Our Trip to the Zoo, Part 2

Our following two photos are of meerkats. If you've ever wondered what meerkats look like, or live under a rock and have never watched "The Lion King", then feast your eyes upon the first two cuddly pictures. Look at the first little guy digging a hole so he can hide from all of our cameras. Aww... Or the second one, who was posing for us. You can tell which one has been there a while.
The third photo is of a mommy and baby warthog eating together. I was so proud of this pic. I framed them in the leaves and it looked great in the viewer on my camera. But upon loading it onto my computer, I realized I had a great picture of some leaves. But I decided to post it, anyway, for memory's sake.

Our Trip to the Zoo, Part 1

Last Thursday, Briggidy, Brandy, Their Aunt Kathy, their cousins Julie, Janet and I all went to the San Diego Zoo. It was great. We all laughed at everything and all the animals were super-cute. By the end, we were all tired and cranky. Okay, by the end, I was tired and cranky. But we still all had fun. I was sore and exhausted for three days, afterwards, after all of the walking we did. But we finished off the night with chocolate chip pancakes, so it was all in all a great day.
I didn't take nearly as many pictures as some of the others, but I thought I would space these out, anyway. The first one is of a Tree Kangaroo, who clearly is not in a tree. The second photo is of two of the Giraffs you can feed at two different times each day. Most of us fed them. Their tongues are long and slimey, but they have hand sanitizer for after they've taken your biscut. The third photo is a cute baby Giraff. Apparently, when a Giraff is born, she falls six feet to the ground. We think it's scary when we're born: it's cold, bright and who are all these people staring at you? At least we don't have to drop a great distance to the ground and are expected to immediately stand up. We're such wimps.
 

Proof

Here is the proof that I did in fact work at Disneyland. You can't just go and get these things made. For four glorious days, I was a cast mamber. And if I lived closer, I might consider working there, again. That is, if I were to find myself in the same situation and not moved on to bigger and better things. It might be fun to work in the entertainment division, but they don't have too many shows going on there. I guess they don't have too many people working there with my name, or they at least didn't expect to get any more Alithias before the end of the 50th celebration. Well, this is just another item that will have to go up in the museum the world builds for me after I take it over. 

Aww...

Look at our little kitty, Tiger. She's an angel... when she's sleeping. In this house, you won't find a cat who cuddles better. 

Welcome to the desert! Watch out for exploding garages!

Well, this neighborhood is yucky. Two weeks ago, I would've said it was fine. But last week we had some new neighbors move into a house accross the street. These people moved into a house who's garage caught on fire (an unfortunately common occurence in the desert) several months ago. Well, last week they were moving stuff into their garage, and they were blaring music out of their parked car. It wouldn't have been so bad, but it was pimp n' ho music, and it was so loud (how loud was it?) I could hear every word through my walls. So on my way out, I parked my car in front of their driveway (not in it, in front of it) and told them to turn it down. Well, they didn't like that very much. The lady's two young daughters (oldest being around twelve) started calling me horrible names, and the mom joined in. I threatened to call the cops on them, which shut them up for about two seconds, then they continued to call me names. As I drove off I tried to flash them the backwards peace sign, but I was so flustered I kept putting up the wrong fingers. It looked like I was counting to three to them, very forcefully. So I don't talk to them, I don't look at them, and if they're outside I either stay inside or leave altogether. But at least the music's stopped.
On Saturday, the mom got into a fight with a man I'm assuming is her boyfriend. It was a tussle. She was chasing him around the yard, they were shouting, and the crowning moment was when she threw some big, heavy piece of metal at his head (it missed). Ooh, she also punched her daughter in the face when she tried to stop them. Well, my mom called the cops (and I was just waiting for my tires to get slashed, later) and about four cars showed up to their house in a matter of minutes. The mom received some kind of citation, and the boyfriend left shortly after the cops did. Nothing else has happened with them, since.
Saturday evening, it sounded like someone was setting off fire crackers. At one point in the evening, it sounded like a major rocket exploded about twenty feet above our houses. It was so loud (how loud was it?) that it shook our house a little and set off my car alarm. The police started driving around our street after that.
Yesterday evening, I was driving home from job-hunting. As I turned on our street, I noticed that it was block off by cars. They were all normal sedan-type cars, but there was one ugly cadillac-type car in the center, primered and battered. They were blocking off the street about three houses from mine. As I made to turn my car around, I saw in the driveway of the house (on our side of the street). There were a bunch of people, sitting in the driveway in a circle with their hands behind their backs. A few police officers were standing above them. There's nothing in the papers about it, which kind of surprises me. That could mean that this stuff happens all the time, or it could mean that we can expect more of this crap to happen, as it may be part of an unfinished investigation.
I can hardly wait.

One year old! Oh, my!

Happy Anniversary to my blog,
Happy Anniversary to my blog,
Happy Anniversary, dear Pretty...
Happy Anniversary to my blog!

The elusive Miss Skippy

She just doesn't like that flash-thingy.
"I said no pictures!" She's telling me. 

So, naturally, I blame my Mother.

Seeing as how I mostly use this blog for complaining, anyway, I may as well keep it going. This will not be a pretty post, no pun intended.
Life is just sucky, right now. I think the video game was "Space Invaders", where your little ship was at the bottom of the screen and could move from left to right, while space ships would come down in rows upon you while you shot at them. Usually you lost the game, because so many of those little ships would come at you, that you would dart frantically back and forth across the bottom of the screen, shooting your little pellets all the way, until the ships landed on you and squashed you like the little Atari bug you were.
So, 2005 wasn't exactly my best year, ever. Granted, it wasn't the best year for a lot of people. But 2006 isn't exactly shaping up to be a stellar one, either. I keep making choices and darting back and forth, losing money all the way. I'm not being very smart about things, and neither are my parents, to be perfectly blunt. I thought I was going to be able to help them, but it's kind of looking like we're all getting sucked into this vortex of hopelessness. I just can't help but wonder how this all ended up this way.
I've sort of had it up to here with my Mom. She like to blame a lot of things. She blames my Dad's massive heart attack in 1998 and being unable to work for a year for them having to move out of their house into a smaller, crappier one. She blames me for trying (and failing) to have an acting career in Los Angeles for seven years and constantly borrowing money from them so I could pay my bills. She blames her old boss for firing her from a job she held for over ten years for triggering her manic depression (to this day, she still has violent dreams about her). She blames her unwillingness to get up every day for the job she miraculously still has on her lack of proper perscription drugs, or on the weather if she has the proper drugs. And then (just like me, I'm so flattered!) she complains about not having enough money.
Tonight, I came home from training for the final night at a restaurant in an outlet mall in Ontario. This is a place I do not want to work, but I thought I did because it's a serving job. But I won't make money, there, because it's nothing but 10% tips or less, and I'm already $200 in the red and-- oh-- you know the drill. So I come home, and after my Dad goes to bed she lets me know two things: the company that sold Dad his car is appealing My parents' bancruptcy and wants to repossess his car, and Mom wishes they would just sell this house.
Naturally, this makes me livid. So, I first say that Dad can drive her Mustang to work and I can drive her to work, to which Mom scoffs and says,
"Then how will I get home?"
"Dad can pick you up." I say. More scoffing ensued.
Then I said, that under no circumstances, will it or should even remotely be considered that we will be selling this house. Because they are not renting an apartment and I am not living on the street. No. No. No.
Mom went into an "of course we won't, but we can't afford it" kind of mumble. She then went on to say that we're having a family discussion about money on Saturday, and strongly suggested without actually saying it that I needed to give them money (that money I don't actully have and probably won't have for another three months).
Things are bad, and they are going to be getting worse. Immediately speaking, I'm probably going to get my car repoed in about two weeks if a miracle doesn't happen, immediately. Constantly speaking, it is damn hard living with a bipolar person. I know I have bipolar friends, I know there is a very strong possibility that I am an undiagnosed bipolar person (I have been diagnosed with depression, but who hasn't?). But it is damn hard having a bipolar mother. Your mother is supposed to be strong. She is not supposed to decide each morning that she's giving up because the world is against her, and when things are falling apart around her and her family she shares none of the blame because we just don't understand her. There have been times when I have gone into my Mom's room at noon and told her to get up for the fifth time in three hours, only to be yelled at drowsily to not worry about her, and have her turn on her side right in front of me. Dad calls her each morning at nine, and she lies to him and says she's up (actually, she's stopped doing that so much, because I'm telling him so). It makes me physically angry. I've tried doing things like turning on her shower in an attempt to force her to get up and turn it off. But it just stays on for about an hour. I've turned the TV onto a reggae music station extremely loud, but she just yells at me and falls back to sleep. Sometimes the theatrics do work, but they get old, fast. Lately, I've been doing practically nothing, and gently waking her once or twice to let her know what time it is. Sometimes that works. Often times, it doesn't. I honestly don't know how she's keeping her job, when she hasn't shown up over half the time she's been working there.
I know I sound like a harsh person. I know I sound like a hard, unloving daughter who definitely doesn't know how to deal with people who are afflicted with such a horrible... affliction. But my only other option is to agree with her and say the world is, in fact, against her. And me, while we're at it. Hey, maybe I should curl up and sleep my life away, too. I'm sure the sand will become comfortable when we're out on the street, once we get used to it. I can't live like that, and I know at some point she's not going to want to live like that, either. There is a determined and sensible person inside my Mom and it's being clouded by an unconfident and despairing being that I wish I didn't recognize. I wish I could perform an excorcism and get rid of her depression, but I don't want to give myself any ideas. Mom would probably like me throwing water on her and yelling, "BE GONE, DEMON!" as much as the raggae version of "La Bamba".
So, to sum up: we're not getting any richer, we're all very unhappy and we're about to only have one car between the three of us.
Enjoy it while you can, ex-boyfriends and stupid girls I pissed off in high school. I guarantee you that this little Atari ship is doing everything she can to make sure it doesn't last too long.

I've conformed!

In case anyone's curious, I am now on myspace. That doesn't mean I won't ever post on here, again. Look, I'm posting, right now. Unfortunately, I am sleepy, and nothing spectacular is coming into my brain to write, so here is my myspace address: http://www.myspace.com/pisleogem

A Day Without a Pretty

Today is May Day. In renaissance Europe, May Day was a celebration of Spring, life and fertility. Young maidens would dance around a maypole, holding ribbons that started at the top and danced around until the ribbons braided to the bottom. In Central and South America, May Day is a worker's holiday to take the day off and do whatever you want. Essentially, it's Labor Day (Labour Day for our Canadian friends). And in the United States, it will now be known (at least for a little while) as the Day Without an Immigrant. And on this day when a mostly Mexican crowd goes out to try and prove they are neccessary for the country to function, I can take a moment to ponder my on-going quest... for employment.
I mean, seriously, what does a woman have to do to get a job in this sand trap?
Maybe it's my attitude?
Truth be told, I've actually worked in two places since the beginning of April. The first place was a place I've only dreamed of working at, before. I'll give you a hint: Disneyland. I went down there, after I'd learned they had a commuter assistance program, and was hired the same day. Orientation was great, and I got my name tag which was gold with "Class of 2006" underneath my full name (Pretty's just a nickname, my full name is Gorgeous ;P). For four glorious days, I worked parade control (I met Maynard, and he's nice. If you're even a hint of a Disney Geek, you know who I'm talking about) and trained on Star Tours. Let me just say that the height requirement is there for a reason. I actually got to go below into "the cage" and watch a Starspeeder in flight. When it's in settle mode (not in motion), the Starspeeder sits 10 feet above the ground and 4 stories below the ceiling. When the ride is in motion, it uses all of that space. Watching the Starspeeder like that was the most awesomest thing I have seen. So, if your child is shorter than 40 inches, or your grown friend unfortunately does not have enough of a torso to fit past the safety belt, then it really is in their best interest that they don't ride the ride. And trust me, they won't be able to. Making sure people who don't meet the hieght requirement stay off Star Tours is the number one responsibility of a Cast Member.
Unfortunately, the commuter assistance program they offered wasn't what I thought it was going to be, and I couldn't take part in it. So, a week after I got the job, I had to respectfully resign. Man, was I bummed. Quitting Disneyland was like breaking up with a boyfriend I didn't want to break up with. It honestly gave me the same feeling. I didn't help matters that most of my clothing, accessories, photos, and my computer have Disneyland plastered all over it.
But then I immediately landed a job, here, at a fusion restaurant in the hoity-toity area of the desert. It was terrible! The food and the atmosphere was wonderful, of course, but they are rapidly in the process of going out of business. On average, I made $25 a day for a week. Practically no one came in. And everything was done on paper(eeeww)! On Sunday, I went in and was the only server and busser. I couldn't keep up, because I had to do everything short of cooking and washing the dishes. Then at the end of the day, my manager pulled me aside and told me to forget the schedule for this week, because she completely forgot (uh-huh) that my week evaluation was up, and the managers would decide whether I was staying, and she would call me on Wednesday. So, I'm basically looking for a new job, which I'm completely okay with, because $25 a day won't pay my bills. And if they fire me, I can collect unemployment (woo-hoo) until I find a new job.
So, today I hit our restaurant row. I had a manager at the Scottish Place tell me not to apply at the cookie-cutter corporate restaurants, because it would look bad on my resume. Well, pride is all well and good, but right now my check balance is speaking a little bit louder than my ego. Actually, it's screaming at me and threatening me with pitch forks and torches (I mentally represent my check balance with medieval European peasants, what of it?). All I'm asking is $40 a shift in tips. That's hardly unreasonable. $40 a shift will pay my bills. A server can make that out here, no problem. I kept track of my sales-to-tips ratio at the fusion place (which they didn't like me doing, go figure), and people tip about the same out here as they do in L.A. I just need a place where I can make $40 a day, have a busser, and have a computer system.
Okay, that should cover me for a few days, at least.