I really wanted noodles

Wilshire Boulevard in Koreatown is a sucking hole of bad drivers, a million buses, no parking and not a Bank of America in sight. (I know! There's always a B of A)

I had to go to another furniture store in my quest for three bids on office furniture and said store was allegedly at 3530 Wilshire Blvd. , which is around Wilshire and Normandie/ Irolo. Now 3540 is the home of that finger printing place I visited a few weeks back and damn if I didn't work up a hunger for some Noodle Time beef chow mein. mmm...noodles. But first I had to find a freakin' B of A to deposit my check and get some cash for the parking and the noodles. I took a cursory drive by and 3530 is a high rise. I think. You can't really be reading numbers on buildings on Wilshire in Koreatown. I continued up Wilshire looking for the familiar blue and red sign that would lead me to cash in pocket, but none was to be found. I went around the block at Western (no easy feat, that) and down 6th. Still no bank. Oh, that's not true. There were plenty of Korean banks, a Wells Fargo, a Bank of The West and a Citicorp, but not MY bank. What gives?

I finally ended up scraping together enough with change and the few bills I did have on my person to park in a structure and found the furniture place. I picked up a catalog from the less-than-helpful staff, which I will peruse and give them a list to price out for me on Saturday.

But, alas, I had no money for the noodles. Miso sad.
(Noodle Time serves all types of Asian foods, so I'm using that in proper context...just so no one thinks I'm ignorant, you know, being in Koreatown and all)

I always wanted to be a shipping magnate

This is the job offer I got today via email:

We would like to suggest you a job of a Post Manager in our company. We are ordering goods from USA. But unfortunatelly some internet shops do not send it to other counties. They send it only within USA. If you agree to work for us, we will pay you about 1000$ per month. Your task will be: 1) Order the goods ( writing paper ) 2) Pay them (it's cost is about 500$ - 1000$) 3) Get them 4) Send them to us using DHL After we get the goods, we pay you goods cost and your salary (we will transfer your cash using Western Union). You will have to order these goods once per month. So it will not take you much time If you are instrested in this job or if you have any questions, please e-mail us. We will need your 1) Full name 2) Mail address 3) Mobile telephone number

Oh yeah. Sign me up now.

I want to kiss a boy until my lips hurt.

This is the "How To..." on my Google homepage this morning: How to French Kiss.

This is my favorite part:
Kissing should be a shared decision. You need to have permission to French kiss someone, but when your lips are locked with theirs you may want to stop and ask, "Hey, this is great, but can I put my tongue in your mouth?"

Go on, read it for yourselves. You never know, a refresher course could add some zing to your usual make-out sessions.

Happy Valentine's Day! Or as I see it, Happy "thanks-for-reminding-me-I'm-single" Day!

Move, already

That's what you're going to say. I know. I can hear you all in a Hallelujah chorus of friends screaming, "Oh My God! Get out of that apartment and quit yer bitching." I will...I am getting out, but I had to dip into my savings when I was unemployed and then employed but making less than I needed to get by, so I have to regroup and save up for the security deposit. I just have to share this transgression, which happened yesterday, I'm sure, and I just noticed today.

The switch plate for the hall light, which I can't use because of some electrical problems, is crooked and ugly. So, I covered it with a nifty promotional switch plate sticker for the movie Wonderland. The sticker looked like this picture (below) only there was a hole cut out for the switch. I'll let you guess where the hole was.
This is what the switch plate looks like now:
That bitch tore off Val's crotch!!! How dare she!!! That sticker has been there since the movie came out and she must have passed by it more than a dozen times. So now she's Frau Moral Compass and decides it has to come off? No! As long as I live there and pay the rent on time I could paint a mural of dwarfs having sex on the living room wall and she can't say a word as long as it's NOT there when I move out. I do have to laugh a little picturing her scraping it off and muttering her indignation in her native tongue.

Oddly, she has never said a word about this, which is stuck to the bathroom mirror. And she had better not, if she knows what's good for her.

Look what I got

A brand spanking new faucet with a proper seal, and new pipes under the cabinet, which I didn't photograph 'cause it's dirty and gross under there and I didn't feel like cleaning.

Can you believe that Frau Slumlord still finds nothing wrong with using my towel to mop up the water? She was actually bitching to the downstairs neighbors that I was a "complainer" because I told her off about the towel. Unbelievable! I'm a complainer? This piece of shit apartment is falling apart and I never say a word, but I tell her I was angry about the towel and that makes me a complainer. Frakkin' Stunt.

But that sure is a pretty faucet.

Singing the "I hate my apartment" blues

It was raining when I woke up this morning, so naturally I thought the dripping I heard was the rain. I went about my day--laundry, surfing the net for office furniture bargains, reading blogs--you know, the important stuff. Then, I went into the bathroom around 5:30ish, after the rain had been gone for most of the day, and heard dripping still. Huh? (imagine a dog tilting its head sideways)
I checked under the sink and lo and behold, there was a drip....more like a dribble...oh, hell, it was running like Niagara. I turned the water off under the sink which slowed it down to a dribble again, but not before the water ran downstairs into Maria Elena's kitchen again. Fortunately, Maria Elena isn't home so I got to deal with her lovely daughter, Jennifer, who is just as fed up with Frau Slumlord as I am. She called Frau first. I told Jen to tell her that I had turned off the water and put a bucket under the leak but she needed to send someone--preferably a certified plumber--out on Monday.

Frau called me just a few minutes ago and said, "what did you do?" What did I do? What didn't your so-called plumber do? I explained to her, patiently at first, that the leak is not in the faucet area, but rather coming from the pipes under the sink. After I made it clear to her that it is my bathroom that's leaking and not my kitchen (honestly, the woman owns the building. You'd think she'd know a little something about the floor plans.) I tried to make her understand that the leak is behind the under-sink cabinet.

Frau: But we put a brand new one on there.
Me: It doesn't look new. It looks like the same pipes that were here since the Eisenhower administration.
Frau: It's brand new! (loudly)
Me: I'm not talking about the faucets underneath. This problem is behind the cabinet.
Frau: Well, maybe you could wrap something around it and it will hold...(I stopped listening)
Me: LISTEN TO ME! This is not a quick fix job anymore. You need to bring in someone qualified. And you're going to have to remove this cabinet and get to the pipes behind them and into the wall. THAT is where the leak is originating.
Frau: (somewhat defeated) Well, I guess we'll see what it looks like tomorrow.
Me: And make sure the plumber doesn't use my towel again.
Frau: We had a flood.
Me: That's no excuse. A REAL plumber would have been prepared for that. It was disgusting and uncalled for.
Frau: We rinsed it out. (Is she actually trying to justify that?)

Just to be safe, I'm going to remove my towels and anything that plugs from the bathroom. Keep your fingers crossed for a relatively clean bathroom and a sink that works.

One more thing

So, in getting the hyperlink for Sagittarius, I clicked on a link that said, "Find out who your soul mate is, right down to their name." I'm a sucker.
I clicked my gender--Female, my sign--duh...and they sent me the following message:

Your soul mate's name is Joanna.

D'oh! I guess the folks back home were right about me all along and all the men in my past were just beards.