One sentence

One sentence is about all I can manage tonight. I ended up organizing my half of the closet today and it took more out of me than I thought. While organizing I was thinking of a topic for today's blog but my mind got too filled with jumbled thoughts and I just didn't have the energy to take the time and straighten them out into something coherent. I was going to write about podcasts and I probably will later in the week. For now though it's time for bed. Another work week starts tomorrow and our sink is broken again so we need to get that fixed. I've been doing dishes in the bathtub,  not very fun, but it works in a pinch. Bears lost, Dolphins won and Anthony Bourdain was back on CNN. All in all, good  Sunday.

I Live in a City With A Winning Baseball Team...Wait, What?

I didn't blog last night because I was up watching the Los Angeles Dodgers win their division under the masterful arm of Clayton Kershaw. (His stand up triple didn't hurt either). He looks a bit like Blake Shelton and is on his way to a Cy Young award and possibly MVP.

There was champagne flowing in the locker room, they did a victory lap around the field, and there were some fireworks. All it all it was a good game to watch and I'm happy for the Dodgers. I do hope they make it to the World Series, even if that means I will have to find new and unique ways to get home due to MAJOR traffic problems. I'm also happy because Carl Crawford, who was one of my favorite players when I lived in Florida is a member of the Dodgers. It's nice to see him doing well, as well as Darwin Barney, who had a brief lapse of judgement and joined the Cubs for a season.

The other wonderful part of a Dodger game is Vin Scully. He's almost 87 years old and he does the entire game on TV AND Radio on his own. No color commentator, no play-by-play guy. Just Vin. Telling wonderful stories, correcting himself when he makes grammatical errors, and by far, the most talented baseball announcer I have ever heard. Harry Caray and Ron Santo were fun to listen to, but they were not "masters" like Scully. Even with all the problems we've been having with Time Warner Cable, I was glad they agreed to air the final games so I could witness this.

Last year, before we moved to Los Angeles, Eric and I got to live the dream and play catch, have batting practice, and catch fly balls on the actual surface of Wrigley Field. We got to hug the ivy, we got to stand on home plate and had our picture taken in the on-deck circle. It was amazing. Especially when you've loved the Cubs as long as I have. But I would love to see a celebration on that field, a victory lap around the warning track. The fans getting high fives and sprayed with champagne.

Not to say that I haven't witnessed great victories in Chicago. I have. I have watched the Bears win a couple of Super Bowls, I have watched the Bulls "repeat the three-peat", and lately have watched the Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup...twice in 3 years. (Yes, White Sox fans, I know you've won some too).  But I'm a Cubs fan. Always have been. Always will be. I have seen them win some games, I have seen them win their division, but I have NEVER seen them celebrate like the Dodgers did last night. More often than not I have watched them get so close, and then somehow find a way to lose and watch other teams celebrate with champagne. It's heartbreaking to be a Cubs fan. 

So forgive me if I jump on the Dodgers bandwagon a little (ok, a LOT) late and enjoy living in a city that has a winning baseball team.

Honey, it's been Monday all day long

This is one of my favorite phrases that was spoken by a waitress in Carlsbad, NM. It was in some small restaurant or diner and she had obviously had a rough weekend.  Today has been a Monday.  Work was a little more challenging today, with extra research needed because instead of putting down the song "Fancy" by Iggy Izalea...the TV station I was working on chose to put down "Barack Obama sings Fancy" and then again they list the song but use one of the 6 composers instead of Iggy's name. And of course, that has to be researched because I don't know if the President was singing Iggy's version or maybe Reba McEntire's version, or one of the other 50 songs titled "Fancy" I'm our database. (They also used a lot of YouTube videos with 'unknown' music). Traffic was bad, which in L.A. isn't unusual, but it was worse than normal on the way home. Then, we had picked up a new cable box from Time Warner (they will have to be an entire blog post on their own) and it's not working properly. So while Eric is on the phone with them, I'm doing the dishes in hopes of starting dinner and sitting down to watch the second half of Monday Night Football between the Bears and Jets. I'm just washing away when all of a sudden it's very wet underneath my feet...I open the cabinet under the sink and water is pouring out of it. Great. 1 week in the new place and the sink is leaking. The disposal already didn't work and this just added to the woes  of the day.

But anyway, I mopped up the floor, and started dinner, a cable guy is coming on Thursday (plus we got a 2 week credit for their mistakes), and although I didn't get to watch football, I did get to see Dancing With The Stars. I also wrote in my blog so the night wasn't a total disaster. Yes, it's been Monday all day long but it's almost Tuesday and it's the first day of Fall. That means days are getting shorter.

No More Messing Around...It's Time to Write...and cook!

We just moved. Again. This was much shorter than Chicago to Pasadena, but it was still a move. Moving sucks. You have to pack up everything in boxes or bags and hope that it all arrives at your new destination intact with your animals, your significant other, and your sanity. We survived. It was the hottest weekend Southern California had seen in awhile and we were glad we hired 4 guys to do the trekking up and down all the stairs of our new 3rd floor walk-up apartment. It only took 2 extra trips to Pasadena to get the rest of the stuff and we're settling in. We didn't have wi-fi or TV for a week, which was actually ok.  We got that all connected on Friday, which was also a big pain, but it was done and now I can watch football and Top Chef and Ray Donovan and soon The Walking Dead.

Last night, after we discovered that none of the movies "On Demand" seem to come in HD, Eric and I ended up watching Julie & Julia on Bravo. I had read the book and already seen the movie but it was good to re-watch it (even with the commercials). But, as most books or movies do, it got me to thinking. Amy Adams (as Julie) gives herself a deadline to cook all the recipes in Julia Child's The Art of French Cooking within a year and to blog about her experience. She gives herself a deadline because if she doesn't she fears she won't finish it. As I've discovered with this blog, I tend to not finish things or even write very much anymore and I miss it. So I need to do it more.

With all the stress of moving to a new state, finding a new job, having to find ANOTHER new place to live, the death of my cat, Jasper and getting the new kitten, Chaplin...I've found one excuse or another not to sit my butt down and write, even just one sentence, every day. It's not good for me mentally. I've not gained many new friends out here and have lost touch with my old ones, even though I do get various brief updates via Facebook...but it's not the same. So I'm finding myself a little more emotional, a little more "on edge", a little less easy to live with. I've always believed that writing is a form of therapy for me so it's time to get serious about starting a new therapy session.

So like "Julie" I'm giving myself a deadline. I'm going to write every day until Christmas. There are definitely enough things to write about. (Especially since we have moved into a much more interesting neighborhood). I'm going to keep you up to date on my attempts to reach Chris Hardwick and invite him to dinner, I'm going to let you know about Chaplin's antics. I'm going to let you know what I'm cooking, what I'm not cooking. I'm going to relay funny stories like the conversation the two guys behind me in line at Trader Joe's yesterday were having, and basically I'm just going to write.

I don't expect a newspaper article to be written about me, a book to be written, or anything else grand. I'm just going to put things out there for ME and hope that those of you that read and share it will come along, or just simply take a few minutes out of your day to read it.

Now excuse me, I have to go watch football and think about my topic for tomorrow.