Dude! Your Car's Been Toad!

So the good news is, I'm officially nocturnal. The bad news? The sun is rising and I'm wide awake. Maybe not wide awake. I'm a little punchy. (For instance, I currently think replacing "towed" with "toad" is hilarious!) Further proof of this is when I pulled into the driveway a few minutes ago, talking to my east coast sister on the phone, I shushed her and insisted there was a rattlesnake in my front yard. Upon further investigation, it was the neighbors sprinklers.

Today, while all of you were at work, and I was spending my day lounging waiting for my nightshift to begin, I watched as a car was towed from my street. I wondered what exactly their indiscretion had been, but figured it was probably just a run-of-the-mill repossession or something.

Well, tonight, or this morning rather, upon returning home from work, I took my dog out for a tiny little walk. How can a tiny walk be little you ask? Well, it's to the street and back. She pees, yawns, leads me back inside. There you have it: tiny little.

Okay so I'm walking cautiously to the street, (watching out for rattlesnakes mind you), and I see a man in a suit walking down the sidewalk. It's one of those situations where the person doesn't see you, but you know when they do, it's going to startle them. Well, right before I got to my fake-cough to announce my presence stage, he noticed me and almost seems to duck away from me at first. It was odd. He looked like your standard business man, nice suit and tie, going in for an early morning in the office. But he was looking for something. And I watched him as he passed my house, and looked back confused. Then it struck me: he was looking for his car.

A few things. First of all, where had this man been? This car was towed around 2pm yesterday afternoon, and now it is 5:30am. He seemed a little unfamiliar with the area, and although I certainly don't recognize everyone in my neighborhood, I had never seen this guy before. And if he was a business man, as one would assume from his attire, wouldn't he have had to work yesterday? I ponder the possibilities because, let's face it, I'm nosey and want to know everything about people that strike my fancy. Okay, "fancy" is not the right word there. Or maybe it is. What I mean is, people who I find interesting or intriguing.

Okay, secondly, this car was not a super-fancy car. It was not a Rolls or Benz. (Yes, I just said "Rolls" and "Benz".) This guy seems well enough off that he wouldn't be getting his Honda repossessed. Especially if he was the over-achieving business man I painted him as in my first impression.

Thirdly, and this only occured to me after the fact, but was he reaching for a gun or something when he saw me? He seemed to go for something. Maybe it was pepper-spray or his pocket-protector, but he sure was jumpy.

So what does this spell out? Sketchy.

i decided to toss out my first impression and formulate a new one.

On Sunday evening he went to dinner was some of his associates. They discussed their sketchy business matters and what not. "Swifty", as he prefers to be called, is a major drug addict. The other members invite him over to one of their houses and insist he park miles away. Here, they go on an all night drug binge where they play a fierce and psychedelic game of D&D. Soon enough, Sunday evening turns into Monday morning and they're still at it. Finally, around 5pm, they all pass out. He wakes up at four, still in his suit from dinner, and decides it's time to head home. He begins his walk, nerves still rattled from the drugs. He's paranoid and jumpy, drug hungover and tired. He gets to the street where he's sure he parked his car, and can't seem to find it. He's so busy looking for said car, he doesn't see the girl walking down her driveway. When he sees movement from the corner of his eye, he turns and reaches for his sword, (that he's sure really exists---or it did a few hours ago anyway), sure that the dragon he had been fighting hours before had returned for round seventeen. He's startled to find that his sword has disappeared but is temporarily relieved that the dragon had also seemed to vanish due to the presence of a mortal and her K-9. He returns to his task at hand: finding his car. Confused, he wonders if he had sold it while on the binge, as it seems to be nowhere around. He then wonders if "Quantum"'s spell had actually worked. He whips out his phone to investigate the situation. Only to be reminded by his pal "Lark" that he stopped paying for his car to save up for his fantasy character figurines and premium rocks. "Rats", he thinks. "Not again."

On another note: I wonder if dogs don't think that we kiss them because we don't lick their faces?

Is It Just Me, Or Are T-Shirts Getting Funnier and Funnier?

Here are a few that have had me dying laughing tonight:












Here are the ones that I will likely be wearing soon:










And the winner of the evening is:








T-shirts courtesy of:
(Check these links out! Much more hilarity lies within!)

T-Shirt Hell
Dirty Microbe
Busted Tees
Snorg Tees

Odd Job

Okay I have the strangest job in the entire world right now. I'm digitizing hours and hours and hours of people's home videos. Like some people sent in one modest tape with a video they cut together on it, and others, well others sent in upwards of twenty tapes from years of filming. I'm watching people's weddings and family dinners, listening to roommates talk about their new apartment, watching friends hanging out carefreely singing or talking, unknowingly devulging this information to me, a person who they've never met, sitting in this strange building in Los Angeles at 2am. Is that creepy? I feel kinda creepy watching all these videos, even though it's literally my job right now.

But it's so interesting. A little depressing as well. A couple of times, I've formed some attachments to these people I'm watching, only for the next tape of their story to be a memorial video. No kidding. This has happened three times. I'm now to the point where I cringe every time I put in a new tape, hoping that they met a better fate than the last guy.

There've been a few survivors. Right now, I'm following this girl, (on tape 18!), through her life. It's odd, but I feel like I know her. I'm like watching her interact with her parents, grandparents, brother, friends, boyfriends. When the tapes started it was 1994. Now it's 2000 and she's living in a new apartment.

Okay, so what an odd job right? It's making me want a video camera right this instant. Which is bad because I have credit card bills. And oh man, this tape has "Warning: Sensitive Material" on its label. Now I'm scared.

Back to work.

In My Own Backyard!

Perhaps feeling guilty from the last time I failed to act quickly enough, today I believe I was inducted into my neighborhoods "Community Watch" program.

So I'm going about my normal morning business, drinking coffee and scanning the internet. My wireless internet is down so I wasn't on the porch as much as usual. My front door was open and I was sitting on my couch hardwired into my modem. I hear a man on the street below yelling. I come to the porch and see a man looking helplessly around yelling "Thief! Thief!"

He yells to other neighbors that have come outside that he's looking for a black man. He starts walking up my driveway and I get nervous. I call for the dogs and walk towards the backdoor to ensure it's locked. (Thinking that the thief might be looking for a house to hide in.) As I turn the corner into the kitchen, I hold my hands up in some sort of karate pose that I never knew I knew. No one's there. Relief. It's locked and I turn my attention back towards the driveway, sticking my head out of the window just in time to see the man cornering a young black man, with poofy hair in my backyard! The guy looks scared as the worker who has been chasing him starts to move in, yelling "Thief!" and pointing in his direction. I watch it all and grab my phone to dial "911". The kid jumps the fence next to mine and gets away. The worker then runs into my front yard and grabs a broom of some sort, taking the brush part off, (left with just the handle), and jumps into a car. He means business.

At this point I'm trying to describe stuff to the 911 guy, but also trying to figure out where they are going. I've completely lost the suspect at this point, so I tell the 911 man where the worker headed.

I was shaking and nervous but gave all the info I had. The street turned silent as the chase moved elsewhere, but with doors locked and windows drawn, I sat nervously, with the dogs, hoping that Thief wouldn't come back and get revenge on nosey neighbors.

It's now almost 30 minutes later and no police to speak of. The guy chasing him has returned and checked our backyard looking for the purse that Thief seemed to no longer be carrying. He couldn't find it, which worries me that perhaps Thief stashed it and will be back for it later. No one has heard from the cops and I salute the LAPD for taking such action against this criminal. Good to know I guess.

The lady that lives below me, the landlords sister, came out and ensured me that this happens all the time and that they never come into the houses. She said, "he'll do it again and eventually get caught." Good to know lady! Way to ease my nerves! So apparently, this guy snatched a purse off of a woman in a market down the street. I assume that the worker saw and chased him here. Also apparently, this market is not one that I'm going to be frequenting.

Well that's it for now. I guess it's over. He got away. But not for lack of trying! This worker guy was like superman chasing this guy.

Nothing like a criminal chase to wake a person up in the morning.


UPDATE: It took about an hour, but the police finally came. They were milling about in the backyard with the worker from before. I was brushing my teeth and looked down and noticed a black bag on the roof of the garage. As I went out to tell the cops, they had just seen it as well. Turns out, it was a bookbag but the purse was still missing. They get all my info and I went on my way. Let's hope they found that purse! And hope even more that Thief doesn't come back looking for it.

I'll Leave You With Something Thought-Provoking

I was doing some copper bracelet research tonight for a friend who has been having some arthritis in his hands. (Arthritis?!?! I'm getting so old, it's terrifying.) I happened to come across this gem of page that explains the benefits of a copper bracelet quite clearly.

Why does our Dealon Healing Copper Bracelet work? Well, we're not doctors and we make no medical claims for our product, but, we believe it's the copper.

Wow, thanks for clearing that up, Dealon!

At Least I'm Honest

"Hey, if you're still unemployed today, Tuesday the 5th of the month of June, me and my pup are thinking about going hiking today around noonish. (I'm all about it, she's still deciding.)

Okay, so hiking is maybe an overstatement. There's definitely mountains and a dirt path, but I will embarrassingly be out of breath in like one incline, and you will have to carry on the conversation by yourself until we start going back down and my breath returns. Your presence, however, may protect me from perhaps my greatest fear, mountain lions. I will also be a joy to chat with once the inclines are over, (I'm awesome on the decline).

This is all assuming I make it out of bed tomorrow morning and can actually walk from my hike today. So far I'm not sore, but we'll see. Anyway, thought I'd see if you were interested. I know how fun distractions are during the job search process.

-Ms BCT"

Conundrum

Okay, so I'm trying to get on this night schedule thing, but I'm currently in a conundrum. I am going hiking with the roommate and our doggies at eleven a.m. tomorrow morning. I also work tomorrow night. Right now, it is one a.m. I'm trying my hardest to stay up so I'll be on my A game tomorrow night, but I'm tired. We ate a large homemade meal tonight, and have spent the evening watching hits like "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "One Fine Day" reclining on the couch. Roommate went to sleep a while ago, and my eyes are drifting shut. I'm trying to decide if I should just go to sleep now so I can wake up a little early to drink my coffee---NAP! I'm going to take a nap after hiking! Problem solved. G'night.


My Song of the Moment