Okay, so things keep getting worse around here. My husband is still on strike. We’re lucky though. My parents are certainly not going to throw us out, and they’ll let us coast on rent, and they know we’ll pay it back. But it’s this ongoing yucky thing. Jay will be leaving this weekend to go see his parents so he can take measurements for blueprints and plotting for his father’s office. Yay. All alone with the kids with no help. This ought to be fun. But, his dad needs the plots and doesn’t have time to do it, and Jay needs a final project for school. I live in SoCal. So there’s fire all around and it’s awful. So far, it hasn’t hit where it would get to us (the Angeles National Forest), so that’s good, but the dingbats finally got it through their head to close the forest to the public. Can anyone say duh? They should have done that days ago, and their just lucky that no idiots decided to get their 15 minutes of fame by adding to this current disaster. While we’re not (yet) effected by flames/evacuations, we’re surrounded by trapped smoke. So, Joseph’s going to the doctor today, due to coughing and wheezing. I’ve been coughing myself, but I’m getting over a cold, so I just think it’s tickling my throat. However, there is one thing on this earth I’m allergic to. Sagebrush. I’m hardly ever effected by it. Only, say, going horseback riding on vacation, or weird instances like that. During which I take medication and I’m fine. But I’m having scratchy eyes, weepy eyes, and my sinuses are all plugged up and my head feels just huge. And then it dawned on me, sagebrush is what’s burning on all those mountains. And I’m sure that the pollen is in the smoke that we’re all inhaling. So, the logical explanation is that I’m having an allergic reaction. The fire has effected me in another way. So many freeways have been diverted that my 45 minute commute was over 2 hours this morning. The entire time in which I had to pee. That sucks though, ’cause you know it’s not supposed to be that way, and makes you very nervous and twitchy. So many people have had their homes lost. So many have lost their lives. Is anyone else waiting for armageddon?
I am very sketchy. Yesterday,
I am very sketchy. Yesterday, the day went by like any other normal day. I had a vague sense of foreboading, but I think that always happens when you know something bad is going on around you, but doesn’t directly effect you. We have some very serious fires going on, but they’re miles from us, but I still feel uncomfortable about it, since we live in the foothills of the Angeles National Forest. You know, you start wondering, will it get this far? Is that actually physically possible? So then I leave last night. Because the days are getting shorter, as I left it was sunset. It was pretty in a purely asthetic kind of way. But it scared me. Then entire horizon was like a big leeoming omen. Just blood red as far as you could see. And with it still hot enough for the air conditioner in my car, it was just weird. And because of past episodes in my life, I’ve learned to trust my instincts. But my instincts were just weirding me out, due to the content. So I keep driving. I’m trying to hurry, as much as one can in rush hour traffic, since Thursdays are training days for Jay and I, and I have exactly one hour to leave work, drive home in rush hour (which is an hour in and of itself), change into my dobok, and get to class, including putting on my ankle and wrist braces, which take FOREVER. So I’m trying to hurry, you know, taking the open spots in lanes when I see them and such. Traffic was terrible. Which I wasn’t expecting since it was so light on the way in. And then on one portion of the freeway, where I’m about 15 minutes from home, my windows were down, and I smelled this horribly overwhelming smell of smoke. Living in the foothills as I do, you know that smell deep into your bones. It’s not a cigarette, a campfire, a bbq, or someone’s fireplace. It’s Fire. It was completely dark by then, so I kept looking everywhere for that tell-tale orange glow. I couldn’t find it anywhere. The smell lasted for about 5 miles, and then it was gone. So I thought it was my imagination. Then all of a sudden the traffic going the other way on the freeway just came to a complete halt. You could see their stalled headlights for miles up ahead, and a sea of brakelights in the rear-view mirror. Then one, and only one, police cruiser went flying by with sirens and lights in the carpool lane. I never found out what it was, but chalk it up to another creepy experience. So I get home. When I walk in, Jay is standing in the kitchen with the lights out, just standing there, staring at me with red eyes. I freaked out, asking him what’s wrong? What happened? Turns out he had just woken up and was just trying to get his head clear. Basically he was just zoning out. So, since my husband has seen my instincts at work, asked me if we should stay home. I poo-poo’d him, and we went. Had training, came home. Put the baby to bed. Joseph spent the night with my parents. Later when we were watching TV he looked up at me from lying on the floor, then he looked behind me, and got that look. You know the one. Something’s behind me, and That’s Not Good. Turns out he just thought he saw something, but nothing was there. I think I started muttering at him. So, we’re watching TV and I heard something strange. I thought at first it was our neighbors. They like to sit in their very pretty front yard and have friends over, and chat on warm nights. Nothing loud, but our front door is right there, so I thought it was them, but their lights weren’t on. So I muted the TV to listen. It was dogs. Barking and howling like you wouldn’t believe. We don’t have a lot of dogs in the neighborhood, and the ones that ARE there aren’t the annoying bark all the time kind. But they were all barking and howling at each other at the same time, from all directions. It lasted about 45 minutes. TOTALLY creepy. Then they just stopped suddenly. We decided to go to bed, and Jay went outside, and he got the basball bat. This is our protection, since I won’t let my husband get a gun. I asked him why. Turns out, he’s had the \”Something Bad’s About To Happen\” feeling all day today too. Thank God it wasn’t just me. When I feel like this sometimes, it means I’m going to have a flash-back, so it was good to know that it wasn’t just me. We went to bed, and nothing happened. I slept like the dead all night, but this morning I found out that during the night Jay had a nightmare (he NEVER has nightmares), and stayed up for about an hour in the living room, ’cause he couldn’t get back to sleep. I still have that creepy feeling today and I don’t like it. I think because we’re having a triple-digit heat wave, and the Santa Ana winds are starting up. If you live in Southern California, you know what that feels like… Earthquake Weather. All of the big earthquakes we’ve had were during heatwaves, outside of true summer, during windy, dry conditions. So, I think that’s what Jay and I are waiting for. We’ve got fires popping up all over the place, terribly dry, hot hot hot weather, with the bad winds coming up. Jay and I are going into wait mode. I don’t like this feeling because that’s all it is, a feeling. There’s no true evidence behind it. But it’s so very hard to shake. And Jay’s working the picket line tonight, and I just know I’m going to have trouble going to sleep by myself tonight. I’ll be worried that something will happen at home while he’s not there, and I’ll be worried about him there outside in the middle of the night, in an increasingly violent agressive situation. I hate feeling this way. It’s so stupid.
In-laws are coming this weekend.
In-laws are coming this weekend. Which means I’m cleaning house like a maniac. First tae kwon-do session in over two weeeks is coming (due to injury and illness). It’s going to seriously kick my ass. This is what is going on in my life. We’re stressed out, we’re tired, we’re poor. This strike thing is getting out of hand. Don’t get me wrong, I completely support my husband, and I agree with and support the strike. What I don’t agree with is the fact that no new negotiations are taking place. And I completely disagree with the companies taking full page ads out in the times, twice, in the last week. But what really has me worried is the increasing violence. My family is probably seeing it more because Jay does his picket shift in the middle of the night, coming home between 2am & 5am. Anyway, two picketers have been hit by semis because they have scabs driving them, who cross the line with the trucks, and don’t care who they hit. At our store we’ve got angry \”civilians\”, people from the public who 1. Aren’t supermarket employees and 2. Aren’t union members wandering our parking lot where my husband is picketing with basball bats threatening them. The security guard literally turns around and looks the other way. He’s the STORE’S guard. We’ve got people stopping at the light by them yelling at them, throwing ice, beer, and other unmentionables at the picketers. Not a random toss, gets nowhere near them, in just some vague insult. I mean beaning people in the head on purpose. One member of the esteemed public shoved one of our female picketers down to the ground when she told him off for pouring his beer on her on purpose. This is really not good. And it’s escalating. This is the second day in a row that I have had to convince my husband that taking his knives, bb gun, and basball bat with him to work is a Very Bad Idea. Because what would happen is this: Public person touches/shoves/threatens a picketer. Jay shows weapon. Public person files charges. Jay goes to jail. This is not what Michele needs. But my real question is: What are these people thinking? Either you support the union members picketing, and therefore go to another store, and perhaps honk to show your support as you pass them. Or you don’t support them, and therefore cross the line and shop. What you DON’T need to do is put act like an ass, because you think it makes you big, bad and tough, and put MY HUSBAND in bodilly danger you pinhead. OK. I’m done venting. Thank you.
Recent Comments