Aloha! - 321 Lu'au

Jimmy, Sam, Ern and Me welcome you into our lu'au.

Over Labor Day weekend the roommates and I hosted a 321 House-iversary Lu'au.  It's been ONE year since we've been having parties! I live for this stuff!

Homemade Hawaiian sliders, spam musubi, homemade guac, sausages, ridiculous decorations and a tiki lighting ceremony.

We lit the tiki torches over our balcony in front of everyone.  We were slurring our words because of all the strong drinks that were masked by mango and pineapples that Sam made.  Deliciously fruity Bacardi 151 drinks.  We were buzzing since 5PM. 

Some of our lady friends joined.  Also we found all the funny sounding gay Indonesians and put them in our house.

The outside was so romantic.  NSU reunion wouldn't be complete with out Chris J asleep on his phone.

Joey put together this wonderful video of the Lu'au.  I was wondering why he was being so creepster with his camera.  As Joe put it, it's like an amazing beer commercial!  Thanks so much Joey!   He sent us a DVD and CrackerJacks to munch on when we viewed!  LOVE!

Thanks everyone for the love!!  :]  Sad I didn't grab enough pictures because the house was so colorful!!!  We left a lot of the decorations up.  We were thinking of reusing the inflatable palm tree for our post Modern Christmas party.

Fan signs

Tonight I'm going to an a Capella show in my neighborhood. I found out about it by reading someones blog.

I made a fan sign for the blog writer even though I don't know them personally.

In college, I made a good number of these signs because I love to show love and be obnoxious. Ugh my sentence are so choppy when I blog from my phone.

Making and getting signs is actually one of my favorite memories from college. Buried in my pictures are a couple of signs. I'll post them once I find them. There's always something exciting about cheering for someone you know on stage.

Vagina Bubbles

That's what I thought!! Sinister!

Can't Always Be Generous

I got a call. 

This guy offered more than I could ever imagine for my truck.  He explained that he needs a truck and he works at a body shop.  He wanted it, NOW.  I hesistated because I didn't have the title to give up to him immediately.  He increased his offer.  He said he can give me a down payment just to make sure that I don't sell it to anyone else.  I agreed.  Joy rushed over my body.  Esepecially since my mechanic told me that to fix the truck would cost as much as the truck is worth. (and that's with ghetto parts).

But I guess since this guy works at a body shop, he has no labor to cover and had a cool project to work on on the side.  He needed a truck to pick up parts.

He explained that he's taking a chance because he hasnt even seen the car.  He would offer me even MORE if it's in better condition than he suspected.  I told him that the interior is PERFECT.

I agreed and told him that I would reserve the truck for him and took down my ad.

I was the happiest I've been these passed two weeks.

I just wanted to get rid of my truck, it was making me sad as it sat outside my house waiting to gather parking tickets and roll over more of my friends.

=========

20 Minutes later I got a call, "we are outside your house."  I forgot that someone was in the neighborhood to view it.

This father and son stopped by.  It was dark.  They had their bargaining faces on.  The son was a little taller than me, he was a little over weight.

They were honest and said that it would cost them a lot to fix it up and tried to negotiate about half my asking price which was still reasonable in my book (before talking to the body shop guy).  They held up their cell phones to shine light into the hood that wouldn't open up.

"I'm surprised nothing bad happened to you."  People kept reminding me that I'm lucky to be in good health. (But Jimmy is still limping around because I had squashed his leg trying to move it for street cleanign).

His son just turned 18.  The father tried to reason with me with his poor English.  I asked his son if he had any questions, "I like it" he said with a charming smile.  At that point I fell into a flashback of when I viewed my truck with my dad in 2003.  I was 18.  I looked at my dad and said, "DAD! I like it!"  I grabbed his arm.  And my dad tried to hush me because he was trying to haggle.  It was in perfect condition, the green shined in the drive way.  This was my graduation present.

It was the exact same feeling that this kid was expressing.  EXACT.  But it was 7 years later and the truck was not in mint condition, but rather had a hole in the front and some dents on the side.  This time it was night time in a poor neighborhood of LA.  Not on a breezy Saturday afternoon in Los Altos hills.

"I really want to give it to you, but... to be honest, I don't want your son to be driving in this car"

"...we don't have a lot of money... his friend can fix it"

"*sigh* I... can't.  I got an better offer from someone who works in a bodyshop, but if this falls through, I'll call you."

The son spoke to me again increasing his offer by $50.  "How about we just take care of this now, I can bring a tow tomorrow."

"I'm sorry.  But... I'm not getting anything out of this accident... I have to get as much out of my truck as possible.... but I really want to...."

They were defeated and I shook their hands good bye.  I went back to my room and crossed out everyone else that was interested on my list of 16 people.  I circled two names: The autoshop guy and this kid.... I kept rationalizing to myself that I needed to take care of myself first.  I can't always be so generous.  And this 18 year old derves something better than what I have to offer.  Something that hasn't been through an accident.  I hope he finds a better deal somewhere else.

Parking Mercy

Folks in LA are stressing about the new policy about parking at broken meters.  Basically, they'll be a sticker added that indirectly states that you can't park there if the meter is broken.  Thankfully, the parking enforcement was nice to me when I attached this letter to my totaled car during street cleaning.

Yes, that's my hand writing.  No, I am not 12.  But I'm sure the child-like scribbles helped my cause because I DIDNT GET A TICKET!

But... they probably just mailed it because they were afraid the ticket would fall off with the windshield wiper.

Trying to Transcend

photo c/o Jimmy

At 2PM I was feeling faint, dizzy... tipsy.  I realized that I hadn't eaten all day and I had low blood sugar.  So this is how models feel everyday. Work stress and life stress was getting to me.

I needed to move my totaled car to the other side of the road because of street cleaning.  I enlisted Jimmy's help and as I pulled the truck into neutral, my truck proceeded to roll toward Jimmy; crushing his leg as he tried to stop it from hitting Ern's parked car.  He screamed, "OMG CHRIS!! STOPPPP!!!"  And all of a sudden I forgot where my break peddle was. He was smashed between my truck and Ern's prius, but escaped with some scratches and bruises. What a mess all of this is.  I decided to just absorb the ~$55 parking ticket to save me the trouble of rolling my car into other people.  I wrote the street cleaning people a letter, hoping they would have mercy, but of course it's just their job to fine people even if it's out of their control.

Ern looked at my deployed air bags, "OOO couture dress!!"  he proclaimed.

I really just want this to be over.  It's hard to concentrate at work.  It's hard to plan my weekends when all I can seem to think about is what I need to do.  I have one more week before I get another fine for street cleaning.  I think I'll have things figured out by then.  The damaged truck is polluting my neighborhood and it makes me sad every time I look at it.

My coworker's voice echos in my head, "there needs to be more people like you in the world Chris."  I abruptly left our conversation before I let her extremely gracious compliment get to me.

==

Is it possible to live in LA without a car?  Yes.  I know tons of folks.
- Bus route to/from work adds a mere 20 minutes to my commute
- Laundry facility two blocks away, I just need one of those metal carts found at flea markets
- Roommates go to grocery stores all the time, I can just tag along
- Going out?  As Ern puts it, I'll be saving money.
- Visiting Alysia in Pasadena, there's a light rail... I can figure it out.
- I've always been in the passenger's side of my best friends' ride, but now I don't have a choice.

I'm going to try this for the month of September.  I would like to get a used Jeep Wrangler, but it's also not known for its reliability.  To bike is also to risk death. 

But I'm really appreciative that I have friends to help me figure this out.  It would suck to have to figure things out on my own.

Everything is Documented

It’s often said that we live in a permissive era, one with infinite second chances. But the truth is that for a great many people, the permanent memory bank of the Web increasingly means there are no second chances — no opportunities to escape a scarlet letter in your digital past. Now the worst thing you’ve done is often the first thing everyone knows about you.

-New York Times, The Web Means the End of Forgetting

Perfect!

Observations on the Bus:

I get on at the beginning of the route so that I can get a seat and read blogs.  My roommates pointed out that the people of color are traveling towards the West for work because they are service workers to the wealthy.  And JV was right, a cute boy wearing a cute hat did get on the bus today, I wonder if he's into someone who looks stressed.