Random Thoughts of a Surf reporters wife

How do I feel?
God I don’t remember anyone ever asking. Everyone just seems to keep telling me how they feel. How much they need, or want or miss. I seem to have become a support system for the part of humanity that is breaking down. My never ending quest to fix things ends up being the hardest part of it all. As I sit here listening to you, tell me, what is wrong, how sad you are, how hurt are, how you cannot believe this has happened to you, I wonder if you even see the person sitting across from you.

Must we all learn strength in different ways? My strength appears to be the will to keep fighting and keep surving despite all odds. In four months, I left my company I had been with for six years to pursue a new opportunity. One that promised support and endurance, only to tell me it wasn’t working out weeks after my husband’s death and only after I signed an 18 month lease and moved out of our house to be closer, which wasn’t really necessary. As I sat there packing up a new home that I had just unpacked three days before, I thought to myself, this is strength. This is what they mean by it makes or breaks you.
Strength is when all the exes call hysterically, asking questions, leaning on you for support, even though before they were desperately clinging to straws begging to get you out of the picture, strength is when you support them, because we all grieve.
Strength is when there is no more hope. Moving five times in a year, losing your best friend, your spouse, the one person that no one could ever have known the way you did, the one person who despite the good or bad times, they loved you and you loved them. No matter what was said to people in times of anger, it was what they meant to you in all the times of ten years. You don’t stay together for ten years, if love isn’t what is holding you together. Every day is no better than the day before without him, and I am not sure that it ever will be. Strength is when there is no more hope, and yet you find your way.
I lost my husband, I lost my home, I left all my friends and my family behind, and I packed things three times that I wasn’t even ready to touch. Today I woke up in a new city, so very far away from where I had started.
So here I am. In Las Vegas. Watching the crawl of shame drift by my windows. Watching people just start their days at 6pm and ending them at 7am. Wondering now what you say when you want to get away and go party?
And there are some stories to share here, but the pictures will be priceless.
Random thoughts of a surf reporters wife indeed.

1O reasons the guy in the next cube has a better gig than you

I just got done reading one of the bathroom books still sitting in a pile on the bathroom floor, and I seriously laughed so hard it was a good thing I was in the bathroom.

It reminded me that as I read all these things on the Internet on how to get a job in a bad economy, or how to keep your job in a bad economy or what jobs to go for in a bad economy, I am thinking, where the hell are all these people and why am I not working with them? I have enough stories piled up from my friends and family, I have to think that these poor SOB's that are out of work have no idea, that the world's laziest, most useless slobs are getting their paychecks. The top ten reasons that the guy in the next cube has a better gig than you.

1. Your sitting with am extra pile of work that is due to the guy in the next cube calling off 3 times this week, 2 times last week, 4 times the week before, and quite frankly the only reason you know he still has a job is because he is currently on the phone with god knows who talking about how busy he is.

2. You just answered an email from someone down the hall asking you if you proof read the perspectus that you sent to "the client" (who the hell is "the client", I went on the trip, I stayed in the cheap hotel, I did the 2 hour presentation in Omaha, its my client dirt bag) and he has misspelled your name as well as the word prospectus.

3. The person directing your meeting started and ended with " Well we are where we are"
Seriously? Whats the alternative? We are where we aren't? I know where the hell I am jerkface. What I cant understand is how you are here with me.

4. The guy in the next cube argues with his current ex girlfriend (via phone, email and text) for 4-6 hours a day and makes more than you do.

5. The guy in the next cube is never at his desk so you are answering all his phone calls, from his next ex girlfriend, and he makes more than you do.

6. The girl in the next cube, is currently and usually sitting in one of the two chairs across from your desk talking about the guy she had sex with last night for the past hour and wondering if he thinks she is easy, and she makes more than you do.

7. The receptionist has transferred the guy in the next cubes phone calls to your extension in error 15 times already today, meanwhile "the client" is texting you telling you that they cannot get anyone to answer the direct line (why would they? this is only a multi million dollar company, not billion) and as you trek across the hall you see that she is on a personal call and reading people magazine.

8. Your explaining how to work the copy machine to your boss.

9. Your boss just called/emailed/texted you and then sent out a nasty gram and copied the entire office about your need to be at work on time or to let her know you were not coming in while you are at a trade show (signing contracts) that yesterday she told you that she expected you to act professionally at and how important your presence at this show was to the company.

10. The guy in the next cube wears short sleeve dress shirts with a tie, eats your lunches, (swears its not him but the exlax in the quiche solved that mystery) ends every sentence in a question? And tells your boss that he feels you are stifling his creativity with your negativity so now you are sitting in a personality positioning meeting with HR and he has been granted a half day with pay, due to stress.

How California Can make money, without pissing everyone off

I just received my car registration renewal notice. Increase of almost $200.00 over last year. I am sure that money will go to good use...

I have accepted that I pay a premium for where I live, it costs money to live somewhere with great weather, perfect beaches and endless miles of freeways.

But If I was in charge, what would I do to make money for the state? Well here is my top ten:

1. Legalize Marijuana. Look, this is the LAMEST war ever. Legalize, have farming America grow it along the grapevine, tax the hell out of it, and sell it in controlled stores to people over the age of 18. You can’t tell me it’s worse than Alcohol. I am not a fan, but the amount of money we spend on police, task forces, raids, people in prison, etc, is ludicrous. Lots of very bad people would be out of jobs if suddenly you could buy it at the store for a third of the price. When was the last time somebody hit you up on the Venice boardwalk to buy some bomb tobacco leaf or some of that kind vodka? It doesn’t happen, because you can get it anywhere.

2. Control education. We keep complaining about the size of classrooms for our children, yet we do nothing about it. Children enrolled in school need to have parents who are documented American citizens, or can show that they are working towards this documentation with a target date to be completed by. Look, I am second generation Italian and Native American. I understand that we are a free country and that is what makes this country great. But at what cost, to all kids? You can’t keep putting 62 kids in a classroom and expect children to receive a good education. You can’t keep paying teachers $22,000 a year and expect kids to get a good education. We can’t keep giving everyone that enrolls in school a free education (free as in we pay taxes for each child to go to school). It doesn’t work. No taxes will fix it. We have to say that if you want your children to be educated in this country, you have to be a citizen.

3. Tax Plastic Surgery, immensely. Jesus, I saw some FRIGHT FEST things last night. Everyone in California, well all but the surfers who are just naturally hot people, gets plastic surgery here. They don’t care how much it costs or who does it. So tax the crap out of it. People will still pay it. Hell you could just tax breast augmentation here and get the deficit fixed.

4. Mandate that gas has to be pumped by an attendant. Increase the cost of gas with a small tax. Set this tax aside (HAHHAHAH yeah right) and use it to expand public transportation, as in a light rail. Which everyone would ride and the state would make money off of.

5. Set restrictions on welfare benefits. As in, if you get pregnant while you are already on welfare, you lose your benefits and as a results of losing your benefits you could lose your existing children to CPS. I would imagine if we set this standard that we could reduce welfare benefits overall by about 50%?

6. Tax the paparazzi. I think that this profession should have a tax associated with it, that in return could end up being a cost put back on the consumer through the price of the magazines. All of these people loiter on public and private property. Actually not tax, but ticket. Cops see them constantly. Just ticket them. Like a $10.00 per person fix it ticket. These would be given out in situations where they have gathered, have their press credentials and are obstructing walkways, restaurants, chasing cars, etc.

7. Change the structure on taxing and earning for Casinos in California, the same way this is done in Las Vegas.

8. Allow gaming in all airports. Add slot machines in all major airports in California. Have the reservations control them if necessary. Percentage of the revenue earned by the machines goes back to the state.

9. Bring back a NFL team to Los Angeles. Court an owner to bring a team here, build a stadium. Use revenues generated by the stadium and tickets to impose taxes.

10. And for my husband?
Well you should tax the crap out of all the assholes that walk in the bike lane. Of course.

Prop 8

I have just returned from San Francisco, pretty much a sad trip all around. I cant decide if it was the memories, or the sad deterioration drugs and alcohol have had on the homeless people at civic center. Another sad, hit you up on every corner reality is Prop 8 and those who are against it.

Does it matter, who you are, where you came from or whether you believe in god or not, if two consenting adults, are in love, and want to make that commitment to each other? Why not let them? Hell, most of these couples are high income and have no kids making me think the state of California would be happy to let them get married and then tax the living hell out of them like they do all married couples with no deductions. How much time? How much money? How many members of congress are we going to tie up with this holly war against same sex marriage?

I sat with my friend for coffee at a place called Starbears in the Castro, having a long conversion about life in general. Sitting there listening to someone tell me that they were in love and saddened because it didn't appear that they would ever be able to be married. I felt so incredibly sad for my friend. I loved/love my husband so much, I couldn't imagine, anyone, ever saying we couldn't get married. I couldn't imagine being in that position. How is it that Amy Winehouse can be married? How is that not a total disgrace to what marriage stands for? Who are we to decide if two people want to get married that are consenting adults? You should see all the banners, and the signs, and ad campaigns both for and against Prop 8. All that money that could go to so many other things, other causes, that need it. All these poor homeless kids in SF that could use that money to develop youth centers. Or beyond that, something so simple like not cutting fireman and policeman, putting that money into education. Anything other than this ridiculous, archaic, caveman approach to a decision that quite frankly less and less hetrosexual couples are making.

You can be on drugs, you can neglect kids, you can beat your girlfriend, rob a bank, and you still can get married as long as it is to the opposite sex. Will god not love you anymore if you are married to someone you love and want to spend your life with? Is it about religion? Does marrying the same sex mean marriage? Is that what makes marriage good, a man and a woman? Scott Peterson got married. OJ Simpson got married. Andrea Yates got married. All same sex yet completely devoid of morals or humanity.

It isn't about your sex, marriage. Its about your heart, your commitment. Being married to the same sex, I just don't see how that makes a marriage. I can see how maybe that cant make children, that to me makes sense. But same sex isn't the perfect and almighty formula marriage. If it was, there would be no divorces.

A day late and a dollar short-Take the Guess out of being a Guest

Its that time of year, time for your STAYCATION. This time of year, or really any time of year as I stand behind the front desk in my Tim Roth Bell Hop attire, I think, I need to find the way to take the guess work out of being a guest.

I like to call it 400 rooms on a Tuesday in July.

Being a Good Guest Means:
You will never say to a front desk agent, that you travel all over the world, even internationally. Internationally is not a separate planet.
It means you will not tell a front desk agent, he or she is stupid and that they do not know how to do their job. Somehow they managed to check in the 385 other people before you just today and as you can see as you are yelling at the top of your lungs 4 inches from her face, you are the only guest in the lobby behaving this way, so the odds are, that possibly, you may be the one with the problem, since the other 385 people seem to be doing OK.

Yelling, is a sign of ignorance. So if you are yelling at me calling me stupid...........

Please dont book on priceline and then get upset with me because you booked on priceline two weeks ago and for 82.00 got the Standard DT and now you are in the Residence Inn in Torrance. I assure you my second job isnt with Priceline trying to see how I can screw you into a different hotel. In fact before I got here today I wasnt even thinking about you, I know, its hard to believe.

Yelling, why are you yelling at me because you signed on your reg card that you would not smoke in the room, and yet you did, and now you are standing at the desk yelling that you didnt, yet the housekeeper is standing right behind you with cigarette butts you put out in our coffee cups in the room. Good guests realize that I actually dont want to be yelled at, I am not holding you too this on purpose. In fact I hate being yelled at, and I DO EVERYTHING to try and avoid it, which is why I made you sign that you understood you would be charged $350.00 if you smoked in the room before I even let you in the room.

Good Guests do not steal all the towells and the bedding from the room. If you feel the need to get that intimate with linen that is used by a different person 365 days a year, I am sure you have better options.

Good Guests do not accuse the housekeepers of stealing all their wordly possessions. You may find it hard to believe, but your Juicy watch you are claiming Esmerelda stole out of your room worth $30.00 is worth much less to Esmerelda who makes $12.95 an hour and has health insurance and 401K. Her job is not worth your watch. She knows it, and when you get home and your watch is in your pocket of the jeans you wore, You will know this too.

Why the yelling. Yes, I know it is upsetting that you gave your debit card at check in, and we, like the foreign planet all hotels are on actually ran the card as opposed to what the Gas Stations, Airlines, Grocery Stores, Shoe Stores and feed and tackle stores do when they just look at it and let you cart off all your merchandise for free because you seem like a nice person.

Good guests are reminded that they also work in jobs which they go home at night and complain to someone that someone else was being a real jerk today. Dont be that jerk in someone elses today. That desk agent works at the desk because he or she likes people. She actually wants to help you. In fact they want to do anything humanly possible to make you happy because it sucks to be yelled at, this includes fixing any problem you may have during your stay.

Good guests do not have parties in their hotel rooms and throw things out the windows into the pool. You are not a rock star, you cannot do this. If you continue to do this, please dont be upset when I come to your house and climb on your roof and throw things into your pool while all your neighbors are sleeping.

Good guests do not call hotels from the outside and ask the front desk agent who is currently underpaid, understaffed, and over worked, for her to give the number to three other hotels in the area, if she thinks they are nice hotels, has she ever stayed there, what type of resturants do they have and if she could remember the name of the restaurant near her that sounded like it had a S in the name, with the red sign.....

PRE PAY- NO CANCEL. Learn it, Live it, Love it. Just like the airlines. DO NOT BOOK THIS RATE IF YOU DO NOT INTEND TO PRE PAY OR YOU MIGHT CANCEL.

Good guests do not sit in their room and stew when there is a problem. WE WANT TO FIX YOUR PROBLEM. You have no idea how important being a guest is. And being a nice guest will get you anything you want. I have never understood the yeller versus the smiley guy in a tough situation. The yeller ends up yelling, where the smiley guy who cant get the internet too work gets a free dinner in the restaurant and two drink cupons.

One last thing, Good Guests do not spit their gum out onto the floor of their guestroom.