Sun Moon Stars Girl )-(

Welcome to my little place to vent…

I was reading a car forum the other day, specifically a thread talking about stolen cars, in an effort to help find them. Well, one person noted that their car was “still out there” and listed several times when the *clever* thief had used the owner’s EZ-Pass module on the Garden State Parkway. I wasn’t able to read the rest of the thread, but I do hope they were able to use this information to help relocate their stolen car.

This whole thing left me wondering two things:
1) The Big Brother issue of EZ-Pass - well, the police *could* use the records to give speeding tickets out, but the logistics and legalities of this are questionable. On the other hand, can authorities use this information for crime reduction? To help place a vehicle somewhere at a certain time, and to help locate stolen cars?

And, more importantly -
2) How stupid are you if you steal someone’s car and still use their EZ-Pass??? Maybe they didn’t realize it was in the car, but by my observations the module usually needs to be placed in a pretty prominant location for daily use, as I’m sure the owner of the car had done. Maybe they didn’t want to pay the tolls, and figured, hell, it’s someone else’s bill. Or maybe they did it to taunt the person they’d stolen the car from.

In any case, all I have to say in conclusion is this: If the EZ-Pass info can be used to locate a stolen car, what kind of stupid person would actually continue to use the module? It’s much like the fairly obvious drug deals made by Kris’s apartment, where the people aren’t so much “sneaky” as “trying to be sneaky.” They must not have gone to their “looking like you are supposed to be there” classes in criminal school, but that whole thing is a discussion for another day. )-(

Sad news: My fish, Lucky, died last night. It was a female round-tailed Betta, or Siamese Fighting Fish, very similar in shape and color to the one in this photo (red and blue). I realize I’ve never taken a picture of any of my fish. I kinda wish I had, but this picture was at least pretty close.

She lived a pretty long life - a year and a half, which is longer than any of my other Bettas lived. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that I cleaned her bowl less than the others, and didn’t have to move her around a lot - back and forth from school to NJ and the like.

But I also knew that she wasn’t well - she didn’t seem like she was in full control of her swimming ability, and she couldn’t get to her food easily - more recently. And although I’m sad that my little fishy has passed on, it happened at a good time. I don’t have to worry about moving her to CA, or trying to give her away, or even flushing her down the toilet before her time was up. One less thing to have to worry about before we move. I’m sure we’ll get another fish, or another group of fish, or perhaps even another pet, when we get to California. And I’m excited about that.

I’m so excited! I got a call and an email today from the housing department at UC Irvine.

One of the reasons I accepted my offer from UCI was the guaranteed on-campus graduate housing slot that was included. After a lot of confusion on my part, I finally got all the necessary paperwork and fees taken care of. I was still really scared we wouldn’t get the place we wanted, so I spoke with a housing coordinator last week. I didn’t expect to hear back from her so quickly!

So here it is - a representative floor plan of our apartment…or should I say, townhouse! Yeah, it’s small, but it’s a great deal, and it’s still a lot bigger than the apartment I have now. I think it will be perfect for me and Kris.

I’m excited, but now I’m also a *bit* more stressed about packing and moving. At least I’m relieved knowing what our new address will be (yes, already!), and the size of the space we will have. This helps with other things I was stressed about - giving the moving company our address, making decisions on pieces of furniture to bring or not bring, just knowing that we will have a place to live once we get to California - ya know, all the little stuff. ; )

Well, I’ve got to get packing.

Let me just preface - while I did indeed go to the doctor’s office today, this entry is not, in fact, about my ills or my actual visit with my doctor. It is instead about the interesting people I have come to encounter in various waiting rooms over the years…

Classics:
The lady on her cell phone at the ob/gyn…telling her husband/boyfriend/parents/siblings/friends that she’s pregnant. Loudly.
The screaming baby - or screaming/running around/out of control small child.
The people who stare at you - because they don’t want to read any of the magazines, are bored, or who are just generally rude. Extra points if it’s the guy with the lazy eye.

The two that I ran across today - both of the “older” generation. I’m gonna say it - geriatric. The first was a man, into the office with his wife. He was altogether too chatty with the receptionist - who had to go along with the conversation so she wouldn’t seem rude. He seemed to not know what was going on, but he did. There’s notes everywhere clearly stating upon check-in you need to present your insurance card and pay your co-payment. The man joked, “Ha, ha, you don’t need to see my card (because I don’t want to get it out of my pocket for you).” He finally got it out, the girl goes to charge him the $10, and his wife pipes up, “Oh, it’s $15, that’s an old card.” Why are you still carrying an the old card with you? And why pay more if you didn’t have to? I’m sure the insurance company sent a new card already too, or you wouldn’t have known it was old!

The other person was a different lady sitting next to me. She’s got one of those hardcover special edition Life magazine things, and staring at the cover. While she looks at these little pictures, and jabs them loudly with her finger, as if recognizing old friends in a yearbook. I glanced over, and it looked like the same picture of JFK a bunch of times, but in different colors. But she just kept jabbin’ at them, totally distracting me from my reading.

I guess I should also point out that my visit was not to a general office where you would expect a wide variety of people, nor was it to the specialty of psychiatry, where one might expect to see this type of behavior, ie the crazies. Obviously I pick up on what other people are doing, but it’s only because they are so loud or rude about it. In general I try to mind my own business by keeping my nose buried in a book or magazine. All I can hope (for myself) is that I fade into the background of other people’s waiting room experiences.

Happy - Kris and I figured since we’re moving together across the country that our parents should probably meet before we leave. I must admit I was a little apprehensive about it - you have to admit that lots of times the “other side of the family” becomes not the in-laws, but instead “out-laws.” I was calmed by logically thinking about how much my parents like Kris and how much his parents like me, but still nervous because of the “three friends” thing. The thing where you get along great with two different friends, but they don’t get along at all. Yeah, they’ll pretend to get along around you, but don’t truly like one another. But, again, Kris himself reassured me that he thought they would get along great. And I really didn’t have anything to be afraid of.

We took the opportunity of my parents coming up for the weekend for them to meet. My parents were coming up anyway to do a “furniture swap” of things I needed from NJ, and things I wanted them to take back with them that I can’t bring to California. Anyway, we figured with it being more than half-way, hopefully Kris’s parents wouldn’t mind coming down from Maine. It worked out for Kris’s moving plans too - he was able to give them some things to store also.

Anyway, we all met for dinner at Carrabba’s Italian Grill. My family and Kris had been there before, so I knew they had great food. I think it worked out really well - everyone had a good time, and I’m so happy they all got to meet. I really hope his parents (and brothers) will be able to make it down to NJ for the going-away party my family is throwing for us. That way we’ll be able to say goodbye to them all at the same time.

So it was my last night of Bunco. I’m sure the ladies are both sad and happy to see me go. Happy because maybe other people will be able to win now. As I said previously, I win every time I play. I’m lucky, I’m confident, it doesn’t matter how it happens, but it does.

I did not fail to go out with a bang. I won “most Buncos,” but I also got most wins, and most five-pointers. It was a great night, and I’ve had a great time with these ladies. I thank them, anyone who knew my story, for the support they might not have known they gave me during a really crusty time in my life - and for companionship during that lonely period as well. Even though I may have been the youngest member of the group, not married, or with children, I still enjoyed attending and participating in the functions they held. I really will miss the Newcomers of Westborough, so if any of you read this, thanks ladies!!!

Yes, that about says it all. Sorry, Kris, I had to steal the cool graphic.

Anyway, I got my trip-tiks in the mail today! Woot! I had to do a little extra highlighting and re-arranging of the inserted maps since I realized the order of places we would be visiting was out of order. But all three, yes, three, of them are here. And as cool as ever!

They’ve got the same old stuff - with some added extras. All the state info now includes cell phone usage laws - something that we didn’t even think about or have in 1996, or whenever it was the last time I got a trip-tik was. They include these huge region maps of about 10-12 states each, with the overall trip highlighted in green. I can’t wait to piece them together on a wall in California.

By and large the route we plan to take is the ever classic “Mother Road” - Route 66. We plan on making a few stops at theme parks across the great US - wherever our trusty Six Flags Season Passes let us in, and a few other places. We’re going to hit a few big cities (Las Vegas anyone?), US landmarks along Rt. 66 (Cadallac Ranch, Midpoint Cafe), as well as National Parks (Grand Canyon), and just a few places the two of us would like to see. Mine is Lake Havasu - a big spring break party area. And there’s Palmdale, CA - the location of The Rim of the World Rally - a well-known rally Kris is likely to participate in one day.

I’m very excited about our trip, and I’m trusting Kris to have everything hooked up so that we can blog right from the road!
Keep your eyes peeled for updates as the summer rolls along!

I keep forgetting to ask my mom is she’s done this yet. For the last few weekends, I’ve been up in NH, and I noticed an abundance of gypsy moth caterpillars roaming around. I have unpleasant childhood memories of these gross fuzzy things all over everything.

I remember the gypsy moth outbreak causing a lot of the vegetation in our area to die, and it being so bad that they had to spray to control the population.

I also remember my mom “doing her part,” and enlisting anyone she could to help her out. The deal was to get a stick and a coffee can. For the moths, if you saw them, squash them. If you saw an egg sac, or a cocooned caterpillar, squash it and scrap into coffee can. The grossest part was the caterpillar elimination. Once again you’d get a stick, then find yourself a caterpillar, and poke it through with the stick. Make sure you see the bright yellow-green guts squeeze out! I’m nauseous just thinking about it.

At the end of the summer said coffee can would be thrown away. We haven’t had a big outbreak recently, so I haven’t come home to the fuzzy black bodies oozing green, or the dreaded coffee can. I can only hope they haven’t started swarming, or I know the next time I visit the coffee can and stick will be around. Ew!

When Kris spent some extra time at my place during the week he complained a great deal about the woman who lives upstairs from me. Apparently she was making a great deal of noise that bothered him. Since it wasn’t happening until around 10 AM, I told him there wasn’t anything I could do about it interrupting his sleep.

But this morning it happened to me. As I had to get up early myself anyway, it didn’t matter TOO much. But it was still really irritating. Here’s her deal: She gets up, immediately puts high heels on, and proceeds to do nothing but walk around her apartment for hours on end. We have hardwood floors, so as you can imagine, this makes an extensive amount of noise. It rudely woke me up, and I still have a headache from the “stomping.”

The most important question I have for this woman is not “Don’t you have anything better to do (than walk around your apartment in heels)?” or even “Could you please finish what you need in one room before you go in another?” Instead, my friends, it is “Did you have to start this at 5:30 AM???” I banged loudly on my ceiling. Hopefully this is not a procedure I will have to repeat.

Yup, had another night of kickboxing. It’s good and bad at the same time because only five people are signed up for the class now (probably because it’s summer, and for some reason the program wasn’t listed in the recreation brochure like it usually is), and only two of us come on Thursday nights. Usually.

Tonight’s class held a surprise visit by these teenage girls who come once in a blue moon. Maybe once in a moon. Anyway, it would be cool if they were serious about the class. But they’re not. They are normal teenagers, and instead of paying attention to what the instructor is doing, they’re talking and doing their own thing.

I don’t mind the extra people, but I would just prefer if they wouldn’t talk as much, and occasionally “counted along” like we are supposed to. At least they’re not causing me to have seizures.