhering to the rules of the road it was just like Goofy! I became a different person entirely.

For the most part, I am an exceptional driver, especially with passengers. If I, in a moment of clarity, realize I am the one at fault in a near miss, I have no trouble waving or admitting in some way that I am at fault. But if I am not-LOOK OUT!

That is why I feel that there should be some kind of class or test that one should have to pass before they are allowed to get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. Hey, November's just around the corner, maybe we can get it on the ballot this year!

My Neighborhood-No More

For the past six years we have lived in the same place. That is something of a record for us. From the time we got married (July, 2000) to the time we moved into our current abode (July, 2004), my beautiful bride and I had moved no less than seven times. That may not sound like much to you, but is about six more times than I would have preferred (and the last time I checked this blog was called, “Jared-muses” not “some insignificant chirp who feels the need to one-up everyone’s story no matter how outlandish they are forced to exaggerate-muses”). Anyway, I love my little condo, I really do. It is almost perfect. I say almost because there is one drawback to living here (other than the ridiculous HOA fees charged to me by the neo-facist, communistic property management which I refer to as the Fourth Reich). That major hurdle to perfection is the menagerie of tenants who dwell around me.

I must pause here to say that for the most part, we have been uniquely blessed to not be surrounded by only terrible neighbors. In six years, our most directly connected neighbors have been mostly tolerable. There is the single, school teacher who lives directly across from us (and happens to be the only other original tenant in the 36 units that surround our immediate area). Other than the Macaw and a penchant for playing his guitar and singing loudly, he has been a very pleasant neighbor (and at least he sings well). Also, there are the “Extremes”. I called them that (until I learned their names) because he is a moto-cross rider (as attested to by the fact that he has a couple of bikes and walks around in a full back and neck brace after a crash, which happens with uncanny frequency-I didn’t say he was good) and because he has the word “extreme” tattooed across his back in eight inch gothic letters (which are often visible because he never wears a shirt when he’s not wearing the back brace). They are a nice couple and we always got along swimmingly. But that pretty much wraps it up on the good neighbor side of things. One unit, the one with which we share a wall, has been particularly productive in the bad neighbor department. The original tenants smoked like they were in their own personal episode of MadMen and still believed all of the phony doctors who recommended smoking as a stress reliever (although, I don’t suppose dead people have too much stress, so in a way, they were right). The bigger problem was that they would leave their cigarette butts all over the place-at least until my wife swept them all up one day and piled them up at their front door.
The next set of tenants was a family-Mom, Dad and teenage daughter and son-typical American family, right? A little too typical if you ask me. My wife said that they weren’t terrorists, but he always walked around with a “Die, American Pig” scowl on his face and the family seemed to get along more as co-workers than as relatives. A couple of calls to Homeland Security and they moved away a short time later (Ok, I admit that I was also consuming several seasons of 24 while they lived next door and that may have contributed slightly to my assumptions).
The most recent set of “winners” to play musical renters was a young couple with an infant daughter who lived there for a month. They moved in week one, the cops came to visit week two, he moved out week three and she moved out week four. In the past month or so, there has been an influx of renters moving into the vacant condos surrounding us. The most ridiculous of the new tenants are the ones who moved in directly above us. I am not sure what they are doing but it sounds like they are moving stuff across the floor continually. I don’t believe it could be furniture- who moves furniture that much? I think it might be dead bodies. Maybe they start to stink a little bit so you move them over to the window. But you don’t want the neighbors to see you airing out your dead bodies so you got to hide them back in the closet again. I am willing to hold my tongue and not turn them in if they would please, for the love of everything sacred and holy, stop moving the bodies around! If it persists, I believe the FBI has an organized crime division who will be getting a call.

What was once a pleasant little condo has been turned into a glorified apartment complex which I feel shall be featured on COPS very soon. The nefarious conduct has escalated. The other day I walked through the courtyard to our garage and was almost knocked over by the smell of mary-jane (and I don’t mean the perfume worn by Spiderman’s on again, off again love interest). However, the majority of criminal activity has been limited to the building across the parking lot from us. This is where the stabbing occurred. It seems that some guy didn’t like that his girlfriend broke up with him and moved out. So he found her new place (across from us) and paid her a visit one night. He bullied his way into the house and an argument broke out (which usually happens when one party infringes upon another). Long story short: he stabbed her; she played dead; cops were called; paramedics arrived; he was arrested, she moved away; the neighborhood was peaceful again…but for how long?

The winner of "Neighbor of the Decade" though goes to one particularly strung out single mom. I shall, for the sake of brevity, refer to her as, “the woman”, in lieu of the other name I have for her, "Crazy, Paranoid, Insomniatic, Crack Whore, the first”. If I may, I will share with you this particular story in better detail than the previous ones I have related.

One night, about 10:00 pm my wife and I decided to call it a night and head to bed (this is not married code, we really are so boring sometimes that we actually go to bed that early). We had been asleep for roughly three hours when we were startled awake by knocking on our door. I sleepily stumbled to the door and peered through the lookout hole and saw the woman. She was standing there in a bathrobe with hair disheveled and a wild paranoid look in her eye. I generally sleep without a shirt (this is not said to gross you out but to explain my next move) so I called through the door, rather than opening it, in order to ascertain what she could possibly want. She began to ramble on about us shining lights into her house doing so with a vocabulary that Andrew Dice Clay would have envied. I realized I was dealing with a different kind of crazy than the garden variety crazy we normally see, so I went back to the bedroom to get dressed. When I returned to the door she was nowhere to be seen. By this time my wife is up, robed and wondering at the commotion. I stepped back inside and closed the door. I then proceeded to the other side of the house (which was like three steps) and went out onto our patio. The woman was making her way back across the parking lot from her condo and beginning anew with baseless accusations of us keeping her awake by shining lights in her windows and keeping her from some obviously much needed sleep. I tried to explain to her that despite the fact that our personal hobby is staying up late and clandestinely shining laser lights into our neighbors’ window, we had actually been in bed for three hours. That little revelation took her to a dark place because she unleashed a torrent of profanity that would have been worthy of an HBO special. She then added a little wrinkle to her story. Apparently she is also a photographer, because she explained that she was in her dark room with the door closed and she could still see us shining lights into her windows. Putting aside the need of x-ray vision to see us shining lights in her windows through the closed door of her dark room, I am intimately aware of the confines of these little condos and there is no place to even set up a dark room. If she has a dark room then I’m Abraham Lincoln and I have neither the height nor the capacity to grow a beard like our sixteenth president.
At this point my wife transforms from the mild mannered housewife that you all know and love into the proverbial momma bear who’s cubs are about to be awakened by this crazy, delusional, paranoid, insomniatic, crack whore (the first). I am now forced to place myself in between momma bear and the woman who keeps poking her. This is not a place I want to be. On one side I have the aforementioned harlot and on the other I have my beautiful wife turned angry mom transitioning from defense to offense. One ear is being filled with every foul word (and maybe a few she made up) known to man and the other a series of quick retorts that made me flush with pride. Eventually this woman needed to return to her crack den (with a dark room) and refuel because she stormed off angry. My wife and I returned to our bedroom and tried to go to sleep.
The next morning we called the police just to get on record that we had a crazy neighbor (it came as no surprise to the cops), lest we find our tires slashed or a horse head in our bed. However, later that day as I returned home from work I found a note stuck to our door. I fully expected it to be a ransom note for our cats or the plants on our porch (she was that unstable), for which I was not willing to pay a red cent. Instead, it was an apology note stating a list of reasons why we should forgive her behavior, although not once did she mention withdrawal or acid trip (two of my prime suspects in the case of the crazy, paranoid, crack whore the first). She basically listed everything that went wrong in her life and said that those things were to blame. I wanted to assure her that I know we all have struggles the rest of us just choose to deal with them in a more dignified less psychotic manner. My wife was largely unimpressed with this apology and figured that if she can wake us up and cuss us out in person than she should have the decency to apologize in person. I tried to explain the disconnect between decency and crazy but she was still in momma bear mode and would not be dissuaded. From then on, every time I saw the woman, I was as pleasant to her as possible. I am not sure if crazy people can be killed with kindness but I felt it didn’t hurt to try.

That is why we are pulling up stakes and moving out. Between the photographic crack den next door and the Sopranos up stairs, we have had our fill of condo life. We are looking for a nice little house with a back yard and no adjacent buildings. There’s a nice one we’re looking at on Elm Street. After the neighbors we’ve put up with we feel that even Freddy would be an upgrade.

My Culture Clash

I know what you're thinking. Two blogs in just as many days, is it even possible. Well, I assure you that it won't become a habit. But I experienced something so wonderfully entertaining that I thought I should, nay, I felt compelled to share with you.

Last Friday evening, I took my beautiful bride of ten years, three weeks and five days to the Hollywood Bowl to see the world renowned and academy award winning composer John Williams conduct the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra. The theme of the show was "The Music of the Movies". It was a wonderful delight. John Williams was engaging and incredibly talented. The Concert Mistress was exceptional and her violin solo in the theme to Fiddler on the Roof was nothing short of brilliant. I was completely inundated with culture.

I am not opposed to culture. I just don't find it as entertaining as some people do. But this was spectacular. Even though I am not a musical person in the strictest sense (I don't play an instrument or even read music for that matter), I was able to appreciate the difficulty of the performance before me.

But that isn't what I wanted to share with you today. I would rather instead share with you the counter-culture. I knew going into this that there was going to be some people here that I, under normal circumstances, wouldn't spend time with. But I was woefully unprepared for the experience with which I was confronted. I am a fan of the movies. I loved to be entertained. I love to entertain. I would have loved to be an actor and take any chance I get to be one (which usually means Church Christmas plays and the annual comedy night fundraiser I used to run as the youth pastor). But while I am a fan, I am not fanatical.

One of the souvenirs you could purchase was a light saber. They were available because John Williams, of course, wrote the music for Star Wars. But the people I saw weren't going to waste their money on those. Not because of some sense of fiscal responsibility, but because of a lack of authenticity. That's right, they weren't real enough. As we milled about in the lines for entrance and snacks, I noticed an incredibly high number of people with their very own light sabers. Some had the ones you build yourself at Disneyland or some other star wars shoppe. But some had very expensive looking replicas. I laughed to myself because I thought it was a little comical, not that they owned those things, but that they brought them. But those people were the sanest ones of the bunch.

As we progressed toward our seats, I saw a woman with a t-shirt on that had the picture of a woman's body decked out in the Princess Leia/Jabba's palace prisoner outfit. She had her hair done up in the same way that Leia did in the Return of the Jedi. The guy with her (who I can only assume was a relative or gay) was wearing a t-shirt that resembled Darth Vader's breastplate complete with light up panel and glowing tubes running over it. I thought okay, the light saber was cute but that this was over doing it a bit. They didn't prove to be the craziest of the bunch.

Then I saw a guy dressed just like Indiana Jones. I thought that was too far. However, I rationalized in my mind that I also own a pair of khaki pants and a white shirt and while I possess neither the hat nor the satchel, it wasn't unreasonable to think that someone may own these things separately and threw them together as a laugh. But this was just the tip of the weird iceberg.

I then saw a guy who defied rational thought. He was dressed as a "Padawan apprentice" (if I misspelled that-I am glad I don't know its proper spelling and couldn't care less). If you are going to dress up as a movie character, how low must your self esteem be if you are willing to be the guy who doesn't have any cool powers or know anything? That just screamed pathetic to me. But this guy wasn't even the worst.

While one of the three Star Wars songs was being played that night some guy dressed up like a storm trooper jumped up in the aisle and began to dance up and down the stairs. He was comical and entertaining but I thought it was appropriate for him since he no doubt was laughed at a lot when he was a child (which he probably still is, at least maturity-wise). But this guy still wasn't the main attraction.

No that spot is reserved for the guy who showed up in a complete Jedi outfit. From the boots to the belt to the long grown out hair (a la Liam Neeson's Qui-Gon Jinn-again if I misspelled, I don't care). But the piece de resistance was his hand made custom light saber. I have read a Star Wars book or two (I'm not drinking the kool-aid, I just enjoy good FICTION!) and I learned that part of a Jedi's final training is building his own light saber. I have no doubt that this is exactly what this guy did. The best part was how he stood at perfect attention, light saber in hand and held perfectly straight in front of him. The devotion and reverence which he displayed would lead one to believe that John Williams was at the very heart of the rebel alliance.

I laughed within myself and out loud on quite a few occasions as the ridiculousness struck me repeatedly like a speeder cruising over a womp rat. But the thought that struck me the funniest and what I will leave you with now, is this: Between all of the Star Wars geeks, err...fans and the gay guys that flock to musicals like the "salmon of Capistrano", I was very confident that I was one of the only guys in that entire crowd who has actually kissed a girl!