At Least No One Saw... (Well, hardly anyone.)

This past weekend I went to a bead show at the LA Convention Center. It was my first time going there, so I was equally excited about the bead show as I was about seeing Staples Center and the Nokia Theater and LA Live. The bead show was "a success," meaning I spent a lot of money. I got to eat lunch at Yard House, which was another win. And they didn't say anything when we walking into Yard House with Starbucks drinks. Yay!

On the way back to the car we walked through the parking garage. The temperature had dropped and no one had a coat, so the parking garage was the warmer option. A few rows away from the car, there was a woman sitting in the back of an SUV eating, talking on the phone. She wasn't speaking English. Not far from her car there was a puddle on the ground. I didn't think much about it and kept walking.

Well... a wet parking garage is a lot slicker than a dry one and before I knew what was happening I was down on my knees. My main thought was "don't drop your tea!!!!" And I didn't. I also didn't take my other hand off of my beads. No hands used to break my fall. Luckily I had decided to wear jeans to the bead show, so I didn't get scraped up. A few more steps and I slid again, but this time I didn't fall. The lady eating in the back of the SUV just watched, didn't offer any help. My friend got very concerned that I might have been seriously injured, all the while making up a fake TMZ commentary narrating the fall.

I have matching bruises on both knees, just like a little kid, and have been wearing long skirts all week.

CAEs 2011

It’s the last day of the year and time once again for the annual CAEs. That’s right, the Camille Awards for Excellence, 2011! There are no set categories, no number of required winners. The only thing needed to win one of these awards is to rise above and be truly excellent. I pick the winners and also reserve the right to add or remove items from the list at any time.

Award number 1 goes to Twitter. It has risen above Facebook in entertainment and above all news sites for its ability to immediately deliver information. I learned about the most recent earthquake in New Zealand via twitter and checked ABC News, which hadn’t yet reported it. Yay, Twitter.

Award number 2 is for best cameo appearance in a film and goes to Jim Parsons in the Muppets. The movie comes very close itself to winning an award, but I don’t care for Pictures in My Head, so too bad, it just misses out. Jim Parsons is a repeat winner having previously won for his work on the Big Bang Theory, and not because he is from Texas.

That’s it. Short and sweet. If anything else truly excellent happened this year, I missed it. Let’s hope the list for 2012 is a lot longer.

Windy

The first apartment I had in LA had a really old heater in what looked like a converted fireplace. Each time the Santa Ana winds would come, the pilot light in the heater (a gas heater) would be blown out and I would have to call the landlord to get it relit. The landlord was a jerk and accused me of intentionally blowing out the pilot light, so the real problem of wind from outside getting inside through the heater was never addressed. The heater also barely warmed up the place, but by law an apartment has to have A heater, not a good heater.

Still, I liked that apartment.

The Santa Ana winds are blowing like cray right now. Tomorrow it will be cold and windy. The heater in my new apartment is in the middle of the space, not against a wall, so there is no danger that it will go out. The windows are shaking. It’s as if people have climbed up to the second floor and are banging on the windows that I should let them in. Lonely spirits looking for a shelter from the elements. Are they friendly? I can’t take the chance.

Short Story Contest

Today is the last day to enter.




I entered! Yay, me.

Short Story Contest

I just wanted to share this info with any other writers who might be out there. The company I use to self-publish my books is having a short story contest. And by short, they mean short! 600 word maximum is extremely short. My last blog posting was longer than that.

If I can motivate myself to write something I'll enter. I think, but could be wrong, that the contest submission deadline is the end of this month. You can read more details about it on the lulu.com blog. There's a link to it at the bottom of the main page at lulu.com.

Good luck! If you win, let me know. I'll let you know if I win!

Road Rage

I’m watching The People’s Court (I know, you wish your life was this exciting.) and there are a couple of cases involving cars. The first one was a road rage case and the description of what happened reminded me of my own personal experience which had some similarities.

When I was in high school, for some reason I liked to be the designated driver. How times have changed! My friends and I would go places after school, usually to Jim’s, which if you know San Antonio you know is similar to a Denny’s, but Jim instead of Denny. None of us had tons of money, so a grilled cheese sandwich here, grilled cheese sticks there, cups of coffee or hot tea all around, and we were good. We would spend hours in that place, playing cards, sitting and talking. It was our hangout. At the end of the day I’d survey all of my friends, see who was going, and we’d pile into my car. The friends without cars also had to be guaranteed a drive home after, and I was fine with that. My parents didn’t get home from work until 5:30, so I had time to kill and being out driving around seemed better to me than watching reruns of MASH for the tenth time.

This day, though, I didn’t have to go home after our outing, I had to go back to school. I worked in the theater’s tech department and we had a rehearsal that night for one of the  several yearly shows.

While at Jim’s, the Artist decided to pick up several of those handouts that places like that have near the door. Apartments for rent, jobs no one really wants, real estate for sale in the city -- he didn’t actually want to read any of these things, but he felt like he should take them because they were free, I guess. After eating, he went even further and took them out of the diner with him. Now he was stuck with these papers that he didn’t want, that I didn’t want, and if he went home with them, his father would probably have punished him for not taking the bus home and doing something fun with friends instead. #HisFatherWasAJerk

In my car, you didn’t have to call shotgun because if the Artist was with us (as he was most of the time), he got to sit in the front passenger seat by default. One of his most annoying habits was changing the gear on my car when I was stopped at lights, not paying attention to what he was doing. He only ever put the car in neutral, but still, annoying. And he loved the expression I made when I almost rear ended another car while my car hydroplaned in a rain storm. Good times.

The Artist lived farthest away than any of my other friends, so it worked out that I always took him home last. We hadn’t gotten very far out of the parking lot when he decided he had had enough with those handouts and got the brilliant idea of getting rid of them while I was driving. We were stopped at a light and a Jeep with the open back pulled up beside us. The Artist jumped out of my car and threw the papers in the back of the Jeep. Needless to say, the slightly older, bigger jock-type driving the Jeep with a girl in the passenger seat did not see any humor in the Artist’s action. Since we were in different lanes, the light was just turning, and I was turning right at the corner, even though I panicked I didn’t think much would happen. Well...

The Jeep driver cut off the car behind mine and followed me. Like, seriously followed me. I couldn’t shake him no matter where I turned, randomly choosing streets to detour on. I couldn’t take anyone home until I got this guy off my tail, and the Artist was a lover, not a fighter, and stood no chance if the Jeep guy was able to catch up to us somehow. Not only was I running out of streets to turn on, I had to be back at school soon and time was running out.

Finally I stopped my car on a residential street and signaled for the Jeep to go ahead and pass me, as if I was just the slow driver in his way.  He pulled in front of my car and stopped. Jeep guy got out of his car and came over to mine. Me and my friends all just staying inside the locked car with windows up. Jeep guy couldn’t do much. I think he either threw the papers back at my car or spat on the window or something. Realizing we weren’t getting out, weren’t going to send someone out to fight with him, Jeep guy (with some yelling at by his girl) got back in his car and left us alone.

I was able to take everyone home, but I made it back to school later than the call time. At least Jeep guy didn’t have a gun or he might have done some real damage, provoked by the thoughtless stupidity of a high-school kid.

The Alley

In preparing for my Halloween costume this year, I went with a friend to Santee Alley in downtown LA. I've lived in LA for 14 years, and this was my first time going to the Alley. Sure, I'd heard of it. Even been shopping just a block or so away in the fashion district and jewelry districts downtown, but somehow I never covered that last little distance to actually see what was up in the Alley.

The first time I went to the fashion district, I remember having people mumble about the drugs they were selling as they passed on the crowded street. Store after store of clothing and fabrics. Supposedly "great prices" on everything. I was there to buy veils for belly dancing, which was my exercise hobby at the time. I still have a large piece of teal silk I purchased on that day, too heavy for dancing with and too beautiful to toss. The veil I ended up with I still have, too. An ombre of purple and white, light enough to toss in the air, floating down delicately on unseen currents, and large enough to hide my entire body coyly, if I so choose.

This time I was searching for trim for my Halloween costume and thanks to a stranger who overheard what I wanted, I was able to find a shop off the main shopping path where I found just what I needed for a price I liked.

But while I was there, Santee Alley beckoned. The most surprising item I saw for sale this time wasn't drugs, but live bunnies in cages. Dozens of bunnies. Bunnies on every corner. Is there a bunny boom in October? Must be. There were also some birds for sale, a couple of really tiny puppies, and some turtles the size of a silver dollar. Colored contact lenses without a prescription? You can get them there. Sunglasses, hats, clothes, shoes, jewelry, makeup, movies that haven't even been released yet -- all available. Just don't ask where they came from, right? It kind of reminded me of Portobello Road. Not the real one, but the one I imagined as a child while watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Everything you can imagine, you can find it here. Too bad all I needed was that trim.

I do think I showed incredible restraint not buying anything that wasn't on my shopping list when I went downtown. I wanted to buy a copy of the new Muppet Movie which doesn’t open for a month. My curiosity was overwhelming. Is it the actual movie? Stolen from Disney or filmed during a screening? Or just clips of the Muppet Show edited together and by the time you realize it isn't the movie, the person you bought it from is hidden back in the shadows...

Will I ever make it back down to Santee Alley? Unknown. At least now I have a better idea of what it's like.