Name Changer

Growing up in California with a long and difficult to pronounce Armenian last name was always a thorn in my side. It was a thorn I was proud to bear, because I am fiercely proud of my ancestry and cultural heritage. I've loved the burden of having the signature "ian" tacked on to the back of my name, but I've always considered it a temporary burden which would change once I got married. I know many female peers who have kept their maiden last names upon getting married and a handful who have opted to hyphenate. I never considered either option since I consider myself a little more old fashioned. I always knew that when the time came, I would change my last name.

One day, while I was checking into a Hotel, the front desk attendant laughed at my complicated last name and said "I bet you can't wait to get married and switch to Smith or Jones" It was a bit odd hearing her say that because I knew I would NEVER be a Smith or Jones but it did make me wonder..."What if I married someone with a longer and more difficult Armenian last name than mine?"

 

I have a fairly common, authentic Armenian last name. However not all Armenians can say that. Due to the influences of the Ottoman Empire of which Armenia was a subject, a lot of Armenians have last names that lack the "ian" ending. Other Armenians have Turkish root words in their last names. For example if one of your ancestors was a dentist (Turkish word for dentist = Terzi) your last name today might be Terzian. If one of your ancestors was a bread maker (Turkish word for bread = ekmek) your last name today might be Ekmekjian. Just like I hadn't considered the possibility of marrying someone with a longer or trickier last name than mine, I also hadn't considered the likelihood that I would end up with someone with a Turkified last name. I happen to currently be  engaged to a man who has one of these Turkish influenced Armenian last names and I find myself clinging on to my authentic thorn.

 

I was discussing my dilemma with a friend to gain some perspective on this issue from a male point of view and what he had to say really surprised me. This friend works in Human Resources and he advised me to NOT change my name. He pointed out that both my undergraduate and graduate degree were acquired with my maiden name and that the reputation I've built for myself in my line of work for the past decade has been with my maiden name. He stressed that if I change my last name now all of that will disappear and create confusion. He did mention that had I been getting married prior to getting my degrees and starting my career he would have told me to take my fiance's last name, but given my current situation he did not think it was a good idea.  His thoughts on this topic really made me realize that taking a husband's last name really stems from a time when women did not have degrees and careers. It helped me see how much simpler this name change would have been had I gotten married in my early 20's.

 

For now, I am not sure what decision I will make but luckily I have a about 3 months to decide.

 

Jerz Craze

There are a number of things in life that I can't control; my weight, my opinions which inappropriately spill out of my mouth more often than I care to admit, my appetite around Trader Joe's chocolate peanut butter cupcakes (don't ever try them!) and my slight obsession with any and all terrible television shows about New Jersey. If it's based in Jersey or about people from Jersey there's about a 98% chance that I've got a season pass and I watch it!

I don't even know where it all began...was it MTV's Jersey Shore or Bravo's Real Housewives of Orange County? Who knows, but since then my DVR and I have spent an ungodly amount of hours basking in awful Jersey themed garbage. You might be wondering, why New Jersey? God, if I knew perhaps I could put an end to this nonsense and put my time to far better use, but my best guess is that my family has history in the "great" garden state. When my mother's family left Lebanon, they moved to New Jersey and soon after my father left behind his entire family for love and moved to New Jersey as well to be closer to his high school sweetheart & attend college in New York. Eventually, my parents moved to California and NEVER looked back.

 

When the time came for me to go to college I came home from the college fair with brochures for NYU, Colombia, Rutgers, William Paterson etc and my father's reaction was basically (I'll paraphrase here) the equivalent of "Are you shitting me? We left that hell hole & you want to go back? You're born and raised in the state with the best weather and you want to leave to go deal with humidity and snow? You're Crazy!" Needless to say he was not supportive of the idea of me taking out student loans to pay for tuition and the added penalty of out of state fees for the likes of New Jersey. I'm guessing his disapproval added an allure to this forbidden state so I'm going to go ahead and blame him for my filthy obsession. Wait, this probably also explains why I ended up with a guy from New Jersey... I probably did it subconsciously to spite my dad!

 

Let's start with the first two shows I fell for. MTV's Jersey Shore. Who didn't fall for this show? The cast members were orange unapologetic drunkards with bizarre hairdos. They had a fun language all their own calling themselves guidos, guidettes, gorilla juiceheads and clever phrases we could quote like "It's t-shirt time", "Cab's ah heeh" etc. I hadn't quoted an MTV television show since Pedro from the SF season wanted to "isolate myself from you guys ass lohng ass Puck es ahround" and Heather from the NY season insisted that "my towels are from the JC Penny collection". Along with a lot of other people in America I fell in love with the hot mess who was "Snooki". Her hair bump, her gymnastics, she was so fun to watch. Over the years, I've enjoyed watching her style and hair change and although she's all waify now her son is the cutest little guido baby ever!

 

             

 

Then came the Real Housewives of New Jersey. To this day I can't decide who I like and who I can't stand on this show. I used to love to Theresa, she was the one we could laugh at, but nowadays she terrifies me kind of how Danielle used to. I love the Wakili's, the Laurita's and the Manso's but the jury is still out Melissa.

 

 

 

For a while I was also watching a short lived show on the Style network called Jersey Couture which took TLC's Say Yes To The Dress and dipped it into a glittery vat of sequins! This show was about the Scali family who run a formal dress shop called Diane & Co. The mother was sweet and funny but she sort of shot that persona in the foot when she refused to accept a return and make a refund to a 16 year old girl whose boyfriend had died in a car accident 2 weeks before the prom. Needless to say the community's backlash wasn't pretty. I'm fairly certain that stupid move also managed to kill their TV show. I liked the sisters on this show so I'm still hoping Chrissy ends up dating one of the Manso kids and gets herself back on TV.

 

 

Another short lived show I watched was called Made in Jersey. Unlike all the others this one was not a reality based show. It was about a young lawyer. I guess it didn't have enough loud Jerseyesque yelling scenes because it got canceled after one season.

 

 

Somewhere around this time frame I peeled myself away from the tube long enough to get into a book series my cousin introduced me to by author Janet Evanovich. The first book in the series was titled One For The Money. The books is about Stephanie Plum a down on her luck 30 something girl living in New Jersey who ends up working as a bounty hunter for her greasy cousin Vinny the bail bondsman. Yes, they turned it into a movie starring Katherine Heigl. Just last month, I read the 14th book of the series and although I can't imagine how many more of these Evanovich can pop out, I hope she at least stretches it out to 20!

 

 

 

I would have to say that my favorite of all the Jersey shows would have to be JERSEYLICIOUS! From the first episode I found myself entertained by Olivia. She was a prettier and far more sober version of Snooki. I've enjoyed watching Olivia's career blossom over the seasons. I've also enjoyed the supporting cast on the show and getting small snippets into what each of their lives is like. I really liked Doria, but I guess she didn't bring enough drama to the show so they cut her. Gigi was the sweet innocent nice girl, but after moving out and breaking up with Frankie she got more interesting. The addition of Michelle and Jackie as supporting cast was a great move. They're fun and interesting and there should be a bit more about them in the show.  I couldn't decide if I liked Alexa, but she added spice to the show. They gave her a spin off about her own Glam Factory, but in my opinion that show was a flop because her staff  (Brielle, Jess & John, were a bunch of uninteresting airheads. Maybe now that she's married and has a kid they can work her back into Jerseylicious and cut Tracy out. She's the one thing I don't enjoy about the show. I understand every reality tv show needs a villian but on most shows they mix it up season to season. This girl has been the resident bitch since season 1 and it's gotten old. She stirs up the drama but when people dish it back she can't handle it. I'm over scenes showing her crying to her friends and boyfriend wondering what's wrong with other people. I'd love it if they did an intervention and laid it all the footage of her lies and bullshit over the seasons for her to see she's her own problem. THAT would be interesting. I do have the most unhealthy obsession of all with this show since I occasionally will check out Snook's pics on Instagram (can't help it her baby is cute and she's lost hella weight!) but I do follow a couple of the Jerseylicious cast members on Twitter and Instagram on the reg.

 

Around this time, I was also watching Cake Boss.I found the family dynamic interesting until I realized that when Buddy and his sister Mary were on screen, I preffered watching the show on mute. I liked Mauro, Maddalena, Grace and Joey but the rest of the cast was annoying and truly I found the cakes he made to be borderline hideous so this was the first NJ based show to fall off my DVR. That being said, if I ever find myself in Hoboken again I may go try their bakery for some Italian desserts.

 

 

 

By this time I was trying to  cut down on my NJ shows and I thought I had reached my quota of bad NJ reality TV until I saw the promos for Mobwives and set my DVR. In my defense  I thought it was based in Jersey and by the time I watched the first episode and realized my error it was too late and I was hooked. I don't have a favorite on this show. I think all 4 main characters are nuts. Ramona and Love are nuts, but once Big Ang hit the screen with her cute ass dog Louie and her Herman Munster looks and smoker's cough I was putty in her hands!

                                     
                                                   

Since Staten Island found itself represented on my DVR queue I didn't want to piss off Long Island so I checked out an episode of Long Island Medium and now I find myself visiting Theresa Caputo's website and checking her events page. I'm a lost cause!

 

I Think I'm Finally Full...

Doctors, trainers at the gym conducting assessments, and the little tag with double digit numbers in the jeans that won't move up further than my thighs have all been signaling and telling me for years what I haven't wanted to accept. I've been expanding!

 

There have been many signs, and by signs I mean direct and blatant statements like "you are overweight for your height", but for some reason I didn't think I needed to be too concerned since nobody had staged a serious intervention like on television.

 

During the first decade of my life, my parents were far too busy to ensure ,my sister and I were eating properly. My mother would leave for work before we woke up and my father was more concerned with ensuring we made his cappuccino and steamed the milk properly than wondering what we were eating for breakfast or taking to lunch (the answer being nothing! Perhaps he felt the future Starbucks barista training was more important than nourishment?). On very rare occasions he would take a piece of pita bread, split it in half, smear some lebne into it, slap a couple pieces of Colombus mortadella in there, wrap it up in some saran wrap or foil, and hand us each one half. Once in a blue moon after a family trip to Price Club that unicorn sandwich would be accompanied by a Maid juice box and/or a Del Monte Fruit cup sans a fork. Sometimes lunch would be just a juice box or nothing at all. 

 

    

 

 

 

We never had junk food in our house growing up. Soda, chips, cookies, candy and cake would only appear around birthdays and holidays when we were having parites. Our only exciting and fun kid friendly foods were our cereals. Pops, Apple Jacks, Cookie Crisp, those were treats! Needless to say, my sister and I were rail thin! This all changed when my mother became ill and my grandmother moved in. All of a sudden someone was making me breakfast, packing me lunches and giving me after school snacks, dinner and dessert EVERY DAY! In my 4th grade class picture I was thin and gangly, in my 5th grade class picture I was a porker! It took me 24 years to come to the realization and correlation that my grandmother is the reason why I got fat!

My theory also extends to my 2 cousins who lived in Las Vegas who were also skinny little things until my grandmother went to live with them! She must have made them fat too! Let's think this through shall we? My grandfather was fat, my grandmother's 3 daughters were fat and now all her grandchildren were fat! She would cook and bake because it was her way of showing love. I bet you're wondering about her, well she managed to stay thin and beautiful her entire life. It's the most confounding conundrum.

 

 

Another endearing fault of my grandmother's was she hated to waste anything. My aunt Vera says it's because my grandmother grew up with very little so she tried to make use of every last morsel of anything if she could. She would make us eat food until it was gone so she wouldn't have to throw it away. She would wash and reuse ziploc bags, every last bit of yarn from her knitting and crocheting and she would even make use of the cardboard in toilet paper rolls for crafts. My grandmother was reducing, reusing and recycling before it was cool!

 

So fast forward to the present. I am overweight because I have spent years of my life over eating because my grandmother told me to eat up! When there's 2-3 bites left but I'm full I force myself to eat the last few bites because "there are hungry people in the world". I can be sitting on the couch in the living room and I hear her voice in my head saying "there's only one more piece of apple cake left, come eat it so I can wash the plate". I literally have mental dialouges with myself about how  am not hungry and don't need the last peice of whatever, but my grandmother's voice always trumps my own and I end up marching my ass into the kitchen to consume the last few pieces of baklava! I love my grandmother, but her actions led to an unhealthy relationship with food worthy of seeking out the nearest overeaters anonymous meetings. I respect that she didn't want us to be wasteful, but what I can't help but wonder is if she was so concerned why didn't SHE ever just eat the damn food herself????

 

I think I've finally hit rock bottom! I ate two steaks and a giant baked potato yesterday. About half way through the second piece of steak and 3/4 of the way through my potato I was full, but I pushed on in the spirit of not being wasteful. I was so full that I felt sick to my stomach. I literally was disgusted with myself and had to take a nap (well I sort of fell asleep into a fat food coma!). I never want to feel that way again. I have to find ways to be ok with stopping and not thinking about the last tortilla begging for me to make a peanut butter and jelly wrap so the ghost of my grandmother can rinse the plastic tortilla bag because  I think I'm finally full!

 

 

 

Deal Sealed

Exactly one month ago, we had placed an offer on a home, it had been accepted and after paying for the inspection we found out that the house didn't appraise and when the sellers still expected us to pay our original offer which was about $25k over the appraisal price, we walked away and started perusing the MLS again and attended open houses feeling a deflated and defeated. About a week after we had signed our cancellation, I called the escrow office to inquire about when we would be getting our deposit back. What I was expecting to hear was "We will have a check ready for you to pick up tomorrow" or "A check was mailed to you yesterday" but what I heard instead was "We have not received a signed cancellation from the seller". This pissed me off to no end. When I contacted our real estate agent to find out what the heck was going on he called the listing agent and then all of a sudden we were negotiating price again! We will never know whether our agent or theirs had failed to submit the cancellation. We stuck to our guns and didn't agree to pay a penny more than we had offered after the appraisal came back. Well, our stubbornness paid off because the sellers ended up accepting our offer!

 

My predictions were way off!

We didn't end up placing 7 offers before one stuck. We placed 4 offers before one stuck!

We didn't fall out of escrow 3 times we fell out once-ish.

It didn't take us 9 months to land a new house, it took us 3!

We moved in last week!

 

 

Breaking up with Tradition

I used to consider myself a fairly old fashioned girl, but old fashioned girls don’t move out of their father’s house to live in a beachy party town. Old fashioned girls definitely don’t move in with their boyfriends and old fashioned girls definitely don’t buy a housewith said boy before they are married.

I came to the realization that I wasn't in a traditional relationship when I began telling people we were engaged and faced the inevitable “how did he propose?” question. Most people are not amused when I respond with “He didn’t" I mean it's 2013 people! There was a discussion and a decision, he didn't have to ask because he knew what my response was going to be. In my opinion if a guy has to ASK and doesn't know if the girl wants to marry him, then they need to get to know each other more before they take such a big step! I loved that he wanted to include me in the ring picking process, because we got to create something totally unique. We all know a handful of girls who ended up with engagement rings that aren't exactly what they wanted. Why on earth would you want someone to dictate what will be on your finger? Having to wear a ring already feels like your finger is in ring jail so at least it should be something you picked and like.

They say every girl has a "dream wedding". I didn't know what mine was until last year when I found myself talking about how I wanted to get married at a mountaintop monastery in Armenia. Perhaps it could be Sevanavank, Haghardzin, Goshavank, Sanahin or Haghpat. I wanted it to be  simple and intimate followed by a small reception at one of the many Tufenkian Heritage Hotels.

 

 

Yes, that would have been my dream wedding, with 10-20 of my closest friends and family but unfortunately my fiance did not share my vision, so instead we are spending 4x as much to have a regular old semi-traditional California Armenian wedding.

First order of business was deleting entire boards on Pinterest dedicated to this destination wedding that did not materialize and replacing them with pins that were more relevant to the actual wedding we were going to have. I strongly recommend wasting hours of your life on this website to create vision boards of what you want your wedding and life to be like, so then you can properly get depressed over how NOT like Pinterest your real life is.

 

Next I reached out to a future cousin-in-law for some perspective and she gave it to me straight. She told me that everyone and their mom was going to have an opinion about how we should do this wedding but that we should stick with what WE want despite what other people want for us. This couldn't have been more true when it came to our wedding reception venue! Armenians tend to get married in gaudy banquet halls and if I had a dollar for each time a friend or family member tried to get us to consider one of these awful banquet halls, this wedding would have paid for itself. We took her advice, broke with tradition and chose a venue WE liked. Another thing she advised me to do was to buy a few bridal magazines. I'll admit I scoffed at the idea thinking I had enough nonsense to look at on Pinterest, but I followed her advice because I respect her insights, and I'm glad I did it, because I found some very useful information and by found I mean ripped out and filed in my wedding Trapper Keeper. That's right I said wedding Trapper Keeper because she also advised me to start a binder and stay organzied so I busted out the trusty Trapper Keeper!  

The most tedious part of wedding planning, if you ask me, is wedding dress shopping. I didn't have a specific fabric or design in mind so I tried on about 6 different dresses each very different from the other. This helped me realized what looked good on me and what didn't. I settled on one that I felt like myself in. Was it the perfect dress? Nope, was it the most beautiful dress I've ever seen? Nah but it will do. The salesgirl wanted me to love it and cry, but no dress is going to make me cry unless it's being worn by someone I love and there's a blood all over it because they've been shot and are dead! Then...I might cry.

Another area in which we will be breaking from tradition is the whole not seeing each other before the church. We're doing our photos before the church because as the wedding planner says "that's when your hair and makeup will be freshest" but in all honestly we're doing it before because I want to join our cocktail hour! We also won't be doing the garter and bouquet toss. I'm in my 30's, I can count on one hand the number of single girlfriends and cousins I have and there is NO WAY I'm putting these women on blast like that! We also won't be observing the tradition of honeymooning right after the wedding. We have too much going on this year, so we've decided to take a big one year anniversary trip and give ourselves extra time to plan it.

 

All this said. I can't wait for certain aspects of our wedding day like having all our family and friends in one place happy and jubilant because that is what I will think back and cherish for years to come!

 

 

 

Behind the Smoke and Mirrors

Screw you HGTV! Screw you and all your stupid real estate shows that make it seem like buying a home is an easy process during which you look at three houses and one of them just so happens to be THE ONE! In fact, you make it look so simple that I've stooped to the depressing level of emailing some of your shows to see if we could become one of the lucky couples who finds a house in a neatly packaged half hour show!

Since my fiance and I are both transplants to Orange County we began our house hunt process in January by driving around Orange County and checking out various cities to narrow down our search areas. Here, I'll share with you some of our findings:

Ug-ly: adjective 

1. unpleasant to look at; offensive; displeasing in appearance

2. disagreeable; objectionable

3. morally revolting

There is a lot of ugly going on in Orange County! I went into this envisioning neighborhoods and homes that would look something like this...

Notice in the picture above there is a respectale Volvo station wagon parked in the driveway. Unfortuantely instead of finding Volvo station wagons in potential neighbor's driveways. Since our budget falls under $1 million we have to deal with these eyesores in almost every neighborhood.

Let's continue shall we?

Another thing we learned is that we apparently missed the "buyer's market" and are in a "seller's market" which basically translates to  inventory is at an all time historic low & every seller acts like they are doing you a favor by selling you what they think is the Taj Mahal. To quote our real estate agent "I've never seen anything like this. Last year at this time there were over 12,000 listings on the MLS in L.A. County, now there are 925! There are a few zip codes we are looking at in Orange County and at any given time, there are maybe 4-10 listings in each zip code. Any decent house we an offer on gets swept away by a cash buyer or doesn't appraise but buyers still want it sold for more than it appraised for. 

Here is some of the BS we have seen so far....

-Probate properties galore since only dead people seem to be listing their homes

-A home with a creepy hot tub right in the middle of the living room, kitchen and master bedroom. (Yes you could sit in the hot tub and converse freely with anyone in any part of the house)

-A home with a random door in the master bathroom which leads into the garage! (for those times when you get home and really have to pee & can't be bothered to walk through other rooms or a hallway to access a restroom)

-A home that had senior citizens in twin beds hooked up to respirators and IVs (No, the senior citizens don't come with the house, I asked...We'd have to evict them)
-A home that shares a swimming pool with the property next door
-A home with a pool that's being used as storage because it's not in working condition
-A home with holes in random areas on the ceiling because ther had been a SWAT team invasion & they punched holes in ceilings to throw smoke bombs into the attic to find the escaped convict who was thought to be hiding out in the attic
 

We are in month 2 of our search, and have already put 2 offers on 2 seperate houses. I'm predicting we will place 7 offers before one sticks, that we will fall out of escrow 3 times, and that the search will take us 9 months. Am I being too optomistic?

What am I doing?

Most people grow up with a dream of becoming a teacher, doctor or lawyer. As a pre-schooler my wish was to be a “der-hayr” which means priest in Armenian. This aspiration was quickly shot down by adults who informed me that females can’t become priests in the Armenian Apostolic Church and that I should pick a more “girly” career path. My next inclination was to say I wanted to be a florist because Janet one of the characters on Three’s Company, a television show I watched every day upon coming home from pre-school was a florist. Let’s examine this for a moment shall we? First off, why was I watching that show? Second, why didn’t I take to Terry who was a nurse? Third, what the hell did Chrissy and Cindy do for a living? Perhaps if Jack hadn’t constantly been getting fired or shamed by the creepy Felipe I would have been attracted to the idea of being a chef?

As I got older I was always painfully aware that all my friends had answers to the “what do you want to be when you grow up?” question and I didn’t. I was always considering various things. I have memories of discussions with my father about why being a truck driver, wasn’t a good thing and him insisting we watch the movie Backdraft when I started talking about becoming a firefighter. This trend continued until I found myself in college. I told my father I really enjoyed geography and maps! I had after all won the Jr. High geography bee, I was a master of the Thomas guide and my nickname was Rand McNally! I told him cartography interested me and he quickly pointed out that with the wide spreading popularity of computers maps were on their way out. To this day I wonder if this dissuading on his part towards the cartography major was a blessing or a derailing of what could have been a riveting career path.

 

I had wanted to pursue urban planning, but when I transferred colleges the new university didn’t offer this major so I remained a confused “undeclared” up until I found myself sitting across an academic advisor who was waiting for me to pick a major because I had completed all my general education requirements and couldn’t get cleared to register for any more classes without declaring a major. Naturally, I went with Liberal Arts so I could continue taking ambiguous courses. Then I saw a flier advertising a History course during the winter session which would take the students on a journey to the Ancient World. GREECE! Who didn’t want to go to Greece during winter break and get course credit? I attended the information session meeting and signed up! I had no money to pay for this course, but as luck would have it I worked in a bank so the next day during my shift I walked over to my co-worker Gibran’s desk and as we joked and sang along to Lionel Richie’s “Balleria Girl” he helped me apply for a $2,000 personal loan to pay for Greece! Looking back in retrospect this was the dumbest yet best mistake of my life!

It took me 4 years to pay off that stupid loan, but I didn’t care! I wrote each one of those checks with a huge smile on my face because it had been such a great trip! I made new friends, forged some amazing memories with them and most importantly I got to soak in Dr. Hood’s infectious passion for History! Upon returning from that trip which to this day I refer to as the best trip of my life, I changed my major to History! My history classes kicked my ass because I wasn’t a strong writer but I enjoyed learning, I also went on two more study-tours to Italy and Cuba! Although I had discovered a passion and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in History, the only option with History was to teach but I needed to find  a career that would offer me job security and stability because I had to support myself.

 

That’s how I ended up in public service working for municipalities. I figured this baby boomer dominated field was eventually going to face a time when the boomers would be retiring en masse. Earning my Master’s Degree was something I felt I had to do to ensure I had both the educational and professional requirements to apply for future positions. Things went well for me in public service. I’ve always been well compensated, I have generous benefits and when I retire my pension and health insurance will be taken care of. However last year I made a shift, I left City government and joined a quasi-public agency which technically still constitutes as public service, but for some reason I just haven’t been able to get passionate about wastewater treatment!

What am I doing with my life? I’m engaged, planning a big-fat Armenian wedding I don’t want, trying to buy a house in an area I’m not sure I want to spend my life in, I’m not traveling as much as I used to, I’m not volunteering which I used to do and worst of all, I’m working at a job I don’t care about.

Every morning when I park my car at work I mentally sing the following song as I walk up to the building I work in.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same

 

Do I stay in this boring field for another 20 years and make the best of it until it’s time to retire? Should I try to find something else that may not compensate me as well and be as stable, but at least won’t bore me stiff? I guess the problem here is that even if I choose option #2 then I’m back to the issue I’ve had my whole life of figuring out what I want to be when I grow up!  

Racism behind the Orange Curtain

Tomorrow is Marting Luther King Jr. Day. A Federal holiday. A holiday that I have always enjoyed observing because as MLK is one of the few people in America's history that I am proud of. MLK lead the type of life only a handful of humans will be able to lead. He used his life and his voice to make a difference, to speak up and out for those who couldn't and wouldn't. 

I have spent over a decade in public service and have worked for both conservative and liberal municipalities. Two things these cities have all had in common was first, that they all lie within the confines of Los Angeles County, and two that they all observed Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Tomorrow for the first time ever I will be at work and not observing Martin Luther King Jr. Day because something has changed. Something that shouldn't have mattered in the year 2013 in the great State of California, but it does. I now work for a public agency in Orange County!

When I first moved here, I thought it was great, everything was shiny and glittery and new. Well, it's been a few months and the shine and glitter have faded and the perfume has worn off. I smell this place now. I knew about Orange County's reputation. I knew this County was far more conservative, far more white, far more Christian, far more Republican... I even had read the 50 Reasons why Orange County is the worst place in America but we finally have an African-American POTUS for Pete's sake! I guess I was naive enough to think that meant something.

 

Looking at the holiday calendar at work and seeing we don't get MLK day off but we get two random days off in February for a couple white Presidents got to me! I did some digging and realized all Federal or County agencies would be closed, but not my public agency. This is is strike two against my employer! The first strike came when we prayed at work! Being Christian, part of me didn't mind it, but in over a decade of public service I had never witnessed or been a part of prayer at a public agency! Don't we have a whole thing about separation of church and state? What about our non-Christian co-workers? I was conflicted about the prayer thing, but let it go, but now I have this MLK thing on my mind and my blood is boiling? Can I say something? Do I say something?  

 

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - MLK

 

 

What do I do? Do I call in sick as a sign of protest? Do I go in wearing an MLK shirt as a passive aggressive form of protest? Do I look for another job because I don't want to be part of an agency that does this? Do I make like a tree and leaf and move my ass to the LBC? Do I make a huge stink, get fired, then go to the press? Ghandi said "Be the change you want to see in the world" so I will stick around but after I'm past probation I will be speaking up about this!

 

 

"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."

Martin Luther King Jr.

 

 

Coffee Buffett

"I'll have a grande-nonfat-double-soy-frappe-mappe-latte-half caff-with whip!"

This is what it sounds like to me when I hear people ordering coffee. I've never really been a fan of coffee or understood why people go crazy for this bitter tinted bean water.

This all changed when I moved to Orange County and found myself commuting to my job in Santa Monica at the crack of dawn. I had joined a vanpool which occasionally required that I take a turn behind the wheel to drive the van. Since getting sleepy behind the wheel, with 5 other lives at stake, wasn't an option I wanted to explore, I turned to the 7 Eleven across the street from out 'Park and Ride' lot to supply myself with some essential caffeine.

Being fairly new to the world of coffee I wasn't expecting what I found waiting for me at the 7 Eleven coffee area. No, really... I wasn't ready for all that jelly! I couldn't believe what I was staring at! There are over a dozen different types of brewed coffee (French Vanilla, Hazelnut, Blueberry, Decaf, Bold, Blonde etc) and various  creamer options as well (French Vanilla, Hazelnut, Irish Coffee, Raspberry, Chocolate, almond joy, Caramel Machiatto, Vanilla Latte, powder creamer, half and half, milk, etc). As if this wasn't sufficient there are also flavored powders you can sprinkle on your drink and flavored syrups you can pump into your cup! I felt like I had hit some kind of coffee buffett jackpot! All of this was a little too much for me to contend with. My initial reaction was to flee the situation, but I decided to stay and fight! I figured it was natural to feel a little intimidated facing this coffee mecca for the first time, but I was so overwhelmed and stressed out that I'm surprised I didn't experience an anxiety attack.

Now every time I visit the "build your own coffee buffett" I have to control my excitement. Through trial and error, I have learned to stay away from flavored brews, powders and syrups and just stick with regular old decaff brew. My fun comes from experimenting with the flavored creamers. I force myself to stick with the smallest size cup so that if what I concoct turns out to be the most disgusting flavor combination imaginable (this has already happened once and I'm doubtful I could recreate that god awful assy combination again) I won't be stuck with a lot of it. The only downside to this plan is that sometimes I create the most delicious drink and wish I had more of it to enjoy.

I'm not going to say I've figured out coffee just yet. I still get teased by real coffee drinkers for putting sweet or flavored things in my coffee, but at least now I can say I like coffee IF it's coming from the coffee buffett and IF I've had a good day gambling with the flavored creamers. I already know the next time I go in I'm doing almond joy and caramel macchiato! YUM!

Orange you glad?

Two months ago, I took a leap out into the unknown. I moved out of Los Angeles County where I was born and raised and had lived my entire life, to Orange County (OC)! It was very spur of the moment. I hadn’t spent any time contemplating the moved or planned for it. I decided I would move on a Tuesday made a couple calls Wednesday and moved that Friday. I wouldn’t say it’s in my character to make random hurried changes to such major parts of my life, but on occasion I have pulled the trigger on some things and so far all of my spontaneous adventures have been happy ones.

My experiences in my new environment debunked a few stereotypes I had heard my entire life about Orange County (majority of the population is white, mostly republicans, racist) However, there is more ethnic diversity than I expected. Granted it's concentrated in distinct areas like Westminster, santa Ana, Anaheim, Garden Grove and Irvine, but it's there. It's working out for my
palate whose got her panties all in a bunch because there are new foods to try. I practically did a cartwheel when I found out there is a JONS Market and a Super King nearby! The Middle Eastern food in Anaheim is off the wall. If I need comfort food I’ve got Zankou Chicken, Sarkis Pastry and Jack’s Bakery. The heavy presence of the IT sector in Irvine has brought in so many Indians that there are numerous Indian restaurants to try and not enough time. I could write a completely separate blog entry about all the various Asian communities and my culinary adventures in that realm or even the several different Hispanic communities and their delicious cookeries! I’ve even got a few Persian food joints bookmarked. Whoever (I’m talking to you Mrs. DuBrow) says there are no good restaurants in OC, is a fool! I have bookmarked so many places on Yelp to try that I'm overwhelmed and often have difficulty deciding where to go! 

One thing Orange County has got a lot better than Los Angeles County, is that it is super easy to get around in Orange County. The freeway system in OC is so effective that it’s a joy to go to Long Beach, Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, or Newport Beach all of which I can get to in 15-20 minutes without having to deal with traffic. I love that I can visit my aunt in La Jolla and getting there takes less time than it sometimes used to take me to get from the Westside to Hermosa Beach! I am astounded by all the things there are to do in OC. We’ve gone hiking, taken the pup to dog parks and a dog beach, caught a show at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts & listened to live bands at Detroit Bar, checked out the Discovery Science Center, gone to Disneyland, hung out near UC Irvine and pretended to be co-eds, explored downtown Santa Ana, old town Tustin and stood in the long line at 85C Bakery. Greek Festivals? We’ve got em, County Fair & cool concert venues? We’ve got those too! Airport? Check! Beaches, mountains and a zoo? Yup! OC has got stuff to do.

 

I’m not hating my new life behind the “orange curtain” the weather is beautiful, the sales tax is lower, people aren’t as jerky as they are in LA, the roads aren’t congested, the vistas are beautiful and best of all….it’s peaceful! Ahhhhh....I can finally hear myself dream.