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Tag Archives: L.A.
Goodbye, Samsung.
6718 calls. A little over 9 calls a day.
339:54:20 hours/minutes/seconds. That’s roughly 14 days, or 2 weeks, I’ve spent on the phone in the past 2 years.
It’s been a good phone. I’ve dropped it a million times, in snow, rain, mud, the sink, on the hardwood floor. All over. I’ve let it die, lost its charger, left it in bathrooms, at home, at work. I’ve found out that I had a new baby in the family, I’ve found out I’ve lost someone, on this phone. Some has said “I love you” and “I hate you” and “I can’t believe I said that” and “I can’t believe you said that” and “I can’t believe he said that to her” on this phone. Someone has texted me a love note, an angry message, a hello, a goodbye, a welcome home, a see ya next time, an xoxo. Someone has called to say “hi” or “hello” or “miss you” multiple times, called to ask about pizza nights, parties, events, to do nothing at all. We’ve made plans, broken them, made some more, and called to talk about the event afterwards with this phone. Cor has used it. Becca. Lauren. K, SS, and M, at some point. Nikki, too, when I’m home. Jeff on occasion. It’s called Connecticut, Massachussetts, New York, Michigan, California, Virginia, Florida, and been from one coast to the other itself, not to mention to China. What a luckily thing.
It’s been a good phone. Tomorrow it’ll be gone, replaced by an iPhone, a bigger, better, more breakable phone. And I will love my new phone, but sometimes, I will miss the memories of this one.
July 4: The Marvelous 11 Hour Beach Day
July 4. What a day. What a day. So good, guys, so good! I’ve been absent, and I’m sorry, and I left my camera charger in MI, so I can’t add pictures yet, but this is how it went:
July 3 — Corelyn and I menu-planned for the 4th, did laundry, grocery-shopped, and prepared salad and veg kabobs and dressing and the coolers. We also went to Target to gather supplies. Not in that order. In fact, we didn’t get to the grocery until 10:30 pm, after a series of unfortunate events, and finished up with the salad and prep work around 12:15, when I promptly went to bed, on account of getting up at 8 am for the 4th.
July 4 — We got up and met on the patio at 9 am, filled the coolers, dumped ice on our burger patties, rum in coke (ingeniously disguised in a 2 liter, we are so smart), our Sam Summer’s, etc. We packed the car with so much stuff it looked like we were going on a week-long road trip.
Items Included:
Six-foot table (to put the food on)
Charcoal grill
Charcoal
Utensils, plates, cups
2 coolers
Frisbees
Football
Chairs
Blankets
Towels
Sunscreen
Change of clothes
Sweatshirt
Lantern
Flashlights
Cards
Hair detangler
Comb
Hair ties
Book
Crossword puzzle
Sunglasses
2 bikes (Jeff, mine)
Helmets, bike locks, bungee cord
I am probably forgetting things. It was marvelous.
Then we rode the 45 minutes to the beach. We got there around 10:45, and promptly said, “efffffffffffff” because the beach was SO crowded. We were hoping to get a fire pit, but clearly this was not going to happen. However, so many people at the beach meant that everyone was grilling, and thus the lifeguards/police didn’t care that we had a charcoal grill on the beach. We proceeded to make 4 trips to and from the car to the beach, arranged our items at our camp set up, and proceeded to lay out. I sunscreened 4 times. I got tan — everyone else is burnt. Jeff is the worst, and it makes me die a little inside.
We played football, drank some rum and coke, worked on the crossword, watched the boys dig a hole, worked more on the crossword, listened to tunes, and went swimming. Well, Andrew and I (Corelyn’s husband) were the only 2 to go into the water and we were in the water for like 40 minutes, and then we saw a seal.
A SEAL IN THE OPEN OCEAN BY US. AT LOW TIDE.
Do you know what seals in the open ocean at low tide mean? Usually? Sharks. Big ones. So we promptly hopped outta the water after Andrew pointed this tidbit out and I said, “Eww, I hate it. Let’s go.”
Anyways, the rest of the day was spent reading, crosswording some more, playing scrabble, and generally having a good time. Then we BBQed into the night, and waited for the sun to go down. The kabobs were delicious, the burgers marvelous, the chips that guests brought scrumptious, and the veggie salad was heavenly. We had visitors coming and going all day, with a total of 12 in all, with 8 of us BBQing at night. When the sun disappeared, we saw fireworks all the way up the coast: Marina Del Ray, Santa Monica, and 2 separate places in Malibu. Beautiful.
We arrived home around 10:30, and by the time we were all showered and clean, with our stuff tossed into corners to be dealt with other days, it was 12, and we all promptly went to bed and slept the morning away, dreaming of the wonderful 11 hour epic beach adventure we had partook in.
You know someone loves you when they scrap out your gravel.
So last night, on my way home, I fell off my bike.
I was on my way home, and I was riding, crossing the street, when a pedestrian starts walking down the street. So I use the road, to avoid him, and at the next “on” ramp (aka driveway) I turn to go up the sidewalk.
and fall.
So the pedestrian helps me up, grabs all of my items that have FLEW all over the sideway (including the things in my basket–sandals, penguin-shaped thermos) and then he goes on. I am bleeding from the hand, and my leg is killing me. Probably is scraped, but I am wearing footless tights. So I am like “It’s ok, I’m ok, what do I do?” I look into the pouch underneath my seat, thinking maybe Jeff stored a secret first aid kit. He did NOT. So, Girl Scout Jennie pulls a hair tie (I had 2 in my hair) off her hair, takes some tissues from my bag, and fashions a bandage around her hand/thumb. Done. Not worrying about the leg, because it’s covered. I get on my bike to keep going….but the chain has fallen off.
So I am calm as a cucumber. I call Jeff:
“Hey babe, I am fine, but I fell off my bike.”
“OK….are you sure you’re OK?”
“Yes, but the chain fell off. What do I do?”
Jeff explains to me I merely put it back on, and it’ll push itself into place. Fine, fine. I do this, clean my hands off with more tissues and water, and then ride on. I’m ok, I keep telling myself.
I get home, wash out my leg, clean my hand, and wait on the couch covered in bacitracin until Jeff got home. Then, when Cor finally got home, I had her pick out the gravel, since Jeff insisted it could stay there because it’d push itself out.
Family is: someone who will pick the gravel out of your hand with tweezers and not bat an eyelash. Even though they were at work from 8 am until 8:30 pm. That’s love.
Meanwhile, I will begin biking again tomorrow…
Terminator Salvation
Jeff, Andrew, Cor and I went to see Terminator Salvation last night. I was worried I was going to cough and sneeze through the whole thing, but luckily it is an action movie, so it was VERY loud and thus not a problem when I did cough, anyways.
The movie was good, entertaining, and I love me some Christian Bale. I also liked the scenes when they were in L.A., because I know where they are even though L.A. is destroyed and I think that’s interesting. But, as Jeff pointed out at the end of the movie, there were some times in the movie when I was asked to suspend my disbelief that I just quite frankly could not suspend any further.
I won’t give anything away, and I think you should probably watch it at some point because the whole Terminator world is very interesting, but all I am saying is there were things that could have been explained better (aka times when the robots should have won and someone humans managed to out think or out race them.)
I did get milk duds, which I love, and a diet soda, however, so I can’t complain too much. Plus the whole future changes the past changes the future movie theme really appeals to me. All that’s left to do now is to see Terminator 3.
Memorial day weekend is this weekend, and Jeff and I are planning on doing a whole bunch of nothing. What are y’all up to??