Entries Tagged 'Random' ↓

George Carlin passed away on June 22, just 4 days ago, in Santa Monica, right here in California.

I only made the connection between the name and the man today, as I watched his Defrags the 10 Comandments on YouTube.

I first saw George Carlin perform in the Bill&Ted movies, later in Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob strike back.

This post doesn’t seem to flow that well today, too much work on my hands, but I just wanted to mention this talented man, encourage you to view him on YouTube and get a few laughs.  Look for a piece called “Seven Dirty Words“.  It is hilarious, but too inappropriate for me to link directly to.

George Carlin died this week.  So it goes.

Have a funny day, y’all.

Schooling is similar to jamming. same basic concept. It’s a stage in life when you school. You do not have to take any specific classes, just to be in that state of mind that forces you to learn something new each day.

I’m schooling.

I school the married life, the existence of a couple and not only one. I school and not learn, because there’s nothing to learn. There are no manuals or tutorials, just the days that go by that keep on proving that we (or at least I) don’t know all that much.

I school in school, in LACC, some odd English 101 course. A course that forces me to read books about US foreign policy, enjoy Kurt Vonnegut’s “Mother Night” and wrestle my way through Titus Andronicus. It is schooling because it is all about experiencing, learning, reading and writing, because it introduces me to new ideas, people, thoughts and ways of reflection.

I school my work. Every day, every hour. Either by learning to manage my time and projects, plan and design a workshop or try and create a useful online tutorial for faculty. It is about avoiding politics, avoiding conflict and accomplishing as much possible in this limited time. I haven’t mastered the work schooling part of my life, but this process seems to be easier and easier.

One of these days I’ll graduate

Saturday (aka caturday by some ultra-geek dudes) noon, and its 94 degrees out there. Got myself melting to the car seat as I’m driving down to Long Beach, to visit my adopted aunt and hang out for the day. My adopted aunt is not really my aunt. She’s my distant cusins’ best friend, and made me feel at home when I got to this new place and world 9 months ago.

We had planned to go to the beach, but since I’m lazy - we decided to forget about the driving and use the pool at the back yard.

The next 2 hours were a cycle of diving in to the chilly water, drying out and reading the new David Grossman book. Getting sun-tan (or burnt) in the process.

Evening, after some crazy shopping at the nearest Staples and some shoe store, relaxing, eating and having a smoke out by the pool with my classy auntie. We’re talking. One topic leads to the next and Hannukah comes up.

Hannukah, the feast of lights and one of my favorite Jewish holidays (mostly because there isn’t much praying, synagogue time or any other mandatory thing). I haven’t been keeping this holiday religiously for a few years now, but this year, being distant from the family, I actually wanted to celebrate it, and to celebrate it right.
The first night was with my boss/friend and her family, second night alone, third was with my auntie and then back home, about to light alone. I’m talking to my aunt, whose husband is in the hospital for a few days, and we’re contemplating having a conference call/synchronou candle lighting. It takes me 10 minutes to figure out how to pull it off, but it works.

3 people, 3 locations, 2 Menorah’s, 3 blessings and 2 people singing (while i hum in the background, can’t even try and sing with those two singers. I’m musically deaf when it comes to singing). It was the most unique candle lighting I’ve ever taken part of.

Back to April 2008, after this long smoke break of memories, just finished watching “Things we lost in the fire”, interesting, strange, sad and amusing movie. Girls day out is officially over.

–
edits:  Thanks dear classy girl for the corrections 

Last Thursday was my birthday.  It was the first birthday I ever celebrated away from home and my family.

This birthday I rediscovered my friends, after years of knowing them, they surprised me.
It started with my husband and 3 dear friends who called and sang happy birthday to me over the phone.  First couple of calls - awesome.  At some point I did not want to hear that song anymore.

It continued with my Facebook wall, which was filling up with birthday wishes by the minute.  My hero, Emmanuel, who saves me from all the wrongs of this city on a daily basis, spent the evening prior to my birthday supporting my impulses and strange reactions (I’m a girl.  I age.  We don’t take it that well…)

My family called to wish me a happy birthday.  Even though my Jewish birthday is still a week and a half away.

I did not plan to go out on my birthday.  As I mentioned, I don’t deal with birthdays well.  A faculty member at my college, who shares a smoke with me a few times a week, was shocked to discover I don’t plan on going out.  Later that evening, she picked me up at my place and we drove to the glorious Farmer’s Market, at the Grove (Fairfax and 3rd, Highly recommended), where we had a couple of beers, a smoke and a good, relaxing laugh.

My birthday celebration was good and whole this year.  It helped me realize that my friends are important to me, and that I mean something for them.  Calling, posting wall messages (darn youngsters and their Web2.0) and letting me know that they do remember, and it doesn’t matter how many miles are between us.

On a very early Thursday evening, Emmanuel and John volunteered to give me a ride to LAX, saving me the time and the trouble of using the effective LA public transportation system.

Getting past security check by 8:10, when my flight leaves at 11:50, I was searching for something to do. and then I found the bar. The flight was pretty great. I fell asleep moments after boarding the plane, waking up 15 minutes before landing.

And then - glorious Kentucky. This slow paces pretty (read pu-r-dy) city, with large land, pickup trucks and horses never ceases to amaze me. This city that strikes you boring and dull during the day, reinvented itself at night. No more distant shopping malls, with stores spread as far as they could. It’s a place of good food, fine wine and interesting people. Eating at the same restaurant as my past visits, drinking the same drink at the same place, made by the same bartender, sort of relaxes me, helping me realize that for better or worse, some things don’t change.

Most of my LA friends would probably look at me as if I’m crazy, or plain stupid, but I actually love visiting the slower parts of this country. Where people say words such as “y’all” and “Ma’am”, and the same “purdy” I mentioned before. Taking this weekend break. away from the high-speed life in LA, away from my car wreck problems.

Weekend is almost over. Being the good girl that I am, I’ve shopped till I dropped. Will be back to LA tomorrow evening, fresh as always. A little more…

I think what surprised me yesterday, at the 5th “Stop the war in Iraq” rally, was the crowd. There were young and old, right-winged and lefties, hippies and veterans, Muslim, Christians and Jewish. It was all there.

The protest was against the US foreign policy. or policies.

There were many different methods of protesting. There was a huge Asian group, singing in Korean, Japanese and the language spoken in the Philippines. An older Russian man reading slogans from a piece of paper, groups and organizations repeating slogans, others with costumes, uniform, huge banners, etc.

And there were the youngsters, who have not been protesting since Vietnam, who want to make this protest a little more personal. Who dance for peace.

(complete picture gallery - here)

About a month ago, some lady hit my beautiful new Honda Fit sport, named Mike.

Mike was pretty good about it, knowing it was the other lady’s fault, and that its only natural that her big red Jeep will have a minor scratch while it gets all bent out of shape, but we all exchanged information and were pretty damn happy with it, figuring - if she admitted and apologized, there shouldn’t be a problem.

How wrong I was…

For the past three weeks its about talking to her insurance, my insurance, her insurance can’t get hold of her, my car is not doing great, which all ended up today, when my adjuster told me to take my car in, they’ll inspect and in the meantime I have to pay a deductible of a $1000.  Just because, or just until.

At this point I just want my car working properly, but at the same time - I just want to hit something (or someone :-D) real bad.

Could someone just find a Gwendolyn who hit my car and get her to fix it?!

Apparently.

After the longest, most restful weekend I’ve had in months, I finally went to do my laundry.
Those who know me (jibrish man, for example) might know how rarely this happens.  Buying clothes solves the lack of clean ones, and it’s a lot easier on a young, naive soul than going to the WeHo (that’s what the cool kids call West Hollywood) laundry place.

There’s a homeless guy.  Well, there’s plenty of them, but that’s besides the point.  There’s this one homeless guy who does his laundry whenever I get there.  He might have someone stalking my house telling him when I go, because he’s always there.

Being a homeless man, he only has one set of clothes.  When he washes them - they go off his body and straight to the washer, where hot water seem to do the trick.  Today he decided to experiment (or I haven’t noticed it before)

As I finally got my 7th load into the dryer and was heading to get my 8th and last load out of the washer, I noticed something.  It took me a moment to realize how disturbing it was.  There was the homeless man, who was wearing a coat.  and that’s all he was wearing.

So I turn back to my loyal friend Emmanuel, who’s always around to look after my back, being the good guy that he is, and asked him to get my clothes out of the washer, because if there’s one thing I know - it’s that a girl is to stay as far away from the exposed man as she can.  So I did.

There’s no real ending to what now looks like a pointless post, but there it is, and I’m all for sharing anecdotes in one place rather than calling people or emailing each person individually.
3rd post in 2 days.  It will ease down as time goes by, and let my hardly updated Hebrew blog be the proof for that.

Night y’all, early start tomorrow morning.