The carpet came in Tues 9/24 - I cleaned the apartment and took the next day off work and cleaned manically. I am still waiting for Rob to clean the kitchen but our home has returned.

it's not very funny but some people were wondering. what do you want from me? I have to be witty AND insightful in my reviews, passive and informative in my letters at work, uber-concise and neutral in my long notes at work, and brilliantly funny here too? It's not like you are paying for this.

more soon

  posted by Cinerina @ 3:34 PM

 
you mean i didn't tell you about eating at Jollibee? Well it's a Filipino (Phillipino?) fast food chain that now has like 8-10 stores in, where else, California - but the kicker is the slushee dessert drink offering, which has apparently swept the nation without my ever knowing about it. Jollibee has "shanghai rolls" (lumpia), "chickenjoy" (fried chicken), and various teriyaki bowls and other "pan-asian" cuisine, in odd combos, like spaghetti with fries.

Then they have "shakes" which are frozen slushee boba drinks, (what's boba? just wait) in flavors melon, ube (no not squid) and buko pandan. I ask her what these flavors are - oh yeah, me & rob are the only white people there. ube is like, what did she say, like a sort of, well, she couldn't describe it. this to me says squid. it's purple, just like squid in sushi.
buko pandan is coconut, despite its green color. i got that - it's got coconut and something else - either pastachio or fungus. and then there is the boba. little blueberry sized gooey semi-chewy globules, kind of like tapioca bubbles but bigger, oh and they are brown-black. yuck.
foreigners are weird. but at least they didn't allow Bush to be their president.

  posted by Cinerina @ 3:31 PM

 
Oh Jackie Chan, have you fallen so far?

  posted by Cinerina @ 9:12 PM

 
Two great things:
Red fusion and a clean garage!

Rob helped me douche out the garage and it was amazing! I hauled the enormous purge pile to AmVets and it is SO LIBERATING. The untrained eye would see no difference, but let me tell you that a good 100 cubic feet or more is gone. And the space is better used.

They claim they are going to carpet on Weds, 9/25. We'll see.

Red fusion is delicious, and I need more. Now. Get it for me! Now! All the deliciousness and addictiveness of Dr Pepper with the fruity smoothness of Big Red. Oh yeah.

More red fusion will diffuse the pain of the apartment I think.

Also, Vessna's soon to be web debut: mycathatesyou.com

  posted by Cinerina @ 2:30 PM

 
They started drilling our floor on Tues, 9/10. They found the leak, fixed it, and poured the cement in the hole by Saturday, 9/15. They said something about it curing for a few days (during which time they suggested we sleep in our bed again, which was impossible due to the choking dust) and they should be in to carpet on Weds, 9/18. I call them that day, and oh! They forgot! Friday Rob calls, and they are annoyed and angry at us (!!!) for calling them when they are busy. They do not have the carpet yet or an appointment or an estimated time. we're not waiting for cosmetic frippery, for pete's sake, we can't use our bedroom, kitchen, or living room! We moved all but the biggest furniture out (to do the rest would actually make us unable to enter the unit at all) and are just waiting. It's Sunday, Sept 22, and nothing. FUCKERS!!!

  posted by Cinerina @ 10:42 AM

 
Generally, this is how my phone call today went: Keep in mind that they started drilling on Wednesday, 9/11. Or was it Tuesday?

"Hi, this is Karina at Park Blvd?"
"Hey, you never called Jack the phone guy."
"I'm sorry?"
"We told you to call Jack and he says he hasn't heard from you."
"Uh, I don't know what you - "
"Oh this is the leak apartment!"
"Yeah so I was wondering when you might be over to recarpet the bedroom." note for those following: the cement was poured Saturday 9/14
"Oh - oh! We've just been up to our asses in alligators and until you called right now, I think we just forgot about you."
(head explodes. however, I have to play Good Cop.)
"Um, yeah well - "
"And I was sending my wife over to cut a sample of the carpet to take it to the carpet people for a match but I don't know if she has done that yet."
"Yeah I didn't see a square cut out but - "
"Oh I told her to take it from the bits that are out by the garbage. So we'll get on that right now."
"So about moving our stuff? When should that happen?"
"Well we need to think about that antique dresser of yours..."

My antique dresser has a big, topheavy mirror screwed on to it, and I want to move that myself. THEY can move all the heavy stuff that they also managed to cover in cement dust (no tarp, nothing!). Oh lordy lordy.

In positive news, one of the wickedest supervisors is being pulled for a special project. Updates as they become interesting to anyone outside my company.

  posted by Cinerina @ 4:48 PM

 
Title: On Edge
Subject: Me

Text body: SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP. So ends the lesson.

  posted by Cinerina @ 2:41 PM

 
Ah sweet sweet kindness! I have been visited by the barbecue angel! A coworker, also TX ex-pat, has been sent a bit o' brisket with sweet hney bbq sauce, and she shared two precious bites with me! I am actually about to feast upon the second bit now. I am in such a place as BBQ cannot be found, no not even Abbey's makes it without it being dry and flavorless, despite their excellent sauce. (Takes bite) OH MY GOD THAT IS SO GOOD! I am instantly homesick - when she gave me the first bite I actually teared up. It is perfect, from Coulter's, it's sweet and spicy and moist and delicious! Now I am dragging my finger through the sauce and licking my fingers, trying to analyze it for you, Constant Reader. At first it seems super sweet, but then a slow creeping spicy kick. I don't indulge in "spice" per se so I don't know what it is, but it's tangy and not hot, a teeny bit salty and definitely meaty/hearty. ooooh. Thank you grandma McClanahan!

Update on apartment: cement is poured, curing, this morning it was still notably darker than the existing floor. The choking smell of cement dust is everywhere in that part of the apt, I can't spend any time in there. HACK HACK HACK! They were like, you can sleep in your bed once we pour the cement - not really!

Still seeing movies and getting caught up slowly with reviews...I feel guilty but what can I do?

I told Denise I would clean out her Tupperware but I am still wipe-and-licking it. Why is it so hard to cook BBQ out here properly? I missed toobing season, I wish we could go to Austin in June and toob and eat BBQ and drink Shiner and Big Red and ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

If you don't know what I mean, you ain't eaten good BBQ!

  posted by Cinerina @ 1:50 PM

 
Well this is obvious - you put me with HTML you get a big mess. But at least this design suits my mood and apartment better.

  posted by Cinerina @ 2:46 PM

 
The bitches, I think, are moving out. I can only hope. I do know they were parked behind my car this morning (by morning I mean when i got up so you know, 11am) but I'm not going anywhere for a few hours. Simmer. I also found out the surly lesbian's name is Margo, and she does a drag King show as a zoot suited pachuco! that's cool, it makes me almost like her, except for how surly she is.

noelle sent me chocolate and british bride magazines - does she have PMS?

who reads this crap?

  posted by Cinerina @ 2:23 PM

 
I can't believe only 3 days ago I was just lounging around my hot apartment, watching movies without a care in the world. So the body temperature floor which turned into the moist floor is now the carpetless, jackhammered open floor with a 4 ft by 18" pit in it, criss crossed with rebar that has actually DISSOLVED and HOT? The center of the floor, you know, directly under our bed, with the carpet off, was literally hot enough to scorch skin. the offending water heater is the one for the apartment not above us, but on the other side of our apt from where the heaters are. yes, the place was designed so someone's hot ass pipes would go right through the master bedroom and the living room. So all our crap is everywhere and covered in concrete dust and mold is everywhere and it's still hot as blazes can I just say? And we can't just be in the apartment or sleep anywhere. i was sleeping on the couch but the air is too choked with dust. so they think they will repair the leak tomorrow, check and make sure it's all good and fixed, then repour the cement into the hole, give that a day to dry, then we move the rest of our crap out and they recarpet that room. Oh the rapture.

did i mention that our home, which was previously inhospitable because of heat, no air circulation, fleas, crowdedness, and the general gross 70's vibe, is actually now uninhabitable unless you count sleeping on the stained futon with some of our displaced clothes, crawling around the clothes rack we bought (need another one by tomorrow), and brushing your teeth in the bathroom will work up a sweat (it's 88 in the bathroom at night). DAMN.

My dad advised to scare them with threats of mold lawsuits, which, after I did some research, actually seems pretty viable. Being no spring chicken, no wait, not being born yesterday, whatever, anyway since i am not a total fool, I am collecting my medical records and going for a full on work up and screw Dr Stanich he's crap anyway. The day he met me he prescribed me Zoloft - and I was going in requesting a referral to a therapist. Duck-talkin' bozo. Grrrr.

Oh to be back in bed (bed! I was sweaty and miserable but I had room to move my feet) railing at the dead for my guilt, rather than squeezed back in the Hamptons (as we call the disorganized crime that is the back bedroom) trying to explain to the cat why this is better. I ate all the toll house cookies, i know rob thinks he took too many but I know i ate at least 15 of the 20. those breakapart toll house cookies are the best thing since cel phones.

But I can still cry at ER, so maybe I have a heart after all. i can't even go into how furious the stupid fucking executive branch of my loser country makes me. let's commemorate the lives lost 9/11/01 by CONTINUING THE BEHAVIOR THAT INVITES SUCH ATROCITIES. Monkey see monkey do.

Mostly rage, frustration, misery, rage. My glass is less than half empty. Mmmm maggoty milk.

upside: I understand stress is very slimming. of course they are watching us at work all the time, oh how I hate them.

  posted by Cinerina @ 11:16 PM

 
blogger.com

  posted by Cinerina @ 1:26 PM

 
For anyone noting my time stamps and judging me, I am at lunch at work. No, we aren't allowed to do anything when we are at work. Heil!

Anyway I rented Mrs. Brown which was nice and Muriel's Wedding which was an eye opener. I failed in my video-induced catharsis so I instead kept myself up super late roiling in lifelong mires of guilt and mourning and misery, you know, talking to the dead and apologizing for disappointing them etc etc.

I had this dream the night before last that may have set me off somewhat, that and my entire life circumstance (more bitching in a bit) and in this dream my dead friend Ovid was alive and everyone was coming to see him in the hotel we lived in (? it's a dream) and I was with him and we talked about the gift I sent him when he was living his last days at his sister's (a juniper wood heart, fragrant and smooth on one side, rough and round on the other, which my friend Martin had carved me - not to dishonor the gift from Martin but Ovid couldn't see any more, i needed to touch him with something across the miles Austin to Galveston) - I hugged him and there was no "goodbye" or anything like that but it was really very moving. Hippy dippy as it may sound, I don't care, I like to think he finally found me and could thank me and say goodbye to me after these years have passed. That was an effective tear-jerker, and then I felt guilty about regifting Martin's very sweet gift and then I felt bad for the whole Martin thing and NOW typing this I feel bad about Doug and Cade...last night I instead stuck with the dead - Grandma, Grandpa (though I had great closure with him) and Ebony. I bawled and stayed up too late and my room was so freaking HOT!

Last week SD was pretty hot even by TX standards - a California-freaking confluence of humidity (at all) and actual warmth. In our no-breeze, no AC apt, next to the water heaters, it was pretty miserable. But once SD cooled down, the apt did not return to normal. In fact, the carpet in front of the closet (same closet behind which are THREE giant hot water heaters pumping out the heat) is body temperature. You know when you sit in a chair someone has just vacated after being there awhile? Like that, but 6 feet wide and 2 feet across. This morning I walked from the bedroom into the living room and it was easily a drop of 10 degrees. I got the snowglobe-thermometer (compliments of Jay) off the shelf, it read 82 degrees (the "cool" living room) - now to me, this is comfortable.

I walk back into the bedroom - WALL OF HEAT. Bathroom about the same. No shower steam or any of that to fool the senses. The thermometer takes a while to register temp change, being encased in plastic, but it was HOT. We can't open the window because of all the burglaries in the neighborhood, and there is no AC. Last year we turned off the pilot light and the place cooled down tremendously. Disgusting. I call the guy and it turns out that actually a waterheater pipe has burst and in fact what I had taken for melting shoes were actually just moisture stains from leather shoe bottoms. Great. The inside of that closet is soaked with boiling water. They will have to jackhammer into the cement slab through the closet (the only one with a bar, by the way - the other 3 closets are useless for hanging) which of course won't disrupt anything.

When Mr Call purchased this building I suspect someone bribed an inspector. When they shut off the water, they have to shut off two different things to shut off (or turn on) our water. We have switches that turn nothing on, dead outlets, and upside down switches. It's psychotic.

Again, so much rage, no positive feelings at all. My glass is half empty of maggots and idiots and worms and bastards and fuckups and substandardness. I am eating more soy, as it is apparently the miracle food which cures cancer, high cholesterol, weight loss, job insecurity, and worms.

In other, still relatively secret news, i just found out someone I know is sleeping with someone else I know totally unexpectedly and if you only knew, you would be tripping about it. There, wasn't that useful?

I find that for a rant page, I am having to be discreet, which is fucking annoying. "what if my boyfriend reads it and misinterprets my ennui as his failure?" "what if my friend reads it and is pissed I outed him/her to the world?' what a drag.

Windows Users: pop up stopper is very excellent. There, end it on a positive note. Voyeuristic freak.

  posted by Cinerina @ 1:18 PM

 
I am so freakin' negative! It's not just that glass is half empty, it's a glass half full of worms (per Rob) but it's true! It's funnier to complain than to praise, which is why my reviews of bad movies are "better" than my reviews of movies i love. but I am poisoned from within and it makes me sick. it's generally the sign to switch jobs, when I feel like this. in the meantime I am just grumbly and whiny and PMSy and I am so not supposed to be PMSing but I need to bawl and eat cheese and carbos and ice cream and sleep and sleep and sleeep. Yeah most of my friends have bigger problems than I do but waaah waah.

Yeah I know someone call the waaambulance. I don't want to be all curmudgeonly and bitter and vicious, even if it does make for good TV. Help!

  posted by Cinerina @ 2:40 PM

 
SHIT! just as I was gonna get into a really good rant about my stupid new neighbors, my computer stepped in and said, "who the hell wants to read about that?" well it's not like anyone HAS to read this crap. it's for my grandchildren.

so these bitches just moved in. they tromp in their retarded darwinian platform shoes and their kerchief tops and their wigga-almost-dyke doo-rags and they talk loud about inane crap (unlike this incredibly sage wit factory) and worst of all THEY FUCKING PARK IN OUR SPOT and tell their stupid, low-rise pants messed up pixie cut glitter eyeliner bitch friends to park in our spot. So I come home to an already-cooled Jetta parked splat dab in my spot. I politely leave the standard note, you know "hi, you may not know these are reserved spots but they are so please, next time park on the street or in the spot for the apartment you are visiting, we do tow but we don't want to be dicks" and the time. i circle the block, downtown fucking University heights with the theatre and twiggs open mike night and parkhouse eatery and bourbon street bar all within a BLOCK and I come back and I see her looking at the note. cool, fine, I drive around the block again, assuming she will be gone and she is LEANING AGAINST THE CAR smoking (of course) with the new neighbor whore. Thankfully I saw a spot while I was circling again and I go around and park there. i have heels on and I don't exactly look like I have a black belt. I don't want to walk alone when I pay half my crap salary to have this spot!
so I pull a bunch of stuff out of the back of my car so I look incredibly inconvenienced (what if I had had groceries or a baby or something) and, knowing full well they will be there, i trudge back with my arms full. there they are!
"and I'm like, he's just so, god!"
"I KNOW! did you like, you know?"
"duh of course! fuck!"
"Hi" - says the legitimate and sapient resident, being me - "are you going to be here much longer?"
"No not much longer"
"good, because I have to get the rest of my shit out of my car." UGH

I am so passive aggressive and it does me no good, except, ironically, in writing claims letters. instead of what we are all thinking, "you didn't go to the doctor, you idiot, so you obviously weren't very sick" I get to compose glorious prose like "in the course of investigating this claim, we contacted the doctor's office and there was no verification that you were seen by the doctor prior to cancelling your trip" blah blah blah policy jargon and then "too bad so sad love CSA." er, I mean, my anonymous employer.

I'm watching ER while I write this; who the hell thinks Abby and Carter make a remotely interesting couple? He's such a tool.

Anyway did you see one hour photo yet? trust me from experience, it is better than XXX and fear dot com. but I hope you would have assumed that.
Sorry Rich, you are lame (per you) so i had to be lame back, in your honor.

Did I mention how much I hate George Bush? lord I could go all night, but Michael Moore does a much better job and he actually gets shit done while I still sit here pumping california priced gas into my car.

what's red fusion? it's made by dr pepper and I want it. i bet it's big red, since that appears to be disappearing. oh my god if it tastes like 1/2 DP and 1/2 big red I will buy stock and then single handedly make the stock worth $100000 a share.

californians got some humidity this week and hopefully they will move to colorado in disgust.
this frickin thing hides the post & publish button, and I am too stupid to work around this. hence, rambling. I'll try to be funnier elsewise.


  posted by Cinerina @ 10:37 PM

 
Ok so it's not very self indulgent to just drop 4 lines and go. Sometimes I just don't feel like writing reviews, which is what I should be doing. I have been avoiding it since I got home. So I listen to my inner voice and it says "your'e not as funny as Rich," which I take to mean that I shouldn't do this either. Well I like to experiment with technology and as long as I don't make euphemistic comments regarding the extermination of certain legacy frat boy commanders in chief for the office of homeland wool-over-our-eyes, then I guess I'm ok.
for the record I fucking hate our idiot prez.

anyway ifilm.com and zefrank.com are usually compelling ways to not play Shanghai on the computer. i sit at a computer all day yet my excuse for not yet replying to emails is of course, I am too busy. Here I have manufactured something to do when I could be writing in my DIARY but do I want anyone finding THIS shit after I am dead? the answer is no. Haagen dasz calls. Will anyone care? it's not even a public blog. And I used to tease my stepbrother Rob about just this sort of thing. Of course he put in intimate sex things and I will only do that in my private one. Ha ha.

go see one hour photo and get off the computer!

  posted by Cinerina @ 8:48 PM

 
Welcome to my own personal paean to self-indulgence. If you have read this far, you probably know me very well and are humoring me. So be it!
What I really need is a way to diary for potential public consumption without actually having to learn HTML. Thanks to Anders to directing me to blogger.com. Now, go to Cinerina.com if you want to know what I really think.
Oh yeah and thanks to Rikki T who convinced me that this was not only for the lame. Unless he's lame, then never mind.

  posted by Cinerina @ 8:22 PM