Three times a mattress
09/05/05 22:48
Monday-A work day! And Daryl waited ALL day for the bed to be delivered. And when they delivered it, they forgot part of the frame. He didn't get to do anything but wait for The Mattress Gallery to get their act together. He almost wanted to return it for all the trouble. I mean, really. But then we got to sleep on a real mattress, which we haven't had since 1999. Yes, all those years in SF we'd been sleeping on a futon. And of course, because I am crazy, I cleaned the floors after a full day of work. And then worked out. And then did some Chi Gong. It's a good thing we have a nice soft mattress, because I hit that bed hard. Oh, and by the way, the mattress is so high, it's a little too high for me. I may want a stepstool. Really.
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Twice upon a mattress
08/05/05 21:58
Sunday-Today, we waited for the mattress people to call for delivery and we cleared out the bedroom so the delivery people could quickly get in and out. We were excited about the idea of sleeping on our new bed. We gathered up our bedding and pillows and folded up the couch. They said they'd call at 11a. They didn't. At 11:30a we called them and apparently they won't deliver our mattress today because their accountant didn't look at our financing. But the BANK approved us yesterday. And they won't deliver it even after they promised us it was going to be delivered. And couldn't they have called us earlier? Daryl was pissed. We were going to go to a swap meet and also to look at some cars and because we waited around for the mattress people, we missed the swap meet. So all that was left was to look at cars. We, and by "we" I mean Daryl, drove all over town looking at cars. It was a huge pain and we didn't like any of them. It was exhausting.
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Once upon a mattress
07/05/05 18:55
Saturday-I think the ants are coming from the top of the building. We looked up above our doorway and saw a bunch of ants caught in some serious spiderwebs. We also found a couple of ants merrily walking down the outside wall by our door. I can't imagine what they'd do if we had a mezzuzah. But we also have good news. We just bought a mattress today (We have been sleeping on the foldout couch.) so we'll finally be using the bedroom for something other than storing our clothes. It's time we actually used at least one of the bedrooms. But we still have to buy a car and it's a pain. I'm researching insurance and financing on the web (www.edmunds.com) and trying to find a car that suits us. We have a carport space and unfortunately it's got poles on either side of the space, so we have to get a relatively small car. (Not that we can afford anything else.) Neither one of us has ever bought a car before, so I'm a little nervous about the process. In some good news, it looks like we'll get a really good deal becuase of our Costco membership. Boy, that membership really pays for itself in spades. And if we can swing it right, we can get a car on Monday if we find one that we like and is within our range. And boy howdy, the insurance is insane in CA.
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The documentary begins.
06/05/05 19:20
Friday-I walked to Christian's place. Wow. It took me about 20-25 minutes. Not a bad walk at all. Cari, the director who did the documentary I'm working on (check it out at www.natural-leaders.com), was a bit out of it for medical reasons. But that was ok because we were just setting up the system and loading in tapes. Very low key work. And I met another documentary director who's doing a doc on restoring the Hetch Hetchy Dam area. That doc will be starting up in a few weeks. Now, docs don't make a lot of money, but I'm happy to be working on something so getting a fraction of my rate is OK for now. (Probably not good for my checking account, but hey, connections take time.) After work and dinner, I made Daryl drive me out to get Korean "ttok". It's basically Korean rice cake, but there are many varieties and I was really craving a particular kind that my mom used to get us from the Korean grocery store in Chicago. There they made the ttok fresh and you'd get it all stick and warm and chewy. I loved it. We got some at a huge Korean grocery store called "Assi" and I ate them in the car. Daryl decided it wasn't sweet enough so he dipped it in a bowl of sugar, which I kind of looked askance at, but hey he didn't grow up with it.
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Christian's got a brand new...
05/05/05 19:04
Thursday-Actually did some work today at Christian's place. He just bought the latest G5 from Apple and TWO cinema display monitors as well as extra RAM and a G-RAID drive. That's a huge amount of money. Too bad the new G5 didn't work. He brought it back to the store twice just to get it to work. Daryl and I helped him set up the new computer and he put the old computer in the back room for me to work on. Cool! Daryl was the total tech guy and set up everything perfectly. I just basically helped plug things in. I really think Daryl would be great as an actual facilities engineer, the go-to guy for systems and breakdowns. We met up with Christian's friend Gwennie who has a large collection of bowling balls, I kid you not, in her garden. She also got a Volkswagon van from the 60's that she's painted with mermaids all over. Christian says he thinks that she is what Janis Joplin would have been had she lived. Unfortunatly, Gwennie is moving to New Orleans because she can't afford to live here, unlike Janis who's dead. Some guy who bought her rent controlled bungalow complex evicted her because she'd been there for 26 years. She sells stuff at the local Swap Meet and I can't wait to see her stuff on Sunday. It'll be her last one here because her going away party is on the 13th and she's having a raffle to raffle off her bowling balls. And we ate at the Vietnamese place again. Sweet. Oh, and the landlord put a little moveable add-on to the faucet so now it pours out more toward the middle of the sink and gives us a spray option. Cool. But he gave us a printout of info from the web about the ants in Southern California when we complained about the ants. I don't think this is a satisfactory resolution to this issue, but I'm willing to give it a bit of time. Daryl and I are very careful about our food and don't leave anything out. The handout suggested using Windex to erase the scent trail that ants leave. Windex? Really?
 Here's the add-on to the faucet. (I did, in fact Windex the kitchen and the living room. Of course, then I found an ant in the bathroom. - 23/05/05)
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Mail, finally and Koreatown
04/05/05 19:15
Wednesday-We went to the Post Office and I finally got all of my New Yorkers. I was in heaven. I couldn't even sleep at night. We ate at the Pho Cafe on Sunset again and it was great, as usual, but we also tried Pho 2000 in Koreatown, which was ok. It's weird being a Korean that doesn't really speak Korean in a Korean neighborhood where everyone speaks Korean, especially when eating Vietnamese food. I sort of understood a word here and there. It's like a foreign city! We rushed home to watch Lost on TV and found that our cable was disconnected. I was so mad. They told me it wasn't going to be reconnected until Friday. Yes, but will that help me find out who stole the gun key from Jack? I don't think so.
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Ants and the LAFCPUG
03/05/05 02:42
Tuesday-Ants. I'm still killing and finding many ants. I think I found 3 in the kitchen and about 5 in the living room. Also found 3 in the entryway. Called the landlord about it and he basically said he couldn't do anything about it. Also told us he wouldn't replace the faucet. Daryl's set up the splash guard but it's still a huge pain in the neck to wash the dishes. (BTW, still no dishwasher, people. I'm trying to be patient and save money, but for the sake of our marriage I REALLY want a dishwasher. Especially when it hurts my shoulder to wash dishes. And it hurts every day now.) I want to cook a large meal for eight people and have my landlords come over and wash the dishes just so they'll see what a pain it is.
LAFCPUG (The Los Angeles Final Cut Pro Users Group). (For those of you who don't know, Final Cut Pro is the video editing system for the Mac.) We didn't win anything in the raffle. I was disappointed and nearly fell asleep. There was a guy, in fact, who fell asleep in the row behind us.
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Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and dead lizards
01/05/05 02:41
Sunday-Paid the rent. But also went to see a movie, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was very funny. I highly recommend it.
But here's the creepy part:
There are two outdoor cats that hang around the neighborhood. They like the downstairs neighbor in the building next to us because she leaves out food. There's a grey tabby that I'll call Scaredy Cat. He's got a bad eye, looks like it got swiped in a cat fight. He won't let anyone touch him and he runs away from anyone coming by. But he loves to nap on top of cars parked in our carport. The other cat is, I think, the king of the neighborhood cats because he never has a scratch on him and he's huge. Plus, he's all black, which reminds me of Babouschka. So you know he must be ferocious. He's so secure and confident, he let me pet him on the head while he napped in the potted plant next the mailboxes. He's the Big Black Monster Cat. Today, we saw a lizard without his tail pop out from under a parked car and then he popped back under. We found his tail by our car....with blood. Yuck. Then the Big Black Monster Cat grabbed the lizard and ran off with it. Yikes. Alright, I am not messing with you, you Big Black Monster Cat. We left to go see the movie and came back and...the tail was gone. Ew. Oh, and if you want to squirm I took a picture. You can't tell from the photo, but there were actual marks on the stub of the tail that made it look like it was ripped off.
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Day at home
30/04/05 15:27
Saturday-Spend the day at home. Interesting word, isn't it? I guess this is home now, but it still doesn't feel like it.
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IKEA Scores!
29/04/05 15:27
Friday-Daryl met with another studio. This time the guy used to work in Chicago. Funny that we just seem to be meeting displaced Midwesterners here. This time we went to the Burbank IKEA and got everything we were looking for: a cart for the kitchen, screws for hooks in the bathroom, spice racks, and a rug (It matches our couch!). But the traffic was horrible and I was glad Daryl was driving because it was also really confusing. Mo tagged along and then we went to eat dinner with her and Jared in Culver City at a place called Thai Dishes where they had coconut ice cream. Daryl and I couldn't wait for the next day to put together the cart we bought and the little neon table that Mo gave us so we stayed up and did that. The cart fits perfectly between the stove and the fridge. Mo gave us her old IKEA lamp too. Here are some updated pictures.
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IKEA once more
28/04/05 15:27
Thursday-We ate our organic salads. Two helpings! Got another chai latte at the little cafe around the corner, this time with whipped cream. I was so sick when we went to IKEA later that day. This time we got a cabinet for the bathroom and a corner shelf for the kitchen. We met with a guy that Christian referred us to in Santa Monica for work. It's a small place but it's work and Daryl may be able to use it for his clients. I am optimistic. We got some Thai food and waited half and hour to get our appetizer. Daryl got so mad we got our food to go and stiffed the waitress. I cleaned the kitchen floor and the hardwood floors in the living/dining area and the bedroom. Boy, was it ever yucky. And I'm pretty sure it's not as clean as I want it to be. It still feels like it's got a sticky layer of grit on the floor. Our white socks are the proof.
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Farmer's Market
27/04/05 15:27
Wednesday-We take Christian to the Santa Monica Farmer's Market. We load up on strawberries (6 pints for $4!) and some serious salad greens. Ate at a little cafe around the corner. Had a very nice chai latte. And the organic strawberries were terrific. I realized I totally forgot to call Cari about her movie. I apologized and set up another call for Sunday night.
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Mail again and Christian's Back. IN-N-OUT People are Great.
26/04/05 15:27
Tuesday- We have to let Lucy, the cleaning lady in Christian's place so we get there at 8a. Daryl switches out the car with a smaller one and forgets that he left the IKEA lights in the trunk. By the time we figure it out they've rented the car out. Lucy arrives around 10:30a after which I rush to another acupuncture appointment. This time Daryl makes me drive on the freeway and I am pissed. I had psyched myself up to driving on the regular streets and was feeling ok with that, but I was not prepared to drive on the freeway. With Daryl's help, I get through it. I get another round of acupuncture with a very painful cupping session and then we're off again. We drive back to Christian's to buy Lucy lunch and then we rush to get our mail before they close off general delivery at 2p. Luckily, this time we have a young guy who knows what he's doing, so we get our mail reasonably quickly, which is in about 15 minutes. And then more Vietnamese food! Yum. I actually got my New Yorker magazine from April 11th, so I think that general delivery here is about 3 weeks behind. Christian's flight arrived at 8:35p At around 7p we went to pick him up. We got there so early we stopped at IN-N-OUT burger. We argued about whether or not to go back home and set up tapes to tape shows and in the rush to leave, I accidentally left my purse. Daryl drove all the way back home to set up the VCR to tape shows and I called the IN-N-OUT people about the purse. Someone brought it up to the counter. Thank God. We rush back to get it and then rush to the airport to pick up Christian thinking that we're late. But he appears around 8:50p exhausted.
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More Moving
25/04/05 15:27
Monday-We move out all of our stuff from Christian's and lock the place up. We take the cat in the car without the carrier and she doesn't pee although she is freaked out the whole time. We set up her litter box and her food and water bowl. She's freaked out. We set up the sofabed and unpack more of our stuff and finally put our clothes in our dressers. But we're still sleeping in the living room so it's almost the same as when we were living in SF, except that our clothes are in a totally different room. The kitchen space is so small, it's really bugging me. We buy a microwave trolley from Target and it fits perfectly in the corner! Wow. Score one for Target. The lights from IKEA won't work, so minus points for IKEA. The floors are filthy and I desperately try to clean up the floors with a Swiffer, but these floors need a good mopping. There is no way the Swiffer is up to the job. The bathroom is grimy too and I wonder whether I'll have enough room for all of my stuff for the bathroom too. For all the space that's available, it's not in the bathroom or the kitchen. But we have enormous cabinets above the closets...that I can't reach, so it's not a lot of use to me. Daryl's using that space for all of the empty boxes when they've been broken down.
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The Big Move
24/04/05 15:27
Sunday-We get up early to meet the movers at the storage facility at 9a. They're waiting for us even though we're ten minutes early. I read the lettering on the truck and it's in Korean, but the guys are actually Hispanic. Mo says this is very LA. They load up the truck in an hour and unload it in an hour. I'm surprised that they're so professional for people who want to be paid in cash. They even give us a receipt. I unpack boxes and start washing dishes to put in the cabinets. From 11a to 8p I am washing dishes and my shoulder is killing me. Later on, I can barely walk on my feet because I had been standing in one place all day. And this is where I discover that the faucet reaching barely 1" into the sink area creates a huge mess when you are trying to wash dishes. It's maddening. Daryl throws unnecessary boxes in the office and starts unpacking my stuff to put on bookshelves. Later on, I discover none of it is in any discernable order and he forgot about 3 boxes worth of stuff, but I'm too tired to do anything. Daryl gets me lunch and we go out to eat with Mo for Tito's Tacos. There are 7 separate lines of people waiting for these tacos, 5 for take-out only and 2 for eating in the restaurant. It takes us about an hour to get our order and we nearly don't have a table. They are very good tacos and I don't get sick eating them, so I love it even though they gave me lemonade instead of iced tea. We get home and decide to spend one more night at Christian's because we've left the cat at his place all alone in one room all day. She is rightfully pissed at us.
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IKEA
23/04/05 15:27
We relax a bit since we've got movers coming on Sunday so we just cruise on down to IKEA on the 110 S which is like lightning. Passing the turnoff for the freeway to the airport is like driving through one of those modular tracks for toy cars that go in and out and up and around each other. Terrific engineering. We are at IKEA in half an hour. This time we actually buy stuff and we wanted to buy more, but they were out of stock on some shelves we liked. There are some seriously fun things there and we consider getting large fake leaves to hang above our heads. It's meant for kids, but it's cool. We get a light for underneath the cabinets and discover that it won't work under our cabinets. Crap! And I still have no shelves for my spices. I just don't know where I'm going to put all of my stuff. If you've seen the pictures of the kitchen you will know that the cabinet space is about half what I had in the studio. Now isn't that weird?
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And yet even more work
22/04/05 15:22
Thursday, 21st- A nearly full day of work today. And Daryl is sitting at the apartment waiting around for the refrigerator fellow and the cable guy. The cable guy accidentally pops a hole in the wall. HMMM. Don't like that. But the fridge is fabulous and I am excited to put stuff in the freezer. That is just the kind of person I am. I am so weird. But Daryl finds it endearing.
Friday, the 22nd-A really full day of work with Daryl going in and out dealing with the storage facility. Daryl was all by his lone self ferrying items from the storage place, which is just as well since I can barely lift the small boxes. I am such a weakling and the sad thing is that I have been working out to get stronger. We try to rent a truck as Mo has offered to help us, (THANKS MO!) but, alas, it is not to be and we just suck it up and hire movers. They want $160 in cash. This seems sketchy to me, but that's all we could get at the last minute. So now we don't have to worry about how we're getting the sofabed up to the second floor because a "professional" is going to take care of it. Thank goodness. I could just see Daryl on the floor with a bad back. Plus, I am awoken at 8:45a to the Fox Movie Channel guy wondering if I got the new music. Uh..., what? I blearily get up and check the mailbox and, uh, yes, we do have CDs. OK, so I guess I'm working now. Can I brush my teeth first? And this project is supposed to be Drop Frame. But everything has been done Non-Drop Frame. (It's a technical thing, but those who know about Drop Frame and Non Drop Frame will know that it is a pain in the neck to change from one to the other in the middle of your project. In short, it sucks.) But the day ends well and I am free for the weekend. Also, we end up going to BANDERA with Mo and her friends, Chastady and Josh, after which I felt like I ate a whole cow. A yummy cow, but a whole cow nonetheless. We even play pool, or really they all play pool while I watch because I will kill Daryl if he tries to teach me how to play pool. I was very mean to him the last time and I don't want to be that way again with him, so I tell him, for the sake of our marriage, don't make me play pool. Both Daryl and Josh scratch when they get to the 8-ball. Funny that. We separate from Josh and Chastady at around 9:30p and hang out with Mo at her place and chat until we're all exhausted and then we head home.
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work and play
20/04/05 15:12
Wednesday-Checked out Target again and then had to work at the last minute at 2:40p. Well, waited around until 4p, then worked. And we had wanted to get some stuff for the apartment and move a few things from storage. Oh well. There's always tomorrow.
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more on the mail, work at night
19/04/05 15:09
Monday, the 18th- We go to Sears and buy a fridge. It's an Energy Star fridge but it's more efficient than the Energy Star standards. I am happy, but it's a honking big fridge. We could get filtered water and ice for the freezer, but the hookup is across the aisle for our kitchen and frankly, I don't think the landlords will let us do a hookup. They were leery when I asked if I could have a portable dishwasher. For heaven's sake people, the spout for the faucet is only 6"! Water just barely makes it into the sink. Now that is an issue.
Tuesday, the 19th-Once again we visit the general delivery window in LA. The same guy is there, slowly helping someone else. I start playing a video game while we wait. I am up to 57000 points when we get to the window. Tetris is fun. Maybe the old guy goes to lunch, because by the time we get to the window we get an African-American lady, who is no-nonsense. We tell her our situation and she comes back with 6 letters for a whole week, most of them bills. Wow. But still no magazines. We give her another change of address card and she tells us it'll take a few weeks. Bummer. We call our credit card companies, the cable, the electric, the gas, the phone, etc. to change our address. Let's hope we actually get our mail at the apartment next week so we won't have to come back here anymore. More work...at 10p. I am done at 1:30a. Good thing I haven't been looking at apartments or I would have been wiped. Been looking at places like Target and IKEA for items for the home. Hard to figure out without measurements so we have to do an extensive measuring session at the apartment. BTW, there's an IN-N-OUT near the IKEA down in Carson, CA. Very nice.
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1319 Masselin
16/04/05 17:16
Saturday-Yes, we finally have an apartment. We get the AOK from the landlords and we get our huge amount of money for the deposit and sign the lengthy lease and almost immediately I feel buyer's remorse. Aside, from not having a fridge, a dishwasher, or a washer dryer that is easily accessible (You have to go outside, and walk around the back to the other side of the building to get to the machines.) I feel like it's in a very weird neighborhood, a little too seedy just south of us (auto body shops, liquor stores and check cashing places) and too residential to the north of us. Plus, the deposit just about killed me. Now, we really have to work. I don't have any money left to get a dishwasher, and we still don't have a bed. And I do feel that we were kind of pushed to take possession too quickly. But now we have a place. I am glad I don't have to look at more apartments as I have tired of the search.
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Work? Jared. CAKE!
15/04/05 17:03
Friday. I am working, working, working. What? They actually want me to edit? Hmm. It's a little nerve-wracking for me, trying to deal with Christian's set up, but I eventually turn it around. And, I'm here all day! I even make Daryl go out and get stuff so that I can make a tape without looking like an idiot. Daryl is the soul of calm and I treat him horribly when I am working on a deadline. I am so busy and stressed I make lunch but forget to eat. Mo stops by with her friend Jared and we eat at a place called Skewers. Can't go wrong with meat on a stick. Jared is a guy from Iowa who moved here to become a writer. He worked at Mo's nursery and they became friends. Mo thought we would all meet and become a small crowd, but then Jared announces to her that he's moving back to Iowa in May. Aww. But he says he'll be back in a few years. Apparently, LA towed his car when he didn't pay his parking tickets. He is currently carless. I am impressed. He's also quite knowledgeable about plants. Doubly impressed. We walk about and eventually end up at the Urth Cafe and we all order cake and tea. They still have the best chocolate cake in the world, and they have a FLOURLESS chocolate cake that is light like a souffle. YUM. I am pleasantly surprised. Oh, and then we walk to Elixir, where I forget to pay for my tea and no one notices. Poor Jared, he gets to hang out with us old people, who like to go to bed at night. They come back to Christian's and tell us what to do about his dying bamboo plant and orchid. I obey immediately because I tend to kill plants very easily.
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Masselin and Mansfield
14/04/05 16:58
Thursday-More apartments. I think I am getting sick of looking. We do look at a few places near where we are staying. One is on Masselin and one is on Mansfield. The Masselin address is nice because it's a 2 bedroom with hardwood floors, but no fridge, no dishwasher, no subterranean parking, and no patio. The Mansfield one is nice because it's got a small front yard, all of the appliances, but it's a bit scruffier than the Masselin one and just a bit smaller. Oh, yeah and no parking. Later, in the evening, I get a call to do some work. At 9:15p! It seems easy enough. Hope this pays well. We could use the cash.
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The country club is too far from the action
13/04/05 16:55
Wednesday-Well, we sent in an application for a place near the Wilshire Country Club. It was very affordable, spacious and had all of the appliances I wanted. Oh, and it had a patio near a pool. Daryl felt it was too far east so he was not into it at all. At this point, I'm simply tired of looking. But he's not satisfied so I continue to look on the web and call people. I must have left a hundred messages. I lost count. Work for the Fox Movie Channel begins tomorrow.
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4/12/05 Tuesday
Acupuncture. I love it. And I actually drive Daryl to get his massage. I drop him off and try to parallel park. I block traffic for a long time, backing up, then hitting the curb, then driving forward, then backing up, then hitting the curb, etc. It goes on for so long, I want to laugh. I finally, finally get the car in the spot and fill the meter. I walk away and suddenly realize, I forgot to lock the car. Can you tell I haven't driven in a while? But back to the massage, Daryl loves it. But then the pain comes back. Maybe acupuncture next time? We walk around the beach a bit after a bite to eat. We tried a Thai restaurant that sucked, but they made their own coconut ice cream. That ice cream totally made up for the meal. We get a really good walk and Daryl takes a picture of a squirrel, or a gopher, whatever, it squeaked like the traffic light and was very cute. We drive back to The Meadows and get my deposit check back. Afterwards, we visit with Mo for a bit and I call more apartments. We fill out another application for the apartment near the country club and drop that off with another check. Daryl is still not happy with the apartment. So, I continue to call places and get info from the web. Daryl tries to find a mic cable from Guitar Center and refuses to pay $30 for what he knows is $5. We try the music store across the street and, same deal. Kay, guess we won't be using a mic anytime soon. Oh, and I'm going to be doing some work for Christian this Friday. My first LA job! It's just basically copying what Christian has done, but it makes me feel good that I can do it. Also, I met with a director today, who lives just a short walk away, and I think I'll be working on her project as well. Good thing that won't start until next week, I feel I need the time to finish up finding an apartment and doing this gig for Christian. It is good to have work coming up. Not great pay, but work is work.
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4/11/05 Monday
We left for the post office to see if we could get our mail. Now keep in mind, we haven't really gotten our normal amount of mail since March 30th. We buzz the buzzer for the post office drive up window and waited for a long time outside before an elderly gentleman arrives and asks, are you being helped? (Without the microphone on, btw, so we're shouting at him through plexiglass and steel.) Nope. And it turned out that he wasn't a lot of help either. He pottered around with our driver's licenses and looked in four different places, looking very slowly and carefully, before coming back and saying we had no mail. We asked him where my weekly magazines were and he went off again and pottered around in the same four places. I saw him look at a pile of magazines and THEN THROW ONE AWAY. He trashed someone else's mail! Daryl saw him pick a bunch of mail out of a mailbox, look through the pile, very slowly, and THEN PUT IT IN THE WRONG BOX. By this time, there were two guys behind us angry and impatient. It took 20 minutes...to not get our mail.
But then we had Vietnamese food and it was all good. We were so annoyed by the whole apartment situation, we applied for the apartment near Mo, called The Meadows. We immediately regretted it and I think it was because it was $1300 for a 2nd fl apartment we couldn't see and the laundry and parking were far away. I actually checked out what people had to say about it on apartmentratings.com and out of 24 people, 38% did not recommend it citing management problems and vandalism. So. OK. We're thinking the 2 bedroom in Palms then?
Mo invites us to a gathering at her friend's place in Playa Del Rey. It's really nice, near the ocean, and he (Josh is his name.) pays $1600 with a roommate for a beautiful 2 bedroom, 2 bath, with a huge deck and bbq, hardwood floors and a very nice kitchen. We have a great time, and one of Josh's friends, Chastidee, tells us about her experience in Palms. Basically, a lot of stolen tires, cars, etc. Not good news. So. OK. The apartment near the country club, then?
We leave and Daryl is really in pain. He's got some serious problem with his right shoulder and neck. Good thing my acupunturist called and gave us the number of a masseur named Jason. We make a massage appointment with him for Tuesday.
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4/10/05 Sunday
We finally trade in our Ford Explorer Super Gigantic SUV Tank for a real car. And, once again, Budget has no economy or compact cars so we get a full size. We get in and it feels...short. But it's nice not to be in the tank anymore. We see a terrific apartment that is a whopping $2300. What the ....? No, thank you. Then we see an apartment near the Wilshire Country Club in Larchmont and it's big...and it's got a dishwasher and a fridge and a disposal and a gas stove...and parking...and a laundry in the facility...and they allow cats... and..and..what's the catch? I feel like there's got to be a catch since it's in a very quiet neighborhood and it's a good apartment and it can't just be $1150/mo. Our next appointment is at 4:30p in Palms. This time it's a 2 bedroom for $1295. And it's good too. What's going on? Two good apartments in one day? And then we see another apartment in Palms and it's good too, for $1195. I almost feel like we don't have to look anymore. We'll see what happens because Daryl is still kind of attached to The Meadows, an apartment that was just down the street from Maurissa. It was really, really good but it was also expensive. But it IS down the street from Maurissa and that is a huge pro.
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4/9/05 Saturday
We see one more apartment and write down many many numbers for places in this "Miracle Mile" area. Then we eat at In-N-Out, where we see the young girl from "Six Feet Under". We get an extra order of fries and drive around some more in the neighborhoods we like. I call many, many people and leave messages. One person calls back. I'm pooped and so we pop in a DVD and I work out and do my shoulder exercises. Then we collapse into bed.
Speaking of the bed, Daryl didn't do so well with the sleeping bag so we decided to get the cushion from our sofa. Now he's sleeping next to me on a mattress of his own making and I'm freezing sleeping alone.
Another note: What is up with LA being freezing cold at night and in the morning? It is way too cool and breezy here for me to think that this is LA.
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4/8/05 Friday
Much of the same except we spend some time with Mo. Yay! We even get ice cream from Mashti Malone's(ginger and rosewater with pistachio and rosewater), which later makes me very sick. But it was fun at the time. She even goes with us to a few places. We went to one place that was $1300 and was very nice. It had a courtyard with four lion heads spewing out water for a fountain the in the center of the courtyard. Maurissa mentioned that it sounded a lot like four people peeing at the same time. Oh yeah, and that was the place where we got a bit confused and missed the manager who went down to the 1st floor, while we were in the elevator going to the office on the 4th floor, etc. It went on for a while, until we decided to stay put in the courtyard, the courtyard that sounds like 4 people continuously peeing. We go to Whole Foods and lo and behold they have the rice crust pizza. I grab three, which is all I can fit into the freezer and make Daryl get a massage because his shoulders have been bothering him all week. It gets so bad we get the sleeping bag and a camping mattress for him to sleep on from the storage facility. That was fun. Daryl and I went there because he wanted to find his climbing gear and we ended up not finding it but bringing back other stuff, like, kitchen garbage bags, aluminum foil, the toaster oven. Oh yeah, Christian doesn't have a toaster or a microwave, but he does have a huge orange juicer, which I have used. It makes some terrific fresh squeezed orange juice. We've also been eating all of his young coconuts as they are on their way out. Did I mention that I threw out almost everything in the fridge as it was rotting? Now it's nearly empty...except for young coconuts and things like jam and honey.
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4/7/05 Thursday
Pretty much the same, see apartments. Apartments stink. Go to Whole Foods for rice crust pizza. Don't find it. Daryl's shoulders getting worse. Come home exhausted. Clean up more old food out of fridge and try to find a piece of paper with Christian's signature on it to copy for a new rent check. In the process of doing that, I cleaned up his office because I am that way. I also found reams of printer paper and label paper he had stowed in various places around the room. Before he left he thought he had run out. I had to laugh a bit. Oh and I found out how to use voicemail on his phone. Now I can hear messages from apartment companies....if they ever call, that is. Many of the messages I've left have not been answered. But the one good thing is that we ate at the Vietnamese place on Sunset in Silverlake. It is so fantastic I wish everyone could have a taste. I wish I could eat there every day. I find a very nice apartment community that is great and affordable, but way the heck out there in Koreatown. ($1085-1120) But...so affordable...Sigh.
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4/6/05 Wednesday
We meet Lucy the cleaning lady. She is fantastic. I cannot believe how throughly she cleaned this place. We left for a few hours to see an apartment and we come back and the place is tidied up we can actually find space on the coffee table. And she cleans out the drain in the shower which hadn't really been draining, even after we put drain cleaner in it. Ugh. I am amazed. She's also fun to talk to and we talk about our pets. We warn her about the cat and tell her she doesn't even have to go in our room. And really who but us would even dare? We go to KooKooRoo again, but this time we get the order to go and get Lucy a hamburger. Today we find our favorite apartment, but we can't see it because the previous tenant is waiting for his house to be built, so we see a 2 bedroom, which, we are told, is exactly the same but without the other bedroom. OK. Oh and it won't be ready until May 1st. And no application. But we like it even though we haven't really seen it. But we do see a terrific place just up the street in a gated community, but its' so expensive, starting at $1325. Yikes! But the apartments are very, very nice.
One fun thing about today is that I actually went out and drove the Super Big SUV Tank. First I tried to park it outside the apartment which was laughable since I couldn't figure out how to move the mirrors or the seat, so I was desperately thinking that there was no way I could even drive this thing. I was thinking I was going to have to put a pillow behind my back. I got so flustered I called Daryl to come out and help me and he showed me where to move the seat and the mirrors. So much easier. And I drove around the are with very little anxiety but it was easier when Daryl was around helping me and telling me when it was clear to go. Someday I'll have to drive on my own and hopefully I won't have a nervous breakdown.
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04/06/05 Wednesday
The move was exhausting and fraught with ridiculous difficulties, such as where to dump a mattress in LA without getting fined a huge amount of money. Daryl's written more details in his blog below, so here are some abbreviated highlights of our trip.
1) Try to rest before moving. You do not want to move when sick. Believe me.
2) If there is no one around to help you move, day laborers who speak very little or no English are good help. Buy them lunch and Gatorade-orange flavor. They like that.
3) UHaul trucks are crap and no matter what you've reserved online, like furniture pads and furniture dollies, they probably won't have them for you. You have been warned.
4) Don't scare the cat in the cab of the truck or she'll pee on you.
5) If you have left SF late in the afternoon, it's a good idea to sleep in a motel on the way down to LA from SF with a UHaul full of your crap. I recommend the Motel 6 in Lost Hills on I-5. They take cats.
6) Buy a padlock for the truck BEFORE you leave civilization or you will be wandering around the wilderness wondering how you're going to lock up your possessions.
7) UHaul trucks suck, so make sure you have enough gas and radiator coolant BEFORE going over the mountains. Their mechanics are very little help, btw. And they don't reimburse for radiator coolant.
8) Try to ignore the annoying whine from the improperly sealed driver side door.
9) Public Storage people are very nice, but it's even nicer when your friend shows up to help you move your junk into storage and give you a ride to UHaul to return the truck. THANK YOU, MO!
10) UHaul employees are very stupid and will insist you park the truck outside the gated area so they can go home, even though it's easier for everyone just to leave it there.
11) UHaul employees are very stupid and don't know how to open a combination lock even though they've been given the combination. They like the bolt cutters.
12) Dumping a mattress is easier behind a large wholesale grocery store, especially when they have a gigantic dumpster. It helps if it's also 10p.
13) When you are sick, try to eat more than an apple and a baked potato before trying to move boxes into storage.
14) Don't ever rent a car with Enterprise. If you do, then return the car right away and rent from anyone else.
15) If Enterprise continues to call you, asking how they can serve you better, be very rude or they'll call again and again.
16) UHaul's complaint department is very stupid.
17) Don't believe the post office if you ask if mail will be delivered to your local branch if it is sent "GENERAL DELIVERY". The people at that branch will have no idea what you are talking about.
18) The main branch of the Post Office has a free lot and a paying lot. DO NOT use the paying lot. WAIT for a space, even if it takes forever.
19) After waiting in line, your mail will not be here either. Go to the annex and speak to someone through a window that suspiciously resembles a drive-in window to get your one letter after 4 days of no mail.
We are currently looking for apartments and hope to find one by the end of next week. It's been very tiring even to get our mail, which by the way, is way out by the main post office in LA, and actually, not even there, but at another building where no one is allowed inside.
So far the apartments have been pretty bad, but I still have hope we'll find something. The rental car situation was also somewhat laughable, the end result being that we are now driving around in a huge Ford Explorer that was formerly driven by smokers. It was all that Budget had left in their lot. It's like having a shiny tank. But now we can drive around 5 people comfortably. Not that that has come up yet.
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4/5/05 Tuesday
We get a phone call in the am from the landlord saying he hasn't gotten the rent. OK. I email Christian and he says he mailed it on the 26th. I even find the carbon copy. Strange. We tell the landlord. OK, Christian is in Bali? Oh, so how am I going to get my rent? I tell him I'll get back to him when I've talked to Christian. Also, the equipment store he gets his equipment from calls and says, hey we got your lens here. I tell them he already left for Bali. A lot of good that lens will do him now. I get to see Christian's acupunturist and get acupunture, cupping, herbs for my immune system, herbs for my skin problem and exercises for my shoulder. I am totally worked over and my shoulder finally feels great after months. We see more apartments and once again are exhausted. We eat at KooKooRoo and get charged for parking for more than half and hour. That sucks. And then we try and get our mail. We first go to our local post office to get a box. No way that is happening unless we have a proper local address on a piece of mail. Not likely since we just moved here. Then we go to the main post office way far away downtown and after waiting in line there we find that our mail...isn't here either, it's at the annex and the hours are 10:30 to 2:30p. It's 4p. So we ask the security guard to tell us where to go and he's very nice, but the parking lady made us pay $5 to park in a lot for the post office when we didn't have to. And she won't refund our money. We go to the post office annex and there is no door, just a window like you would have for a drive through. People are waiting outside for their mail. The sign for GENERAL DELIVERY mail says the hours are 10a-2p. So I'm guessing that 10:30a-2p is a safe bet. We talk to the supervisor there and she takes pity on us and brings out a letter for each of us even though it's technically after hours for her. Daryl gets a check and I get...wait for it...a confirmation from the post office that my mail is being forwarded to this post office. Thanks a lot. And I wonder where all of our mail is since it should have been forwarded from Mar 31st. I have a feeling my New Yorker magazine is in the dead letter office. And we take yet another trip to Whole Foods in search of more rice crust pizza. Still not there. Darn.
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4/4/05 Monday
Christian's here and he gives us the lowdown on the place. Cleaning lady on Wednesday, garbage pickup on Thursday morning-please put the bins back in the backyard in the afternoon, and in an emergency here's my checkbook and some cash for business related expenses. Sweet. He tells me I can throw out whatever I want in the fridge. I end up having four bags of garbage. (Biodegradable bags, btw!) Christian's friends Bobby and Anat come by and we watch their video on scuba diving in Bali. They have some terrific shots. We also meet Cari, who wants me to help her with her movie on high school kids who work together to lessen violence in their communities. Yay, possible work! They admire the cat, who would prefer they leave her alone. We watch Christian pack up his stuff which includes four bags of camera gear and the occasional bit of clothing to help protect the gear. It's 9:30p and he says, "OK, I'm done packing my gear, now I've got to start packing clothes and toiletries," which ends up being just a toothbrush. We drive out to the airport using Christian's super secret fast method and we get there in 20 minutes. We see him off and drive around looking for In-N-Out burger, which we find mostly because Daryl always remembers where he's been, even if he's been there only once.
Our mail problems begin today, because even though we asked the San Francisco post office people on THREE separate occasions if our mail would be delivered to this post office if we wrote "GENERAL DELIVERY" on the change of address form, and even though they said yes every time, our mail was not delivered to this post office. The LA post office people here had no idea what we were talking about. They told us that all GENERAL DELIVERY mail goes to the main post office downtown. And just what is the address there? The post office lady doesn't know the address, but "just take any of the main roads here and go towards downtown and you'll get there." I make her get an actual address. It's a wonder anyone ever gets their mail with this kind of service.
Oh, and a note on sleeping on an air mattress. It's a really good air mattress. That being said, Daryl is not doing so well with it. More on this later. We eat at Baja Fresh, because Daryl does not want to eat at KooKooRoo for the third straight day in a row.
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4/3/05 Sunday
Just for your information, Budget is great. We looked online at the price for reserving a car and it was $130/wk. And we were driving a Pontiac Vibe from Enterprise for $55/day. The only other car on their lot was $69/day. So, of course we took the cheaper one. But after looking online at Budget we returned the car the next day and went to Budget to get our compact car. Well, it just happened to be the day people change the hour forward and, well, people were late returning cars, (I even missed an appointment for an apartment, which sounded so nice. Darn.) so all they had left was a Ford Explorer SUV Gigantic Street Tank. (Or so I think it should be named, just so people understand what they're getting.) We pick it up at the car wash and we discover, oh yes, the previous renter was a smoker. Terrific. We returned the Enterprise car and they were very insistent that we tell them what they did wrong. I'm thinking, "Renting out cars at such a high price. Really what's so hard to understand?" but don't say a word as this is Daryl's gig. In the Explorer, we're driving with the windows open in the hope it will air out the vehicle and try to put in a CD. It's already got one from the previous renter and it's....Tribute to the BeeGees. We were disappointed that it wasn't the actual BeeGees. It would have gone well with our ABBA CD. We could only listen to one song and then we quietly put it away. Oh, and we looked at a series of really bad apartments and came home exhausted. Also, we found a very nice Trader Joes and a Whole Foods where they have a whole section on gluten-free flours. I am very happy. But there's only one Amy's Rice Crust pizza left. Must have a lot of wheat free clients here. Darn.
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4/2/05 Saturday
I got a really good nights' sleep because, well, it had been an exhausting ordeal getting down here. Immediately looked on www.westsiderentals.com to find apartments, called numbers, and then ate again at KooKooRoo. Yay protein! Got a reservation at Enterprise for a compact car. It took the driver 2 hours to find Christian's place even after we gave him directions-twice. That was the first sign that Enterprise was not going to be very good.
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4/1/05 Friday
I forgot to mention that when we arrived at Christian's, the kitchen had ants crawling all around it. He'd accidentally left open a bottle of maple syrup on the counter. Oy. I spent a lot of time killing ants and moving the honey and syrup to the fridge. Oh and I threw out a lot of food too. All I had had to eat was an apple and a baked potato with sour cream, so I was famished. I couldn't figure out why Maurissa had so much more energy and could carry boxes I could only push. Well, aside from the fact that she works out like a dog. (But I had been working out to increase my strength and it wasn't helping today.) And it was only after eating chicken at KooKooRoo, did I realize that it was because I was seriously food-deprived. In fact, after eating, which I did voraciously and then got another order to go, I had enough energy to try and clean up our room which was nice, but we had just invaded with a load of our junk and I wanted to organize it a bit. Then Mo left and we collapsed. And this was the night we wandered about in a UHaul looking to dump the mattress and boxspring. An interesting note: a crazy van nearly drove into us and hit the UHaul mirror. He didn't damage us, but he drove away like a rocket so we gunned it until Mo could read the license. And poor Mo had no seatbelt. (Did I mention that Mo is a really good friend?) We got the license though. Not that anybody at UHaul cared.
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