adventures in amy-land

I recently moved to Orange County from Colorado, and have had such an interesting transition these first few months, I thought I’d start blogging, because I couldn’t make this up. First off, I’ll introduce myself. My name is Amy, I am a 32 year old single female. I studied Art and English Literature in a small liberal arts college outside of Portland, Oregon, travelled extensively for about five years out of college and eventually wound up moving back to Colorado after leaving Spain with 15.00 in my bank account (there really wasn’t much of a choice). I started working as an office assistant for a party rental company in a small mountain town, I was hired for a seasonal position but was told that it was permanent when hired. Once that job came to an end, I started working for my parents’ audio/video business, they sold the business after a year and I stayed on for another three and a half years as the Administrative Manager (Assistant Comptroller would be a better description of the job though). So I am a walking contradiction, Financial Director by day and artist by night–hey noone can say I don’t keep things interesting! After living in a small mountain town for five years, I realized that if I stayed there, I would turn into a crazy old woman with too many pets, bad hair and worse makeup, with a moderate drinking problem–you know the type. Being a 30-something single well travelled and well-educated single woman in a town of 7500 people is a challenge (not an intellectual challenge mind you, but trying on the sanity and patience). So I decided to move to Orange County, a place I had sworn I would NEVER EVER live in my younger, more idealistic days. (Note to self: Never say you’ll never do anything because by doing that you’re committing to proving yourself wrong). Incidentally I found myself getting excited about moving to “the land of sunshine, fake boobs and David Hasselhoff” as a friend so succinctly described it in my going away party invitation. My reason for moving out here? A job, working for my brother’s audio/video company, and eventually to obtain an MBA in accounting. So I left my job in Colorado, rented out my house and reanted a Budgettruck with a trailer for my car. A good friend from highschool drove out with me and this was what ensued:

Trav and I headed out in the huge Budget rental truck on the 16th of May, with the intent to drive straight through. Zeus (my 100lb lapdog and Poseidon (my 9lb kitty) crammed in the cab of the truck with us. Poseidon freaked and panted for a while but after about two hours he was fine, and curled up next to Zeus in between the two seats or slept behind one of the two seats. Everything went fine, I drove until about 1:30 in the morning and handed the wheel over to Trav  on the western edge of Utah. At three in the morning I hear Travis saying “f#@*!” and wake up to ask what’s going on….all he has to say is, “well I’m not sure but sparks aren’t good” (mind you the front light casing has already popped out 2 or maybe 3 times). So the trailer got a flat tire, Trav calls roadside assistance and is told it will probably take and hour, maybe and hour and a half (we are about 40 miles east of vegas at this point). 5:30 in the morning arrives and the repair guy finally shows up, apparently they didn’t have the size specified and had to go to their shop to get it. Low and behold, Budget gave the repair facility the WRONG TIRE SIZE AND the guy notices that another tire on the same side of the trailer is about to blow. Trav gets in my car to get some sleep, I attempt to sleep in the cab of the truck, I don’t want to leave the pets and have them freaking out too. The truck seats are probably the most uncomfortable seats on the planet I think I could have slept better on a bed of nails. So instead I call customer service to bitch. I tell them that they need to refund some of what I paid them because the truck was evidently not checked well enough to ensure it’s driveability, I have looked at all of the tires and they all have very little tread. I take Zeus out and walk him around and let him go to the bathroom. I get back in the truck and manage a little bit of sleep, I call customer service again to find out when the repair guy will be there and to bitch some more (I’m getting good at bitching, and besides it just made me feel better.  Apologies to the customer service representatives.) The repair guy arrives at 8 am (5 FREAKING HOURS AFTER THE BREAKDOWN). I have Zeus outside walking off of the side of the the highway, he has chewed his head harness so his leash is attached to his collar. Trav is on the phone while tire guy is doing his work. Zeus sees a lizard, and he charges after it, I let go of the leash when I realize he is about to take me with him through stickers and random desert weeds. I am yelling my head off at Zeus, Trav looks like he wants to laugh but is so annoyed at this point he can’t. We finally get back on the road at about 8:30 in the morning, have to deal with Vegas traffic in a 16 foot truck with a trailer. I fall asleep just on the other side of Vegas. I wake up an hour or so later and Trav tells me we have another tire that just blew out, but “f#@&  it we’re driving on it because it’s one of the inner dual-lies and we’re not waiting another 5 hours for Budget to fix it”. Trav is a happy guy right now and I imagine he’s damning himself for offering to drive out with me at this point. Before I left home my iPod crashed, I recovered my music but haven’t downloaded it yet and have my computer geek friend’s library on it. Ema has a 6 year old, so amongst the Alice in Chains and good 90s alternative music mixed in with some great 80s hair metal are Blues Clues, The Wiggles, and Mother Goose Rocks. I decide to put “I’m so Happy You’re Here” from Blues Clues in the music mix just for Trav. I figure he needs a laugh and this will either make him laugh or he’ll get out close to the nearest airport and tell me I’m on my own. I get a chuckle. We get into California, I get excited when we pass Barstow and Bakersfield because I was reminded of Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing, we have already experienced the loathing part on our own. As we are getting closer we get stuck in a traffic jam on the 91 because of an accident (I think it was the 91 anyway, they have so damned many freeways out here I’m perpetually confused, having only I-70 and I-25 in Colorado). Finally we arrive at the house I have agreed to rent at 4pm, 6 hours after the anticipated time of arrival. I have to pee so unbelievably bad and the house is locked up, so I go behind the house and squat. Like Annie said “when you gotta go you gotta go”! At this point my phone battery has died maybe 4 times, I have contacted the property manager several times to rearrange our meeting time and a friend of a friend named Annie, who is planning on meeting us. I call her to tell her we have finally arrived, and bless her, she promises not only to come help us but to also bring beer (we both needed one after our 21 hour trip)! After signing my lease, handing over a huge cashiers check, and the property manager leaving I realize that there is no refrigerator in the house and even if there was there’s no power. I call the electric company and they can’t come out and hook me up until Wednesday (it’s Saturday), being a diabetic, I am freaking out because I have insulin that needs to stay cool, I call the property manager and leave an irate message about her inadequacies as a property manager. I realize that my blood-sugar is now low, I head down to a grocery store close to the house to get some food and hopefully a cooler. I find a cooler, ice, and buy some munchies for the people who are coming over to help. When I get back to the house, the crew, including an unbelievably cute and helpful 4 year old “Justus, spelled J-U-S-T-U-S” have already unloaded half of the truck. I get a beer and we continue unloading, Justus lets me know how strong he is, and what a good helper he is. And the little dude certainly is. He also keeps telling me that I need to come over and hang out everyday with him and his mom and his aunt–too damn cute!! The whole process maybe took two hours to unload. We all sit down and have a beer outside. Justus lets me know that “I wanna play something” eyeing the Spiderman picture on the side of my PS3, unfortunately, no power, no Spidey so I promise that when I get unpacked I will have them over and he can play video games. Mind you the little guy was ready to start unpacking and setting up the house, if only I had his energy…

Annie tells Trav and I she’s going to take us out on the town. So she leaves to get ready. I attempt to bathe (with no hot water), and then go out to my car to put on makeup (since there are no lights in the house) and my car has a dome light. I’m resourceful… Finally we are ready and head to Annie’s house. She drives us down to the harbor and we go to a bar/restaurant called Turks  where the waitress, forgets to bring my second beer and my water multiple times but never forgets Trav, I guess she thought he was cuter than me… Then we go to a great restaurant/bar in San Clemente, right on the pier, and a great dive bar in San Juan. Finally after being up for nearly 48 hours, we get back to the house, stumble through boxes with a tiny keychain flashlight, and pass out.

And this was just the first 24 hours, more to come, it does get better…

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