In California, part II

Motive and opportunity. That's the answer but what's the question? The question that my daughter asked me was "What made you decide to move to California so quickly?" "Seems like there were a lot of issues last Fall." Well the motive was to feel better and the opportunity was the combination of two things: a trip to Southern California to relocate Denise to her new job and to find a buyer for my condominium.

In my most recent postings, I chronicled the car trip from Southeast Michigan to LaLa land. After three and a half days in the car we arrived at the luxurious Candlewood Suites in sunny Garden Grove, California. I noticed the nice weather. Imagine that! Mid-60's. Sunny. Breezy. In other words, just perfect for me and my crazy physiology. Meanwhile back in Michigan the highs were in the mid-90's.

I hung around for five days to make sure Denise was settled in her job before I left. After a couple days -- actually right away -- I noticed I could walk along the beach without overheating and I felt better overall. This phenomena continued the whole time I was in SoCal. This was not the first time I had thought that Southern California had the perfect climate for me, but it was the first time I seriously asked myself if I could live here.

The other half of opportunity was listing my condo again (fourth time) and getting an offer of $100 over my asking price from the first looker. Not really that surprising when you find a $300,000 condo for $170,000. That wasn't the end of it because it's a short sale. So I decided to fire my lawyer and handle the lenders myself. As many of you know, I got the primary lender to go for it in one phone call. I'm working on the home equity lender now. Assuming I can close that piece, I'm out from under my beautiful condo; which, by the way, I love. It's just in the wrong place.

I'm back in Garden Grove as I write and it's the middle of July and again it's cooler here than in Southeast Michigan. Love those ocean breezes. My idea is to move here on an continuing trial basis. As long as I feel okay and like it, I'll stay. If not, back to Columbus. Denise is right that it's a quick decision, but I don't make it lightly. At or near the top of the list is being across county from my one-year old grandson and his soon-to-be-born cousin. That's really a tuffy. But if I feel better I will live longer and maybe my grand-kids will remember me more. Next on the list is medical care. Then affordability and so forth. There's a dozen issues at least. But I know what will make or break the deal.

"I was one date away from staying." I'll 'splain. While I was in career No. 1 (teaching) I decided career No. 3 would be lawyering. Career No. 2 was computer programming while I went to law school at night. I enrolled at Georgetown Law School in D.C. as a full time day student. I was 32 years old. There were about 100-150 in my class and they were all younger than me. I was single and lived alone in Arlington, Virginia and drove into Washington each day. My son David was 10 years old and I missed him terribly. Each day in Constitutional Law class I would stare across the room at an attractive but wild looking woman whom I fancied. (Can I say fancied in the 21st century?) Of course I was scared shitless to speak to her so I would look for her around school and when I saw her I'd look away. Sounds like Radar O'Rielly doesn't it?

Somehow I met her and found out her name and phone number. I have no idea how. And I even called her once and chickened out from asking her for a date. I was 32-fucking-years old! Well as you might guess, I left Georgetown shortly thereafter. But if I had asked her out, the course of my life might have been entirely different. So I was one date short of staying.

That will be the test in California. Will I meet someone so I don't feel alone. In Michigan I have a ton of friends, even for an introvert like me. I have a very well established support group. So we'll see how I do at making friends here. If I do, then managing the rest of the issues like not seeing my grand-kids often enough will be more manageable. If I'm alone, I won't cut it. Denise will be here but she has her life to live. She can't and shouldn't babysit me.

Your advice is encouraged and welcome. Thanks for reading.

On the Road Again . . . in Cali

Garden Grove, CA. What's the big attraction in Southern California? The weather of course. And it's been purr-fect. While the Midwest sizzles in 90 degree heat, it's sunny and in the mid-60's here with a nice breeze. I couldn't design more healthful weather for me. I can actually walk in the sun for a while without overheating. The combination of bright sunshine and cool ocean breezes are ideal for me. Immediately I thought "This is where I should live." Not so fast, I-love-LA breath.

The traffic. Everything it is reputed to be and oh so much more. The gotcha is that you can't do anything without driving in your car. So everyone is out in their car and amazingly there is incredible congestion -- and we haven't even experienced rush hour yet. Alex has done 90% of the driving and has handled it well. I'm sure I could come up with some traffic stories, but why?

Now comes the challenge, the rest of the story. Since my son Rob me not to write blogs that "make you want to kill yourself after you read them," I have tried to stay upbeat. I'll do my best. (The other challenge is typing with this damn tremor.)

Our three and a half days in Cali so far have not been great. First there's culture shock; but I think it's exacerbated a lot by being stuck in a shitty location and lousy hotel. Oddly enough it doesn't feel warm here. As in it's not a welcoming place. The people we've interacted with are friendly and helpful, but the atmosphere is like all these people locked in their air-conditioned cars. Behind glass. And we can't find anything interesting to do. Normally exploring would be first on my list but here that requires driving on these fucking freeways. That's a mood killer right there. We have struggled for something to do. Obviously we needed to spend some time looking for areas for Alex to live. We did that Saturday in a area called Belmont Shores, which is right on the beach, and found lots of apartments for rent. It seemed like a safe place with lots of diversity. So Alex wrote down a lot of information and we called, enough already. Again the culture shock; not the rent. We knew that. Just the massive difference between the feel of the place back home and here. My goal was to be supportive and helpful but not to let her get overwhelmed.

So next we explored beaches. Long Beach, Sunrise Beach, Huntington Beach, Belmont Shores; all very nice. Venice Beach - not so much. I was expecting Santa Monica and got Myrtle Beach. On Sunday we were stumped but restless to get out of jail. I haven't mentioned that this hovel has no pool and no place to sit in the sun or shade. The rooms are tiny. There's more but back to the story. At my suggestion we went to Hollywood. First, I about shit when we pulled up to Hollywood and Vine. Is there a better known intersection in this country? Well there is absolutely nothing there. Nothing. Up Holywood Blvd. Grauman's and Madame Trousseau's (sp?) were cheesy and the stars on Hollywood Blvd. were so numerous that they became nothing more than a place to walk. We were further frustrated that we couldn't see the Hollywood sign; we even drive into the hills. We ended up at CPK for lunch for the second day in a row and guess what? Over our shoulder was the Hollywood sign. And why don't you see a picture of it in the margin above? Guess.

Alex starts work today. She really needs something to counteract these culture shock blues. Me too. Every time I look at her sad face my heart breaks and I dread getting on that plane to go home. These are the times you really earn your parent salary. You know the one that does not pay in cash. She's tough and she will end up liking it but not without going through some loneliness and pain. Right now it's difficult to watch. Particularly for me.

Deep Thoughts. Deep thoughts? Come on, I'm in Southern California.

I'm looking forward to my visit to Disneyland today. It's the only thing within walking distance.

Thanks for reading.

On the Road Again . . . Day 4

Garden Grove, CA. I guess three's the limit. Of days you can ride in a car without going nuts, that is. We landed in Garden Grove, California around noon so it was little more than half a day. But it seems that was half a day too much. We each were hit by a ton of bricks. Irritability ran high. Tempers ran short. Every little task became an irritant. Our frustration was compounded at lunch when we could not find a decent place to eat and ended up at a Thai place. It stunk.

Back on the road. No Illinois Man sightings. Hope that wasn't him broken down in Utah. We were out of Utah and through Arizona before you could sneeze. That put us squarely in the land of casinos. No town is too small to have a gaudy-assed gambling establishment. As a businessman I always wonder how these cheesy looking places can support themselves. Who are they attracting? People who want to drive from California or Arizona to gamble but don't want to go another forty minutes to Vegas? I guess it will remain one of life's mysteries.

Did I mention yesterday that in Utah there is a stretch of I-70 where there is no gas, food or lodging for 106 miles? Not something you see a lot of in the Midwest. Kind of frightening in a way. Like not having a security blanket.

The 250 miles from the Nevada-California border to the L.A. Basin is a long barren downhill descent from the land of nothingness to the ultimate over-crowded metropolis. For that matter there's not a lot except the well known (to me, that is) "Eagles on Highway" sign from Colorado to San Bernadino. There are some beautiful western landscapes, but it's all so brown. Where are the trees? Back home. Where else?

With the aid of little Tommy, Alex navigated the L.A. traffic beautifully without a single misstep. Since Tommy refused to tell us exactly where our hotel was, we spent a bit of time looking for it. No worries. We arrived around noon local time tired, hungry and fit to be tied. As I mentioned, lunch was shit. Afterward I fell into an exhausted slumber while Alex unloaded the car. Later we had a quick pizza and hit the sack. Welcome to California.

Deep Thoughts. How did you react to the killing/assassination of bin Laden? I felt strange about it from the moment I heard it. I was glad is was dead. He was a mass-murdering psychopath who had no business being alive. Killing him was the right solution and infinitely better than arresting him and spending time and money on a trial that would go nowhere and would further sanctify him to his lunatic followers. I was fine with killing or assassinating him. What bothered me was the American reaction. Celebrating that we just killed this guy seems a little creepy. I would have felt better about celebrating a victory over terrorism. It seems that would be more respectful to the victims of 9/11 and their families. That was the victory to me. Chanting "USA. USA." seemed weird to me. A little too much mob mentality. A little too frenzied. It had an uncomfortable hint of Germany in the 30's and 40's. It did take us ten years to find the maniac.

And you thought I never had any really deep thoughts.

Much more to come. As always, thanks for taking your time to read this.

On the Road Again . . . Day 3

Washington City, UT. This morning we left at 6:48 and headed up into the Rockies. Awesome! Gorgeous! Breath-taking! Coming out of the Eisenhower Tunnel you see a spectacular view of the snow capped peaks. If only I had asked Alex to pull over so I could take a shot to share with you. Ah well. The going was very slow but the scenery is so wonderful that I didn't really care. And without the assistance of little Tommy we found a mountain Starbucks -- in fact there was a whole shitload of them. These mountain people really like their over-priced coffee.

About the incident from yesterday. Never happened. Well, it never happened to Alex. It did happen to me and Karen about 35 or 40 years ago. Of course there were no ATM's then so we had to get the cash from Karen's mom and take it back to inbred Jed in BFE. And the asshole did want to put me in the clink.

I'm writing this at 4:30 AM in the bathroom so I don't wake up Al, who is probably awake anyway.

We did have one semi-interesting personal encounter of a sort. We discovered Illinois Man. He's driving a shitty-looking white midsized car of some kind. It's maybe fifteen years old. You'll recognize it by the crap stuffed in in the seats so high the back window is completely obstructed. The passenger's seat is likewise full of shit. And it's clearly junk, not well packed personal possessions. We saw him Tuesday for the first time. We made our snide remarks and forgot about him. Until Wednesday when Alex said "We passed that guy yesterday." Mildly interesting when you're bored to death. After stopping at Starbucks and driving for a while, guess who? Illinois Man. Did I mention he still had on the same shit-eating green tee shirt? He did. Well, we passed him two more times in two more states. On our final descent into Southern Utah I saw a shitty white midsized car on the side of the road with the driver looking under the hood. Illinois Man? I hope not; the man needs to get where he is going.

The weather was cloudy all day but when we checked in at the Holiday Inn Express (Thanks, Chris.) it was sunny, breezy and about 82 degrees. Perfect. Wish I could package this. I feel great.

Deep Thoughts. I know you're asking yourself "Where do these deep thoughts come from, Jim?" Well, thanks to my illnesses I can't sleep more than 4-5 hours and I don't want to wake my traveling partner, so I think deep thoughts (imagine scary organ music).

The first of which is a follow up to yesterday about powerful men who think they can get away with anything. It's this: These men have chosen to lead DELIBERATELY PUBLIC lives. . . and they still think they won't get caught. Does the President of the United States think he can get away with sexual indiscretions and then get away with lying about it? (And I like Bill Clinton.) I guess the Ohio State football coach thinks it's worth risking his career to keep nitwits who trade memorabilia for tattoos eligible to play in a damn college football game. I guess now he knows the answer.

But I digress. Today's deep thoughts are about movies. What's the difference between your Favorite Movie and the Best Movie you've ever seen? Probably that your Favorite Movie is the movie you enjoy watching the most because something about it strikes a chord with you; whereas, the Best Movie you've ever seen probably has the best writing, acting, casting, direction, music, production design and so forth. In my case they are the same movie: the so-called Godfather Saga. That's The Godfather and The Godfather Part II played in chronological order. I love just about everything about these movies. What makes them the Best Movies I ever seen are all the things I've just enumerated, but most of all it's the characters. They are so authentic, particularly the supporting roles. Here's one: Don Fanucci, the Black Hand. Remember his white suit, his tilted fedora, his pinkie ring, his coat draped over his shoulders and his regal wave? I look at him and I believe that is the Black Hand, not an actor playing a role. There are dozens more. And the production design! Was Vito's tomato garden the perfect set for an old Italian man? The music! Let's not forget the dramatic tension between despising these men as vicious killers and thieves and admiring them as fathers and men of unshakable values.

Well, you get the point. So why is it also my favorite? What strikes a chord? I feel so Italian when I watch it. It makes me feel special as an Italian. Sometimes a movie is so good that you like it just because it is good.

And finally . . . Tomorrow (actually today) we hit LALA land. Alex can't wait to get there. Me, I have mixed feelings. I'm excited for her . . . and for me. But I dread getting on that plane back to the motor city.

Thanks for taking the tine to read this.

On the Road Again . . . Day 2

Day 2.
My apologies for the number of errors yesterday, I’ll do better today.

Destination: Denver, CO. We were up and pulling away from the hotel at 7:05 am. The Starbucks that little Tommy (our portable GPS) directed us to was just a figment of his imagination. So we departed Des Moines Starbucksless but happy to be on our way. Poor Alex is still sick and her nose is running like Usain Bolt. We quickly made it to the Nebraska border and the city of Omaha. One of the low points of the trip so far is entering Nebraska and knowing you have to drive 455 miles before you hit Colorado . . . actually that’s the mileage to Wyoming. However, Colorado feels just as far.

I found a way to shorten the trip through Nebraska: sleep. Since neither Alex nor I sleep very well the night before, the combination of tiredness and boredom is a good pacifier to lull you to sleep. At least it worked for me. Seems like I was out for more than an hour and a half. Once we crossed into Colorado, the weather was gorgeous and the traffic was light. We zoomed the 672 miles from Des Moines in nine hours forty minutes.

We met my brother Jerry and my sister-in-law Cheryl in Westminster, Co for dinner. It was fantastic to see them. They are two of my favorite people in the world. We went through the entire family starting with Great Grandma B through our siblings and my kids and their cousins. Unfortunately it was a short visit but Alex and I were glad we saw them. We’ll meet again (unfortunately without Alex) in October in Hilton Head.


We did have an “incident” on the ride through Nebraska. Contrary to popular lore, they do stop speeders out west. My lead-footed daughter can attest to it. Getting stopped going 85 in a 65 was just the beginning. Since we were passing through a rural county, which is apparently in the dark ages, we were escorted to the local Justice of the Peace for determination of the fine. Regrettably we did not have $195 in cash between us and Andy of Mayberry did not accept credit cards. So the fat-assed JP with the nicotine stained fingers suggested the Alex should sit in Jail until I bailed her out. Fortunately the state trooper pleaded our case and asked the stupid JP to let us go to an ATM for cash. We did so, and got the fuck outta Dodge.

Deep Thoughts: When we were leaving the hotel in the morning, I noticed a copy of USA Today lying on the floor outside our door. On the front page was the story of Jim Tressel’s “resignation” as Ohio State football coach. This again raises the question “Why to powerful men think they can get away with anything, no matter how stupid?” From Bill Clinton to John Edwards to Tiger Woods to Charlie Sheen, and a zillion other assholes, men in powerful positions seem to loose sight of the fact that they are not invincible. Doubt me? Ask Newt “Big Dumb Shit” Gingrich. How can these highly visible men forget that we live in the age of social media where your every fart is recorded and posted. I hope they all get what they deserve: public disgrace AND loss of their career.

I have more Deep Thoughts but let’s let them simmer until tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

On the Road Again . . .

DES MOINES, IA. Yet another road trip. This time my youngest daughter Alex and I are off to Cerritos, Cali. Quite a bit different from my last road trip out west in 2007. That was round trip, alone and for three weeks. This time I am helping Alex drive to her new home and new job in Cali. Then I'm flying back from LAX after a few days of sun and fun. Actually Alex and I have done this before -- at least as far as Boulder. Then six weeks later I flew to Denver; hopped off the plans; and jumped in Alex's car and were off to Michigan. That was a killer. I swore "Never again." So here I am again. One major difference is that Alex just bought a Hyundai Tucson which is many times more comfortable that her old Jetta with 115,000 miles on it.

It's a big stretch to come up with something interesting, entertaining or, maybe, funny. A good place to start is always something that went wrong. For example, the top thing on my list for the trip was some new prescription sunglasses. My current ones are scratched and not that effective. First I tried Pearle Vision who wanted $480 for one pair of polarized sunglasses. No way. On to Lenscrafters. Amazingly that had a 50% off sale going on. What a shock! They have more 50% off sales than Diamond Jim's Whoopee Emporium. So I gave the guy my prescription (which I noticed had been written in 2007) and in an hour they were ready . . . and at half the price! Amazing. I did notice that I couldn't see all that well, but that was because I was inside. Unfortunately it didn't take long to realize that this was not my prescription. So I took them back for a comparison to my current glasses and . . . (drum roll) they were completely different prescriptions. I needed a written prescription for them to make me some new ones. I had no time to get to my doctor before we left on the road trip. What to do? Well, I told this story to M and she asked why I didn't get their doctor to do an eye test on me. I don;t know. Because it was too obvious. Because my head is too far up my ass? And thus, no new sunglasses.

Meanwhile our drive from Michigan to Des Moines was marred only by the fact that our attempt to buy a delicious breakfast at McDonald's required three stops and almost an hour. After unsuccessful stops in Marshall, Michigan (line was too long)and Albion, Michigan (too closed), we spent a half an hour in Kalamazoo waiting for our wonderful food. No more McDonald's.

We crossed the Mississippi at Quad cities and stopped just on the other side at the Primary Iowa Welcome Center. Which of course made me wonder what the secondary welcome center might be. I took some photos of the mighty Mississippi but they are shit, so no picturesque shots to accompany this blog. As we continued our initial incursion into Iowa we learned a couple of interesting facts about Iowa's rest stops: they apparently don't know what primary means because their was a second Primary Iowa Welcome Center about ten miles in and in Davenport their are two rest stops that are two miles apart. And it is so exhausting to drive that extra two miles that the second one is for parking and sleeping only.

Deep Thoughts. (Remember the segment on the original SNL with that name?) For many many I’ve had the same recurring daydream while I’m driving on the highway. I’m driving with a guy who has been transported from the mid-19th century to my car. He has never seen a car or a highway and of course has never traveled at eighty miles an hours. My job is to explain where he is an what our time – which is of course the future to him – is like and what a car is and so forth. After a while I drift into the opposite direction and I am back in the mid-19th century but with my life’s worth of knowledge and experience from the 21st century. I wonder how much an average guy like me can help move technology and society forward then. Vat does zis mean? Maybe I want to be a time traveler. I sure as hell whole like to go back before I got sick and try it again.

And finally. This trip allows me the great privilege and pleasure of spending one on one time with Alex. Even though we talk every little – so little that many people find it strange – I enjoy the opportunity tremendously. Alex is a wonderful person. Even though she is soft spoken and a real rule-follower, she is gutsy as hell and tough and resilient. I think she will love California and will do great there.

As always, thanks for reading.

I vow . . .

That as of today, February 28, 2011, the third anniversary of the day I met the Lovely M, I will make no further contact with her. The excitement is not greater than the pain. She did nothing wrong. She was just herself. I should know better.

Recently I have wanted to contact her. Our non-relationship held the potential to inject some excitement into my life. I started telling friends that a bad day with M was far more interesting than a good day sitting home alone. I finally acted when I felt particularly down after reading a couple of medical reports about me that used the term MSA (multiple systems atrophy.) This the the fatal version of the autonomic dysfunction I have. It greatly upsets me when I hear it used loosely to describe me. I wanted to seek her out for comfort. Insane though it may seem, I knew she really cares about me and I thought she would comfort me.

I called and arranged lunch the next day. Although I had promised myself that I would keep it light, after 20 minutes or whatever I asked her "Why to do think I'm so fascinated with you?" That opened the floodgates. I won't divulge the conversation but I was floating on air afterward. I believe that I simply caught her off guard and she showed her genuine affection and joy. I texted her when I got home to thank her and test whether I had been dreaming. She come back with a nice response.

I allowed my fantasizing to go wild - I was seriously imaging us married. I thought about how I was going to work to fix this with my kids and her. I was briefly in heaven. I knew I was on very thin ice but when you have faced as much pain as I have you don't deny yourself the opportunity to feel good. Really good.

Saturday night we had dinner. She was reserved, evasive and withdrawn; not to mention oblivious to her insensitivity. I think she truly believes that evading and redirecting issues is "nicer" than facing them head on. In any event it took very little time to see there was not going to be any "new" relationship. Again I don't feel like recounting the details.

I left her house with another big hole in my heart. However, I wouldn't change it. A bad day with M is better than a good day home alone. It's not her fault. It's my addiction to drama/crisis. If they don't occur naturally you have to create them.

I have so many wonderful friends and such a fantastic family that I need to use their support as an alternative to a "good day home alone." It's far less stressful. As for M, my addiction is always there. I just have to overcome it.