This and That, not much new.
Today we had a car and motorcycle show at work. Employees brought some beautiful cars and motorcycles to show. Since we have about 7,000 working here there are quite a few people who do that sort of thing. The proceeds from the car wash go to various charities in the area. The cool part about the fundraiser that the managers will wash your car for a donation. It fun to see them sweating and doing grunt work heh, heh. And they had a bbq with grilled burgers and hotdogs. There were also a few booths about different organizations that we donate to. There was music and raffles and fun! They do a lot of fun events for us here. On Friday they will have a Hispanic Culture day (Sept. 15th) outdoors, with food and mariachis and raffles etc, fun, I guess.
Not much new, we met Perry for a few beers and chicken wings downtown at a little beach bar yesterday after work. It seems that Perry paints ceramics for a friend of his who has a shop, she is an artist. Anyway he was telling us about these mushrooms she makes for your garden. They are small ceramic, glazed with all kinds of colors and spots and are very unique. So he got us a few of them for our garden outside. They are pretty novel, I must admit.
That is about it.

I was thinking today, well actually last night, for some reason I think of things that would be interesting to blog about when I am not near a computer. Then when and I do have time, and I am on the computer, I am all blank… But this story I remembered and you will see why.

I was recalling a funeral that took place about this time of year, about 7 years ago, but the sadness and irony is still so freshly etched in my mind I can’t seem to shake it, even after all this time. It still makes me wonder about God’s Plan and why things happen the way they do.

I worked for a research and development corporation that did very, very secret stuff for the government. Which in itself would be a good story but I am not sure I should or could blog about that. (Leavenworth!)

There were about 30 of us in the office and we were like a big family. We shared our lives with each other marriages, children, holidays, birthdays and life in general. You have to know that the Scientists that worked here were VERY, VERY off the wall. This company recruited the brightest in the nation to work here. By the way I was their admin, not a scientist (of course).

I am not sure why, but many of these intellectually gifted folks had no social skills what so ever!! They were in their own world and some could barley function socially. It was kind of sad, because many were lonely and work was their entire existence.

There were a lot characters in that place, but this one focuses on one lonely man, we will call him Thomas. He had never had a girlfriend before, I am pretty sure he was a 34 yr old virgin. Thomas was by most standards, a nerd. He had the thick black glasses; he was about 40lbs overweight, physically out of shape and had a bad case of psoriasis. But he was such a gentle, caring, sweet, person who genuinely liked people. I had many conversations with him and enjoyed interacting with him, I wondered how the ugly world had not tainted him, why was he so pure and optimistic?? Yes, he was a Christian, but not a fanatic; he had luminescence about him that made him beautiful to those who took the time to listen to him.

Research at this company often collaborated with the local University. Thomas, through his research endeavors, had met a woman who worked at the University. We will call her Elaine; she was 36 yrs old and very brilliant as well. They seemed to be two of kind, two kindred souls who were meant to be together. They fell deeply in love and I had never seen Thomas so happy, ever!! He was glowing and alive like never before, he would go on and on about this lady and she became his everything. They got married after about a year together and started on a family the following year. She became pregnant with twins!! A boy and a girl, they were elated and grateful that God had bestowed such a blessing on them, not just for just each other but a family on the way.

We were all invited to the baby shower of course, and it was wonderful she got EVERYTHING you could imagine. She was also very close to her family who was with her all through the whole experience.

One day, 8.5 months into her pregnancy Elaine was with her sister and Mother at home. They were preparing to go out, Elaine went upstairs and told them she was going to get ready. After some time has past, they became concerned. Of course, they knew that being that pregnant meant that it would take a bit more time to get ready but, something was not right. They went upstairs to check on her and it appeared that she was napping. But she would not wake up, ever again.

The coroner had determined that she had a brain aneurism and died instantly. Their children were full term and would have survived, had they been found in time.

Thomas was at work when he got the call; it was devastating to say the least!!
The funeral was worse; they had delivered the deceased children and dressed them in their infant pink and blue sleepers, and placed them in the mother’s arms for all to see. They looked so perfect and peaceful, it was too much to bear to just be there, I cannot imagine how one human, could endure such pain. To have one’s hopes and dreams snatched away in an instant.

After his family was taken so cruelly, Thomas was never the same, he lost his naivety, but he also gained something.
As Thomas saw it, he had found the love of his life, if even only for a brief time and that made him a fortunate person, far more than most.

It seemed that we lived in Arizona there was always something fun do outdoors. Like hiking, target shooting, camping or just mountain bikes. It was always easy to get away from the hustle and bustle and see nature. Here in California, it seems that those places are few and very far away. I guess I have not fully explored the options here for those activities that I enjoy. It seems to me that there are sooooo many people here that it is just such a hassle to go anywhere do anything.

The last frontier here is on the ocean. I think that is the ONLY place one can go to get some peace away from all these people. Since we do not own an ocean going boat, the ocean is not an easy place to escape on.
I am small town gal at heart and I really miss the solitude and peace of mind from living in a small town. I grew up in a small town and then I moved away to a larger city but not a huge, major city.

I miss just getting away from people, taking a quiet walk in the desert or the mountains. Yea, I used to complain that we had no big clubs or nice fancy restaurants or museums or attractions to visit. But really now that I live by all those things we don’t go to them much, they are always crowed and overpriced and usually disappointing. Which makes me believe that one should be grateful for what one has in life. Love where you are and the moment you are in.

Back after a brief hiatus…. Went on a booze cruise for Perry’s Birthday last week. We left the harbor and cruised for a few hours on the ocean. We all ate and drank and had a blast. I took a week off of work and now I have to catch up here, so I am posting some pics of our booze cruise….



That was not really a cake, it was 12 pk of beer that we frosted to look like a cake. Ha, Ha... he was VERY surprised when he tried to cut into to it!!!



















Here I am giving him a birthday kissee.
















Here is the whole party of us all at the end of the day..... all of us very toasted!!

Happy Friday, oh wait (scratch, scratch) I have multiple spider bites on me today. Nothing like that spider above, those are the camel spiders of IRAQ. eeew! (cringe)
Apparently a spider was sleeping with me in bed last night and he decided to dine on me at some point. I have about 5 quater sized red swollen welts in a trail going up my arm. We have to keep the windows open due to the crappy heat and us not having A/C and the spiders get in under the screens and doors. I find big ugly brown hairy spiders all the time we must kill at least 3 or more spiders a week. The open house for the spider will change very sooooooon. Because I do have a dream….my dream is to purchase one of those beautiful portable air conditioners ahhhh I can’t wait!!
In two weeks I will have the money to get the portable air conditioner. I have done all my research and found the best deal on the internet. Our house is so soggy and hot I can’t sleep well and we sweat all day long. Most houses in our area (southern California, A Beach City) do not have A/C. They say we don’t need air, but that is a big bunch of crap. Maybe 40 or 50 yrs ago they didn’t but we sure do now. I guess the earth is getting hotter due to global warming or whatever, I don’t care I am hot and grouchy!!

Other than bitching about the heat, nothing much new.
Plans for the weekend are to BBQ some meat and drink some cold brews. We are having Perry over for dinner on Saturday so I have to get to the store and buy some food tonight. I am thinking; keep it simple, steaks and baked potatoes. Keep the cooking outdoors. We will BBQ and hang out on the patio in the shade and put on some tunes and chat. Then maybe walk down the street and walk on the beach after dinner. Have a good weekend everyone!

I work in a “cube farm” for a large corporate conglomeration.
A cube farm is an office filled with cubicles, a room full of people with thin, fabric covered walls between us.

I spend my days in a tiny cubicle that I call my own space for at least 9 hrs every day.
Not that bad except for there is that nagging feeling that if I just press the right button, I will get a piece of cheese.

But the worst part of the whole deal is that we have very little privacy. One can hear every thing our co-workers are saying and doing. There is no such thing as a personal conversation here, which some people don’t seem to understand or care about. Or maybe they just THINK everyone cares about their personal problems

When I have a personal call I call them back if they called me or make my personal calls on my cell phone well away from everyone.

Today I had to hear all about my neighbor’s medical tests as he discussed the results with his doctor. I now know wayyy to much about his enlarged prostate.

Then there is the persistent cougher, who constantly has some mucus plug lodged in their throat. You hear them hacking away and coughing up fur balls all day long.

Then neighbor on the other side of me is a chatterbox who has to engage everyone in conversation with no point to it what-so-every. And she has to call her family members five times a day, sheesh. I have to hear what they ate for lunch and what they did all day long.
When people have to work this closely, they have a shorter fuse and tend to annoy each other more or tolerate each other less. Some days I am fine other days I just want to be alone. On those days, thank God for my IPOD.

Well my older brother came to vacation in California and decided to stop by and visit me. I had not seen him for at least 3 years. He sort of disowned me when my hubby and I had hit a rough path and were not doing well. We had lost our jobs and we were struggling for a while. He is VERY responsible and never makes mistakes. Pays all his bills on time, perfect credit, always had a job his whole life. He owns several houses and had worked very hard at the same government job for over 30 yrs!! Noone could live up his lofty standards by any measure. I dreaded seeing him, we rent a home and yes, we tend to live payday to payday His wife is actually worse than him, she is a snob and enjoys gossip of any kind.

He calls up and invites us out to dinner, because it was my birthday last Sunday and he had not seen me quite sometime. He thought he would honor me by taking me to dinner.

They were vacationing with another couple and their 3 yr old child. They were doing the whole Disneyland, Universal Studios, San Diego thing. They have a child who is 10 yrs old and very, very spoiled, the kid calls all the shots in family. They wanted to come over to our place and then go to dinner.

I give them directions to my house, they over shot our house by a few blocks and end up at the ocean. Their kid takes off like a bat outta hell for the water as soon as they stop the car to call me. I thought it was hilarious, she is playing in waves and sand, soaking her jeans to her thighs. Now the kid does not want to go dinner in wet clothes. We ended up putting her dirty wet jean in the dryer and waiting till they were dry before we could all go to dinner.

We finally did go out to dinner and the kids behaved terribly, of course, glad that whole ordeal is over. Thank goodness they live 2 states away… Sad but true.

I cannot go one more day without giving my friend “Walker” a big THANK YOU for making me this fabulous template for my blog!! He Truly is a remarkable man and I thank him from the bottom of my heart!!