Value

• Parts from the junk yard salvage and recycle center:  $100
• Paying my deductible and getting the salvage title: $700
• 1/2 gallon Bluebell Homemade Vanilla: $3.99

• Friends like C who did all the labor for free (and who will get a nice gift card and all the Taco Bell he can handle for his trouble):  PRICELESS

 

My purple pansy of a car now has some fire, some machismo, some cojones.....it is no longer the androgynous "purple car" - I need a new name for this bad boy.

And to think insurance TOTALED it?! I just don't get it. Sure, the fender is the wrong color, but even if I have it painted, it will STILL cost less than the Actual Cash Value! The $100 bought a  fender, the tire liner, a wheel cover, a rear view mirror assembly AND a tail light (mine had been cracked for years). I am gonna walk away with enough money to buy a couple of tanks of gas!!

Eating me Up

I was in a fender bender a week ago today. I had gone to the gym and was on my way home, and cut the corner into my alley a little too short, or so the cop who wrote me the ticket says. I maintain that had SHE slowed down, instead of barreling out into the main road which i was turning off of, she would have avoided me....BUT she didn't even have a yield sign, so I was cited for making an "unsafe left turn."

My car

I took my car to the insurance adjuster...and they totaled it!  The cash value is $2200 (which is actually about $1K more than what I thought they would say), less $500 for my deductible. I can buy it back as "salvage" for $200, so when I get the title transferred over to "salvage," Insurance will give me a check for about $1500.  The alternative was to give me $1300 check to get it fixed ($1800 estimate damage, less my deductible), but if,  when the shop got it up on the lift and found MORE damage underneath, there was only about $200 more 'til insurance would just total it anyway.

I think totaling it SAD, but probably for the best. It is JUST the fender and rear view mirror on the outside, (and my friend says those parts won't be that much), maybe some paint to make it close to the right color, an alignment, maybe a tie rod....so I will have a little left over to pay my ticket, buy some gas, and maybe an extra chocolate croissant while I am in France. (yes, I am going to France, next week as a matter of fact).


On Friday, me and my friend headed out to the junk yards...my first time, WOW....dead cars galore...I can't imagine people walking away from some of these twisted heaps of metal!!  But we found a rear view mirror assembly. My friend put my unbroken mirror in, and for $10, I can at least see behind me. We also found a fender, but it was red, so we are gonna keep looking.

On Saturday, I took it to the tire place and had them rotate and balance and check the alignment...Asked them if the tie rods were OK, and they said they weren't leaking.....I should have been more specific - IS IT BENT, is really what I wanted to know....but you usually get screwed when you are a girl going to these places.....

Waiting on a call now from the guy who might have a fender, otherwise, I am going to get the red one, get it painted, and call it a day...I love my car and am not ready to give it up yet for a new one...It is 17 years old and runs about the same now as it did in 1994.....the six hamsters under the hood are a little grayer, but they still got all four paws on the wheel in the cage!!

Or I WOULD just call it a day, if the BITCH I hit hadn't retained a LAWYER!!! Now, she is claiming whip lash, and even though I have coverage, I am freaking out.  I mean, look at HER car....a glancing brush with my apparently made of glass fender!! Her bumper is hanging down a little bit and there is a dent in the area over the tire (her steering wheel is turned, that is why the tire looks wonky).


The worst part is, she lives on my street and I have to be worried I will SEE her....I want to really cause some damage, but there is nothing I can really do.....The stupid thing is we have the same insurance!!  We each have our own claim and our own legal team already looking into everything. It is silly and redundant for her to have gotten another lawyer, don't you think, or is there something more sinister in play???


But yeah, I am going to France.......more on that later.....

Don't Worry. Be Happy (idiot)

Have you seen this on a Facebook status in your neighborhood?

There comes a time in life, when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh, forget the bad, and focus on the good. So love the people who treat you right, pray for the ones who don't. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is living. ♥ Re-post if you agree

Everyone just "loves" that, don't they...everyone clicks "LIKE" and the comments are "OMG, that is so true." and "wow, I love you so much, man."  etc.

However, I have to say, I DON'T agree. You do NOT walk away from the people who create drama, if they are your friends. You don't forget the bad, as if you could...the BAD makes the GOOD possible, for god's sake!.  You aren't just friends with someone because they bring peace and calm into your life. Friendship is BIGGER than that. You take the good with the bad, sort of like a marriage; if you have a real friendship, a TRUE friendship.  You make the effort, and you take the time to WORK things out.

I am very worked up about this, as I HAD what I thought was a good friend here in town, who started saying and posting things like this, and within a couple of weeks, she had literally dissolved our friendship!  Sent me a "break up" email, deleted me as a friend on Facebook, and canceled plans to attend my Halloween party!  She decided I brought too much "darkness" into her life, and we went from talking several times a week, to NOTHING. WTF? I am sarcastic and pessimistic and awfully liberal in my opinions, but I am also liberal in my love, and with my time, and with my energy. I shared a lot with her, I was a good listener for her (and if you know me, you know I am a VERY good listener), I babysat her child, I edited her book, and much more.

I was hurt and upset and even cried about it...what had I done, what was wrong with me...And then I found out she had done the same thing to 2 other mutual friends....though the sting was a little less knowing she had gotten rid of us all, it left us ALL confused and bewildered, wondering what the hell happened!  We all still like each other just fine, and in fact, our friendship is even stronger now!

Look, if you don't LIKE some aspect of my character, that is not enough, not a valid reason to DEL the relationship....sorry....I am a grown up, we talk, we figure things out.  If you are too chicken to talk to me about something you don't like about my character, well, that is just too bad for you.  I have people in my life who value who I am, the way I am...they take the dark and twisty with the goofy and funny. They take my whines and moans, and they share my joys and elation....

I am just not into the pithy, seemingly light and inoffensive sayings like this..you know the type? "Don't worry, be happy" is my most loathed one. I think they are much darker and more subversive than you might think....This type of thinking reduces the value of everything - not just friendship...If you can toss it off as easily as you can get rid of an old out dated television set, or a car that is not the newest and hottest thing, what is it's real worth?  I LOVE my friends. If someone is a "piece of work" to quote one of them, I just accept it as part of who they are, and I deal with it...maybe I limit my time with that person; maybe they aren't someone I can call at 2am, but I am not going to "let them go," simply because they have some darkness and unhappiness around them....

You can't get rid of me that easily.....

To be or Not to be...and to be WHAT is really the question!

I responded to someone who commented on my last post about how my life, and my life's focus seems to be changing, without my permission.  I am trying to find that next step, that next "fun" thing that will hopefully take me out of this mid-life crisis, but as I wrote to her, it is just really hard to make myself FOCUS on something "else" for some reason.  I mean, I have "done" theatre since I was a teen ager.  My family knows me as the dramatic one; i have a multi-page resume that says I "DO" theatre...I have diplomas and awards and stacks of books that say my expertise is in the production of live entertainment of one form or another...It has been what has "defined" me, in conversation (So, what do YOU do?), in my dating profiles (Job?: Creative); even my tax return (Occupation: Director), and so much more...

And now I feel like my very outlines are blurring. I sense my colors seeping out, mixing together, sort of like watercolors that are too watery on paper that is not absorbent enough...I feel like a scribble...

I know no one can TELL me what to do; I suppose medication would be a useful tool....I am sure this is "just" some kind of mid life crisis, but it sure feels hopeless and out of control.

On a good note, in the last week, I have managed to hook up my OWN wireless router; hooked up the adapter to TIVO so now IT gets a wireless signal (the internal analog modem no longer "speaks" to digital Qwest...oh, how I wish I could tell them to go screw themselves like that); AND I got a smart phone....I jumped all the way into the 21st century, from 1994 in one giant swoop!!!  I think these external progresses are a direct and specific desire to avoid the more important internal discussion that needs to be had.....and I cooked, too, twice, this week. If that ain't avoidance, I don't know what it is!!

wordless wednesday

this one's for you Captain Dumbass!

May the Fourth Be With YOU!!!

My take on the death of Osama bin Laden

At an interfaith summit held in Chicago after the events of September 11th, religious leaders from around the world said:

"As we have since 9/11 and the beginning of the war on terrorism: we call for greater understanding; we seek to dispel ignorance; we ask that this be a time of humility not arrogance; and, we hope that all can be mindful of what we have lost." Reuters AlertNet - Muslim, Christian, Jewish Leaders Release Joint Peace Guidelines

I am happy, in my way, the OBL is dead, and now chumming the seas as shark bait, but I am not reveling in the street, and I truly wonder if those that DO, understand what his death represents, or if it is just a BOO YAH, in your face kind of arrogance, the kind of which makes the rest of the world hate us.??

I have chosen to live my life with TOLERANCE and DIVERSITY. Despite having watched the towers fall down out my BEDROOM WINDOW, I still believe that a better way to fight terrorism is NOT to go spread it around the world, but to face it here in our own country where our governments, churches, schools and media are literally terrorizing us into submission - telling us what to think, how to think and WHY we have these thoughts in the first place! Perhaps there are those of you among us who have not experienced the freedom of an original, unpopular, derisive thought....pity...they can be vastly liberating!

Perhaps if our leaders could figure out the answers to WHY those in other countries hate us so much, then perhaps we could FIX what is wrong here before we start telling the rest of the world how it ought to live! - I mean look at our farcical foreign policy just to start... we had no problem supporting and helping Afghanistan, including the Taliban, as long as they were fighting the Russians, but as soon as the Russians left, we tossed off Afghanistan, in the words of a friend, like a used condom! Go ahead, curse France all you want, it is NOT an original thought. People have hated the French for years for their snotty, anti-American attitudes which are perpetuated by the arrogant, rude American tourist, but the bottom line is that they are a free country and we are NOT the boss of them, and they are entitled to their opinions of our actions. Sure, we saved their ass twice, sure they provide arms to our enemies, but to expect, demand, require, loyalty? Puh- leeeeeeze.

But then, this IS America, the country where we blame our schools and those fags and Jews in Hollywood for our illiterate, drug dependent children, where we whine about gas prices as we drive our 4 wheel drive SUVs through the crowded, polluted downtown streets of our nation, where we think we can deny a woman the right to her own body and where a president who loses the popular vote can still be elected to president. God MUST really love America!!
 
Just what is so STUPID or naive or LIBERAL about being opposed to war and the ugly subversive tactics this country uses? What is STUPID or naive or LIBERAL about being disturbed by what we saw happen in the middle east, in Darfur, in Libya, in  Tibet and more and more, and what about what is happening HERE, where the very idea of Free Speech is being challenged?

I am tired...I need a hole to hide in somewhere....

let the healing begin.....sort of

They got him...they got Bin Laden today, as you probably already know, but I needed to write something on this very important May Day - a day to remember.  While the debates and questions are just beginning anew, I wanted a few minutes to just let the feelings wash over me -  elation, not quite "happiness." Definitely relief...whatever the word, this wicked symbol of when my world turned in on itself was GONE...I know the media and Donald Trump will do their best to ruin this speck of joy tomorrow...but I will go to bed knowing one little splinter in the rug burn of my life has been extracted, and for now, no one is pouring salt and lemon juice in the wound.

On a separate, but perhaps related, issue, I went to an audition tonight...the first in over a decade, maybe 20 - usually I am the director, or I am "drafted" into performing, but I had always loved auditions - I always felt totally at ease, cold readings were my forte, and....tonight...I didn't do well; I felt awkward, and ill prepared. I will admit, the play I was auditioning for called for a completely different frame of mind than I was in when I went in.  (I had been listening to Barack Obama in the car before I went in, and I should have been listening to something a little more morose...).

For more than a year now, I have had this little niggling worry that my life was on a dangerous course and that my calling may have shifted....After the last play I directed, something died...the drive and desire to direct, or be involved in any other way was simply gone - heck even to go SEE theatre at some times, was a chore!  I just don't care about it any more. What do you do when your passion of 3 decades no longer makes you happy or gives you a reason to get up in the morning? Is my life now doomed to be just my job and the odd vacation?  

As I was getting out of the car after the audition, the thought crossed my mind that at least NOW I could FINALLY get rid of those 6 boxes of plays and voice books, and scripts and props and costumes that I have been tripping over for ever.  If for no other reason than I could actually maybe put a guest bed in here.....but that feels so superficial...am I really gonna just throw it away? I have an amazing library and collection of STUFF....

ehhhh...like Scarlet, I will think about it tomorrow. For now...Public Enemy #1, the face of Evil, the spectre of death who has haunted my dreams for almost a decade is dead. And frankly my dear, I am damn glad!

Good night....