December 24, 2003
Christmas Eve during the day, my Mom and I went shopping. I thought Casey was going to use his gift from me to buy sunglasses but he decided against this and so I was forced into doing all of his birthday shopping at the last minute. It was madness. I guess everyone else was in the EXACT situation I was except in even more of a hurry because they were honking their horns and yelling as if that would speed things along. Mom and I enjoyed our last shopping trip together before our move.
Something that was supposed to be a good thing, has turned out to be anything but so far. We reserved the U-haul and car carrier 2 weeks before the move from the location closest to us. Well on Christmas Eve we got a call saying that the closest location for pickup would be in north Pueblo (about 45 minutes – 1 hour away). I told her I would call her at the end of her business day to see if anything had become available and it had. Then we get a call from Alan, the real estate guy that shows our apartment complex and acts as a liaison between us and the owner. He told us the elevator would not be running in the building and the building was only 90% completed. That night we go online and set up our utilities, water, and gas to be turned on for the next available time which would be December 29th, Monday.
Christmas Eve was good. It’s tradition to open one gift on Christmas Eve and this is what we did after dinner. Then we watched Christmas Vacation (another tradition) and enjoyed our last couple of nights with family before leaving.
December 25, 2003
Merry Christmas! Happy Birthday Jesus!
Casey and I were actually able to sleep in today after almost non-stop activity for the past two weeks. Upon waking up we had an email from SoCal Gas waiting for us stating that they would not be able to turn the gas on because the building had not been inspected or some crap like that. What?! No gas, that means no heat and more importantly no hot water. Calls needed to be made but they’d have to wait till tomorrow. No reason to spoil today so we put it to the back of our mind for the time being. We made it over to my parents house around 2 to open presents. We were pretty spoiled this year since we were moving. It’s so great to see the look on people’s faces when you give them a gift. We feel very blessed this Christmas for our family, friends, each other, and the gifts we received. We had a simple yet savory Christmas dinner that we all took part in preparing, although as usual Grandma made the majority of it. That tripdephin (don’t know if I spelled that right) did us all in and everyone but Jim took a nap. That’s why turkey is only for holidays. 😉 After our nap, we got some dessert and spent a couple more hours talking and enjoying each others company before heading back to our apartment for the last night. I put in our change of address form online and was surprised that they charge you to do so – $1. Not a lot but I figure it’s to verify you’re not disrupting someone’s mail service besides your own. It was bittersweet being there and finishing packing up what we could for the move the next day. We stayed up till 3am again trying to get everything together so it wouldn’t be such a tedious ordeal the following day. We had a lot of good times while living there but were happy to have a newer, larger apartment. AND a steady job without travel for Casey! It’s exciting and scary but it’s better than being without a job come February or March. Our apartment may have been slightly ghetto but it served it’s purpose for us quite well.
December 26, 2003
After only 3 hours of asleep, I got up to see what the Black Friday sales at Target had to offer. I was hoping to get a tree but they had started clearancing those out about a week to a week and a half before so they only had little ones left. I spent way more money than I needed to or thought I was going to but it’ll save me a trip this coming year from having to go again. I stocked up. I bought donuts, milk, and sodas for everyone that was helping move and made it back to the apartment by 8.
Casey and I unloaded all the new stuff we’d have to move and we headed over to the U-haul place. The guy that runs this place is an old, I mean old, redneck. He even has a sign that says redneck on the wall. We had looked at the trucks in the parking lot and saw that the truck that we had reserved was a lot older than the smaller one and thought maybe our stuff could actually fit in the smaller truck. We asked the guy and he said that there was nothing wrong with the truck we had, blah blah blah. So we said ok and go with the bigger 17′ truck with car carrier that we had reserved. We didn’t know that our renters insurance covered our move so we bought more insurance to help cover our stuff. The insurance is crap and we didn’t get a chance to read all the paperwork before buying it. It only covers accidents caused by acts of God, wars, and riots. There is no coverage for burglary or stolen belongings OR shifting of cargo during transit. Now what good IS this insurance? We made it back to the apartment and Jim helped Casey get the car carrier off and begin loading up the truck. It was a long day, much longer than we had anticipated. We had a lot of great help: THANKS TO JIM, MOM, DAVE, RANDI, and CHRIS, for helping us out! The guys helped out actually moving the boxes down to the truck and Mom, Randi, and I were able to finish up little stuff and clean. I made calls to shut off our utilities and cable. I tried to hook up our cable here while I was on the phone but the lady said that they don’t show an apartment being here only an old house. She said they would send someone out to look at the place and see if cable modem was available in our area. She said I should call back in a week. Well this is the same stuff they told Casey two weeks earlier when he called about getting the cable modem hooked up. Someone was not doing their job. It took about 6 hours before the apartment was emptied, cleaned and locked up. We said our good-bye’s to Dave, Robyn, and Rebekah and Chris, Randi, and Carlee.
Jim helped Casey get the car carrier with the 4-Runner on it onto the back of the U-haul and we said goodbye to Kingsborough. Casey found out that going up big hills, like the one on Austin Bluffs near Stetson Hills, the U-haul will only go about 35mph. This was going to make for a very long trip if this was as fast as it would go. Mom and I attempted to drop off the cable modem at Adelphia but they were closed and return our unused boxes to U-haul, while Casey and Dave played some frisbee golf. We met back up at my parents house and drove over to Comp-USA and Best Buy to get some traveling stuff for Casey’s iPod and 2 way radios. I also bought Casey one of his birthday presents that I couldn’t find elsewhere, a wireless bluetooth mouse for his Powerbook.
For dinner the entire family (minus Marvin) went to Johnny Carino’s. We made the mistake of not calling ahead for seating and it was the Friday night after Christmas at 7:00. We tried putting the 6 of us on the list together and the wait was 2 hours so we split into 2 parties and the wait dropped to 45 minutes. We were contemplating getting our food to go or just ordering pizza when our pager thing buzzed after only 5-10 minutes. Sadly, Grandma and Grandpa were still waiting. Not wanting to eat without them, we all made it into a table and a very good and cozy dinner together. When we got back to my parents house it was still kinda early about 9 and so we had a couple of glasses of wine and started watching a movie. The combination of the full stomach, wine, dark room, and lack of sleep knocked me out. This was our last night in Colorado, for now anyway.
December 27, 2003
We planned on getting up pretty early about 5 or 6 to get on the road. Sleeping on the couch bed on the floor, Casey didn’t get a very good night’s sleep. He moved up to the couch in the early morning and Tasha took over the rest of the bed with me. We finally got up and ready and were saying good-bye’s by about 8:45. It was hard to say goodbye to everyone and I know that we will both miss them very much. I love you all and miss you very much, you too Tasha.
We left Diamond Shamrock on Woodmen and Union at 9:10 and our trip officially began. The U-haul was able to go faster than the 35 on Austin Bluffs was still not up to highway speeds. We managed to average 55 for the trip, it could have been worse I guess. Around 2, I got a call from the management company saying that our apartment did not pass the elevator inspection and thus was not ready for electric or gas. Ok, that’s bad. Time to start freaking out. Does that mean we won’t have water either? We’ll have to leave to use the bathroom? I told her we were planning to be there on Monday to move in. She said that wouldn’t be a problem and that our rent would not take effect until our apartment was 100% liveable. I told Casey this on the radio and it only added to the stress that we were already feeling from all of this. We made it to Gallup, NM in 11 hours and decided to stop for the night. Our best bet for a hotel was the Holiday Inn so that’s where we stayed. It was decent and served it’s purpose for a place to shower and sleep, which is all we used the place for. Today was a long day.
December 28, 2003
Got on the road about 6:30 and started driving west again. I received a call from Alan saying that he was waiting for us at the apartment like we had originally planned. I told him we planned on meeting the next day and he couldn’t tell me how he got today as the meeting day. Hmm maybe he was anxious. We decided to stop in Barstow, CA before driving the remaining 114 miles into L.A. We had already been on the road for another 11 hours and saw a sign for free internet at the Holiday Inn Express – we agreed over the radio, it was the one. The Holiday Inn Express was much nicer than the regular Holiday Inn that we stayed at the night before. Dinner was nasty at some Denny’s-esque place. Denny’s would have been a few steps up from there but we got something resembling food so we were ok for the time being. We spent a few hours enjoying the high speed internet and went to bed.
December 29, 2003
Happy Birthday Casey! Happy Birthday Lora!
Poor Casey. He still had two grueling hours left to spend in the car before the trip was over. 🙁 Nicky called on our way into town and told us that Jason did plan on helping us out after he got off of work at 5. This was unexpected and pleasant news and relieved a little stress. L.A. is not a good place to have a U-haul and be in the right hand slow lane, even on a Monday during midday traffic. We weren’t supposed to meet Alan until 2 to get the keys so we got here an hour and a half early. Since there was nothing else to do we took some pictures of the building and the surrounding neighborhood and just stood around. We talked to one of the construction workers that spoke a little English, Simon, and he let us into our apartment. He kept trying to take us into other units telling us they were nicer and didn’t understand we were already paying on this one. Some of the other units are nicer…for a price. We’re already paying enough for this place so if it cost anymore I don’t know what we’d do. Indeed the elevator was not working. We went into our apartment and began making notes of things that still needed to be completed and visualizing where our furniture would go. We found out that they had changed our apartment # from 1B to 102 without telling us so all of our mail was being forwarded to the wrong place. Together, Casey and I managed to get the car carrier off the back of the Uhaul and situate the Uhaul in front of the building for easy unloading.
Alan showed us as scheduled and we got the keys from him but he still didn’t have a timeframe for when the building would be completed. We talked to the onsite manager and he said 2 weeks. We found out that we would have water, only cold but that we wouldn’t have to leave to go use the bathroom. Alan offered a few other properties for us to use free of charge while our apartment was being completed. We said we’d think about it but didn’t really want to be anywhere but in our apartment. There was no fridge in our apartment so we asked the onsite guy, Barry, about it and he said he didn’t think it came with one. We said it had better since we were told when we viewed the place it came with one. We knew from looking at other apartments that it wasn’t always included and that was a selling point for this one. We relayed this to Alan and he made a call to the owner and we were told there’d be one delivered tomorrow. We figured we’d utilize our time as best as possible before Jason showed up by unloading the car, the truck, and starting on the U-haul. We were making pretty good progress and decided to solicit the help of a two guys that were working on our building. They helped us get the big stuff up and we managed to get everything out of the truck. With a few minor problems such as pushing our TV into the wall. I thought Casey was gonna cry, it was so irritating but what could we do, they even broke off a small corner. 🙁 And it looked like maybe they dragged our mattress cause there were some small holes in the sides. That’s why we have insurance right. We can’t file a claim with U-haul though because loading, unloading, and shifting of cargo isn’t covered. So what could we tell them? We’re scared to try and file a claim with USAA because we don’t want our premiums to go up and the problems aren’t very noticeable. Except to us. By the time Jason arrived we only had about a dozen boxes left that were in the entryway of the building, we were tired and it was already dark, we needed all the help we could get. We went to Nicky & Jason’s and had pizza for dinner and took much needed showers.
We were given three keys when we moved in. We took the key to our apartment and left the other two in our apartment since the other doors were unlocked. We thought we were the only ones with the key to the real lock that would be a permanent fixture on our door. When we got home, the door to the stairwell was locked. We saw the security guard’s van in the garage and started honking his horn. He didn’t come down. Casey found the breaker and started flashing the lights for the stairwell on and off. He didn’t come down. We started yelling for him to come down…he didn’t come down. The neighbors came out of their house and were staring at us. We must have been somewhat loud. So Casey and I found a ladder and Casey crawled over the railing to our floor and came down and unlocked the door for me. We figured the guard (if you can call him that) was asleep on the top floor because when we drove up the lights were on up there. A lot of good he’s doing. That means anyone could do what we just did. I had Casey open his birthday presents even though we were doing so by a lantern I felt really bad that he had to spend his birthday the way he did. Afterwards we fell asleep in our cold, dark apartment.
December 30, 2003
With the daylight, we got most of our unpacking done. There’s some small stuff that needs to be done left and others that will require new furniture or electricity to be done but the place has few boxes left. They’re all stacked on the coffee table in the living room. Today we went down to Third Street to steal WiFi from the Apple Store. It was our much needed connection with civilization and technology. People here have their own style that I’m not used to. I thought I dressed well for Colorado but I must look downright homely next to these people. They all walk around in their designer labels and off the runway looks. I’m clueless as to even begin how to fit in as far as dress goes here. People kept saying it would be a culture shock to come here and even though we’ve visited, I have to agree. Everything is SO different. Denver is like a suburb compared to this place. In L.A., you have to pay for everything. Even to go shopping, you have to pay money to shop as if you aren’t giving the businesses enough. It’s amazing how well small business thrive in this town. There aren’t even any Super Walmarts or Targets because Californians are afraid it’ll kill the small businesses. As if Best Buy and other chains don’t already do that. It’d give people an alternative to this grocery strike that is STILL going on. Best Buy is one of the exceptions. They have free parking but not a lot, even with the rooftop parking. Lucky or unlucky for us Best Buy is only about 1.5 miles from us. Unlucky because I don’t want anymore of our money than they already are getting to go there.
December 31, 2003
Before we left for the day we had to move our cars from one side of the street to the other because the street sweeper comes through on Thursdays on one side and Fridays on the other and there is no parking on whichever side between certain hours and since we can’t park in the garage yet we have to move the cars around. We tried to return the U-haul and the one closest was full so they sent us several miles away (in traffic) to another U-haul place. We get there and I realize, after being accosted by people wanting us to hire them to help us move and pack or unpack, that I have forgotten the paperwork on the counter at home. We go in and find out it’s a $50 fee for them to look it up on the computer. What a ripoff! I leave Casey there and go back for the paperwork and come back (45 minute drive). We make it out of there without having to pay any additional money to them.
We went down to Third Street for lunch and to walk around. We bought a Zagat Guide for the restaurants in L.A. while we were out so we know what the top rated restaurants are in the area and a book on tax deductions. We’re planning early.
I talked to Randi tonight. She’s alone until Chris gets off work around 11:30. She’s hoping he’ll be home in time to give her her new year’s kiss. I hope so too.
We went to Food 4 Less since they’re not on strike to buy ingredients for chicken parmesan for Nicky & Jason tonight. From previous visits we know that groceries are expensive but do not plan on paying these prices for groceries. It’s insane. We still have our commissary benefits and plan on using them to get food at cost. How do people survive living here? We were delighted to find out that like Missouri and Florida, grocery stores do carry alcohol. We bought a couple of bottles of champagne (at a very good price for what we bought) and a bottle of wine for that evening. I brought Nicky some flowers for the inconvenience that we’re causing them by going over there so often. Casey made a fabulous dinner, as always, and we watched a movie. Then for the remainder of the night we watched Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve being played back from earlier (or later however you look at it) in NYC. Before midnight Casey and I had some champagne and Nicky & Jason had some sparkling cider. At midnight we toasted each other and I got my New Year’s kiss. Here’s hoping for a great new year! We finished a couple more glasses of champagne and spent the night.
January 1, 2004
Happy New Year!
We woke up to a new year with our feet being tickled by Matt and Joey. After coffee and a shower, we went to Carrow’s (like Village Inn) for brunch with Russell (Jason’s brother) and his girlfriend, Jennifer. We had good conversation and decent food. After going back to Nicky’s to pick up our stuff, we headed back to our apartment.
Talked to my mom and dad. They stayed up and drank some champagne and rang in the new year watching the fireworks on Pikes Peak.
We did some more decorating and organizing before going to Third Street for dinner. Casey’s been craving Hooters and we found out that one is on Third Street. We walked around in the cold (it’s been that way since we got here, sweaters and all) until we found it. We got seated right away and I ordered while Casey added more money to the meter. FSU was playing Miami in the Orange Bowl and we watched that in the background while eating. Sadly, we don’t have electricity and were not able to take our wings home (more than 20 left). We left full and warm and headed home.
We moved the cars again because on Friday the cars have to go to the opposite side of the street. We unlocked our lock and we couldn’t open the door. Apparently, after the last time we left (around 6) the security guard came through and locked the bottom lock. We don’t have the key to the bottom lock, apparently we’re supposed to because we have a key that fits but doesn’t turn. So we start doing everything we did from a couple of nights ago, honking the horn, messing with the lights, and yelling. Since we’re actually upstairs this time we decide to go see if he’s in the apartment with the light turned on. He’s not but there’s an extension cord going from that apartment into the apartment next door. Casey’s starts knocking on the door and I’m knocking on the window. A door opens and he comes out half asleep in his sweats. We’re both yelling at him for locking our apartment and he doesn’t really want to open our door and doesn’t speak much English but we get him to anyway when we show him we have the other key. Come to find out, he has both keys to our apartment and could come in whenever he chose to do so and had the power to lock us out at any given time. This is a huge safety concern and needs to be addressed ASAP.
January 2, 2004
Wake up this morning to find a parking ticket on the 4-Runner. Last night in the rain, we didn’t see a sign that was hidden far up in the branches of a tree. This does not help our moods. We opt for Baja Fresh for lunch in hopes of helping our mood. It was only a temporary fix. We stop by the apartment to pick up a map and notice that there are two pieces of mail for us laying ON TOP OF the mailbox. Each of the cards had checks in them too. That’s not making me feel any safer here knowing that are mail isn’t being delivered properly. There’s no lock on the mailbox and we have no keys to our box even if it was unlocked. Casey called Alan to try and get some keys for the mailbox and get the situation from the previous night worked out.
We started looking for the properties that Alan said we could use for showers and electricity and such. Most are in the valley, the closest being in Sherman Oaks. We start heading out there and Casey tells me he really doesn’t want to use one of these other properties. Since we’re out this far we decide to go to the Ikea in Burbank. We don’t know the street address so we’re hoping we either see it from the road or see a good spot to stop and look in the phone book. We don’t see either so we start driving to another Ikea that we know the location of. Bad idea. We start driving to the other side of town at the beginning of rush hour traffic, a sign on the side of the road tells us that the three left hand lanes are closed because of an accident too. After an hour and a half, we’re not moving anywhere. We turn around both feeling car sick and cold from having the window down (to help the car sickness with fresh air). On the way home, we stopped by Best Buy to pick up American Wedding. Once we were at home, we tried to sleep off the ill feeling we had. We were planning on going with Nicky & family to see LOTR: ROTK again but after the day we had we weren’t feeling up to it. Casey wanted me to try Thai food so we found a place not to far from us to try out. It was ok but Casey said it was mostly Chinese and lacked the flavor and heat that Thai has. With no power still, we went to bed early.
January 3, 2004
We went over to the Y (about 2 blocks from here) to see about getting a membership. It’s more expensive than at home, even for the private gyms there, but we’re getting desperate for showers and don’t want to keep imposing on Nicky & Jason. Since it’s so much, we decide to hold off on it a little while longer. We were quoted $700 a year. That’s a ton more than the free gym on Peterson.
I didn’t think Casey would be up to going to Third Street again to get more free WiFi so I suggested we stop by Starbucks and use the T-Mobil hotspot. The promotional they were having in December for free WiFi is over so we had to pay $9.99 for a one day pass and were only there for maybe 45 minutes. You can’t use the log-in on more than one computer so we could only use it on mine and Casey wasn’t able to check his email. He then tells me that we’re heading down to Third Street anyway. That was $10 wasted. 🙁 We then headed down to Nicky’s where we took a shower, ate dinner, and watched The Negotiator.
Talked to my mom, it’s been snowing all day there with low visibility. Cold here but not that cold. She said they’ve been trying to stay inside and warm.
January 4, 2004
We decided to make another try at going to Ikea, this time going to one that Jason said was right off the 405. It didn’t take us too long to get there in Sunday afternoon traffic. Ikea is overrated. We found a trash can we liked and few other things but everything is cheap and looks it. While there, Nicky called saying that Jason couldn’t find his wallet and that he may have dropped it while in our car the night before. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the car with us but it could have saved us a trip (we were only about 10-15 minutes away). On the way back into L.A., Casey called Ballys to see what kind of deal they could offer us. They wouldn’t quote any hard numbers over the phone for fear that we were another gym spying on them but gave us a range. I’m wondering if Ballys is cheaper than the Y. We decide we should just go ahead and get the Y membership. Except this time we had to wait for a 1/2 hour before being seen and then find out that it’s going to be another $300 a year because we were quoted the wrong plan. We got home and found out his wallet was in the car and since Casey needed a shower before work we made the trip back down. Nicky & Jason, thank you for letting us make these shower trips to your place. We really appreciate and hope that we aren’t that much trouble. When we got home we took the monster extension cord from the garage and brought it upstairs to plug in lights, charge cellphones and laptops, and iron clothes for Casey’s first day of work. Went to bed quasi early with the fear that the alarms on our phones would not go off.
January 5, 2004
The alarms on our phones did go off and Casey woke up at 6:45 after a fitful night of sleep. He walked over to the Y and showered, then came home and got dressed before getting gas in the car and heading to work. He did all that and got to work by 7:55. It’s a good thing we’re not any further from his job. Casey brought In-N-Out home for lunch and we had that while standing in the kitchen. I talked to our postman, Rodney, and he ensured me that whatever mail he gets he will deliver. My Sex and the City Season 5 package came today. I had a little juice left in my laptop and managed to watch two episodes. I drove up Santa Monica Boulevard through Beverly Hills and West Hollywood before traffic picked up and I turned around. I’m trying to get my bearings but it’s tough right now. I stopped by the library card today to see if they had internet access, they do but you have to have a library card (which I got) and there’s a waiting list. I didn’t bother signing up for anything but know it’s there if I have all day to wait for it. I applied for several internships before leaving the Springs at the beginning of December. One place I applied at, asked me to call them today and set up an interview for tomorrow. I have an interview at the Geddes Agency in West Hollywood at 4pm.
When Casey came home from work, I had a headache so we both took a nap until about 8 and went to Panda Express for dinner and then came home and got ready for the next day and then back to sleep we went.
January 6, 2004
Casey found out yesterday that his building at work has a gym and showers. Today he skipped the trip to the Y and decided to do things there instead. Gives him a little extra sleep too. He skipped his lunch today and I did as well. Around 1 I headed over to the Y to work out and take a shower before my interview. There’s a 30 minute limit on the cardio machines but that’s all I could fit in anyway. I took my shower and did my hair then came home and finished getting ready. I miss electricity almost as much as cable modem. 😉 I left here 55 minutes early for my interview knowing that I could hit traffic like I did yesterday. I made it there in 35 minutes and found a spot right away.
I went inside 10 minutes early and waited for my interview. The interviewer, Gwen, was impressed that I was early and let this be known. She told me about their agency and the types of things they did, the perks involved, and then asked me a few questions about my schooling and qualifications. Some of the perks are parties and screenings. We chatted for awhile and she said she thought I’d be a good fit for their company. I met the owner Ann Geddes (no relation to the photographer, or at least I don’t think) and the other agent. They even have an office dog. Maybe that’ll satisfy my need for a dog for a little while longer. I’ll be training for awhile before being expected to do a whole lot but it seems fun and like I’ll learn a lot. I’m going in Thursday and Friday from 9:30-1pm. After that I’ll be there from 9:30-1 Monday through Thursday until the beginning of May.
Casey called the post office at home to find out why we hadn’t received any of our forwarded mail since it was only supposed to take a maximum of 5 days to catch up with us. They said they hadn’t received the change of address form (even though their $1 charge had cleared to verify the address change) and to call back tomorrow to talk to our mail carrier. Well the good thing is that our mail isn’t being delivered to a nonexistent apartment number but the bad thing is that there could be bills or important mail that hasn’t gotten to us yet. I made it home in 30 minutes and Casey was already waiting when I got here. Alan had dropped off the mailbox keys and we were ready for dinner. We went to Best Buy and purchased a ton of DVDs and realized that we had lost Casey’s debit card. We came home and looked everywhere we could think of and could not find it. We tried calling the credit union but the after hours number just says to call back during normal business hours. With no fridge or stove to use we’ve been having to eat out several times a day which is killing us financially. We’re trying to just eat fast food but it was getting pretty old after a couple of days of it. The last thing we need is someone using our debit card.
We went back down to Third Street to check our email and get something to eat. There was a write up in the Zagat Guide on the Falafel King so we decided to give it a try. We were expecting Greek food and were surprised to get some Middle Eastern crap. The food was so gross and we didn’t eat lunch yesterday. We managed to consume about half of our falafel each and then just couldn’t do it anymore. The seating was outside in the cold and that wasn’t helping matters much either. We took our lemonades and left. We came back home charged our cells and laptops and went to sleep.
January 7, 2004
Casey called our mail carrier from the Springs this morning and he again said he hadn’t gotten a change of address request and that our mail was piling up in our box. I’ve had to report this guy before because he shoves packages into the box instead of using the package box so I can only imagine what our mail is going to look like when it gets to us now. When we finally start getting some of that mail that’ll be one less thing to worry about. There is finally a key on the mailbox downstairs. No more worries about people tampering with our mail.
Casey called Ent and got his debit card number cancelled. They promised that a new card would go out in the mail today. It seems so far that no unauthorized charges have attempted to have been made.
Congratulations to Nicky & Jason. They’re expecting their first girl, Emily Morgan, in May. We were all suspecting Nicky was having a girl but the ultrasound confirmed it. She has another ultrasound coming up again to confirm and make sure that Emily is doing alright.
I got a call this afternoon from MTV asking me to come in and interview for their spring internship. I took all of their information down and tentatively set up an appointment for tomorrow. I figured I’d tell Casey all the details and get his opinion. He confirmed my belief that I should just stick with the internship that I have even though it’s further away (West Hollywood vs. Santa Monica) and even though it’s less known. I wouldn’t want to get myself blackballed after only 10 days of being in L.A. It would have been a great experience but I don’t need the added stress of going to a panel interview, finding out how/where I would print off 5 copies of my resume, and choosing between the two internships after I had already committed to one. I think staying at Geddes will be a good choice and I’m sure that any internship I have will benefit me. Who knows, maybe I can take another one during another semester if I want?
Casey and I went to the Y and showered when he came home from work. I had to dry and curl my hair tonight so I could just wash up here in the morning and be ready to go. We had dinner at Rubio’s Mexican Grill. Their fish tacos are OK but the nachos and burritos are better at Baja Fresh. Now we’re getting ready for tomorrow by charging things up. It’s only a little after 9 but we’re ready for bed again. Hopefully, electricity, gas, and cable modem will be a much needed anti-depressant for us.
January 8, 2004
The first day of my internship went quite well. I got headshots and resumes together that matched breakdowns (character descriptions of roles currently being cast) to send out to the studios. It’s pilot season right now so it was pretty busy. Most notably we sent out heashots and resumes for CSI and ER. Everyone is really nice and I like what I’m doing so far. The day went by really fast and I ended up staying an extra 45 minutes.
After my internship, I went home to get the directions for one of the properties the management company offered us to be able to stay in. I was thirsty and our water was hissing and cloudy so I drove to Rite Aid to get some bottled stuff. I was looking for a particular freeway that was supposed to be pretty close. Little did I know that I drove past the freeway before even getting onto the original freeway. It took me 45 minutes in traffic to realize my mistake and get back to where I wanted to be. Oops! The place that was offered is in Arlington Heights and looks very urban and diverse. We’re thinking we’ll just deal with what we have over that.
We went over to Nicky & Jason’s to do some much needed laundry. The machines in their building are double what we used to pay at Kingsborough but we needed clean clothes. We had pizza for dinner and watched CSI.
January 9, 2004
On the second day of my internship, I got to work at the scheduled time and no one was there for 25 minutes. Luckily I was given a set of keys today because I don’t want that to be a regular thing. I did the same things today as yesterday. So far the most notable clients I recognize are John Aniston (Jennifer’s dad) and Maree Cheatham (Mike Myers’ mom in So I Married an Axe Murderer, the juicer lady).
I decided yesterday that I had lived in L.A. for over a week and still hadn’t seen Rodeo Drive in person. I drove down it yesterday and saw that it was just like in the movies – tons of expensive stores for people with tons of expendable income. And I saw the Regent Beverly Wilshire from Pretty Woman (“reg bev wil”). That took all of 5 minutes. Casey called me and told me to go contest our parking ticket. I was on my way home anyway so I took pictures of the no parking sign and drove back to where I just was (Rodeo Dr.) or close thereto to contest the parking ticket. There were a ton of people but I didn’t have to wait long I got a form and filled out my side of the story behind why I didn’t think I should have a ticket and went on my way. The guy at the garage raped me on the cost of parking because it didn’t say ANYWHERE that you had to be validated it just said for City of Los Angeles parking it was $1 per half hour. Grrr.
Last night we parked at the Federal Building and went down to the Village in search of food. We ended up eating at…Chili’s. We figured it was safe and neither of us had eaten all day so it was sure to please. A few doors down there was this novelty shop that had a TON of HUGE movie posters. We saw a couple we wouldn’t mind having but opted to buy them another day. On our way back to the car there was a homeless guy standing outside of Rite Aid asking people if they had any joints. I haven’t seen that one before.
January 10, 2004I’m finally posting the whole story. Call or email me. I love and miss you all!