Afterthoughts: This Past Month

Some things stayed the same in March, some things changed.  Here's the update.

Sunday, March, 1, Everyone has lost their minds.  I encountered so many dopes today while going to the market.  At Jon's everyone seemed to be lost.  At Pavilions I had a guy behind me buying frozen pizza.  He didn't make eye contact.  He kept his head down.  I don't know why people are so anti-social.  I mean I kinda do it myself sometimes, but I'm also open to talk to people at the market.  But it wasn't that he kept his head down, it's that he almost hit me with his cart, and didn't acknowledge it.  There's more, but it's hard to explain.

My aunt has this obsession with telling me what to do.  It's sometimes life advice, but other times it's trivial things.  Today it was crackers.  I mean literally Saltine crackers.  I was making tuna salad for lunch this week, tasting it with crackers after seasoning.  I already had my crackers on the counter.  My aunt went and put Saltine crackers on the counter.  Like why?  I already had my crackers on the counter.  I had already finished seasoning.  It's because my aunt insists the Saltine crackers taste so good.  I wish she would just leave me alone.

Monday, March, 2, Today is day one of new furniture delivery at Central.  I'm not sure what they were going for, but I already question their motives because of the colors they picked for the new furniture.  The tables are a deep black.  Ah, why?  I sent a picture of the new furniture to several people, and three of them said it looked like a prison.  Yeah, it does.  I just know that a committee was formed and none of them could agree on the color, so they went with black and white.  The positive about the new furniture is that they actually have the correct type of furniture... desks.  Having that living room set instead of practical tables was a dumb idea.  TheNewCute's reaction was to ask if admin actively wanted people to stay away.  Vagabundo and TheGirl both said it made the library look like a prison.  I joked that they should change the name to Glen State Prison.

There's a reporter on channel four that is usually out in the field.  Today she was in the studio and boy did she look curvy.  Dammmmnnn!

Tuesday, March, 3, TheGirl said she had to wash her ward's dog this morning, so we couldn't go on a Tuesday Adventure together.  That's OK, I can still go out on an adventure.  Today I went back to Chinatown, specifically Cassell's burgers.  I wanted to try their patty melt.  It was amazing, but I'm glad I walked three miles today to mitigate all the calories I put in me today.

Last time I was at Cassell's I had a burger.  Which was good, but not as good as some of the other burgers I've had in town.  The patty melt was much better than their hamburger.  If I get to come back with TheGirl I'll be sure to get it again.  Also, I found out that they do serve wine at this location.  I'll have to arrange it with TheGirl to come here some day.

While I waited for my patty melt I sat in the garden of what used to be someone's house and is now the patio area at Cassell's.  I could hear a bunch of birds all over the place.  I could see a few, mostly sparrows.  But as I sat there I saw in a distant palm tree a hummingbird.  Not only did I see it, I saw it harvesting spider webs.  I learned a couple of years back that hummingbirds gather spider webs to make their nest, so that it has a little bit of give, but it also strong.  I tried to record it on video, but I was too slow.  But I got to actually see it, which is more important.

Wednesday, March, 4, Day three of the new furniture delivery was today.  They brought in some white furniture today.  I haven't asked around too much yet, but I think most people don't like the color of the black furniture.  I think it's too dark, but what do I know?

After our little run in a few weeks ago, Stephanie and I have been good.  Today she was at Central putting up a display in the display cabinet highlighting the newest show at Brand, Neighborhood Ecology.  It's not a bad show.  Not my favorite, but that makes me remember that I should submit my picture from Scripps college's Margaret Fowler garden.  I think that picture is chef's kiss good, but will the person who picks what gets into the Brand show like it?  It's not avant garde or anything like that.  Maybe it's too old fashioned for the gallery.  I'll see.

TheGirl and I already knew we were going to eat at Wood Ranch since that was one of the options last week.  I didn't want to have another burger this week, so I decided to get a chicken sandwich, and it was good.  TheGirl had her usual, a Natalie salad.  Carrying stuff to TheGirl's car, I was tempted to put my Wednesday bag in the back seat.  But I've been hesitant, because I've always not put things there because that was Cheyenne's domain.  Now that she's gone I don't want to put things back there because it's still her domain in my mind.

The moment I sat in my car to go home I had the urge to take a piss.  I was not going to hurry back to TheGirl's place.  Too bad, I thought to myself, I'll have to hold it until I get home.  Well, of course the fucking Algorithm has my aunt in the bathroom when I arrived at home.  I was so pissed that I went outside and took it out on the overgrown tree in the front yard.  Driving into my driveway these days I have to back the car in, because I have two of my neighbor's cars in the front yard.  I can't do my three point turn move.  The overgrown tree hangs in the lane I need to go in, and it bothers me.  Since I was pissed about the bathroom situation I started snapping tree limbs to trim it back so that I can see when I drive in backwards.  ARGH!

Thursday, March, 5, Kerri moved the chairs from the magazine area to the main floor next to the men's room due to some bad encounter earlier this week.  Kerri saw that there was a guy sleeping in the chair, which at the time was in the magazine area.  He didn't take it well, and basically told her to stuff it.  She tried being hard and told him something stern, and then turned her back on him.  In hindsight she knows she shouldn't have turned her back on him, but she wanted to make it look like he wasn't going to intimidate her.  He eventually left.  So, in order to not have another event where someone is sleeping in those chairs, thinking that they are shielded from our view, Kerri moved the chairs this morning.  She didn't know where to put them, and asked me for suggestions.  I told her to put them next to the men's room door, since that's where they used to be anyway.  There are three tables in that area, but two can't be moved because they are tied to the power plugs.  The third is not, so it's a natural place to move the chairs.  I told her to try it at least.  She did, and soon after one of our regulars comes in and doesn't like that we moved the chairs from the magazine area.  But, I pointed out where they are now and he says, "Oh that's not bad," and walked over to the newspapers and sat down in the new location.  Problem solved.

There's a woman that comes into the library to ask for help on her phone.  For the last couple of weeks she has come in for help with her Indeed profile.  Last week she came in asking how to upload her resume to the website.  I helped her only to have her say it was the wrong resume.  I told her to come back when she had the correct resume.  She comes in today saying she has the right one, but then keeps scrolling her photos looking for the old resume.  She does this thing where she won't listen to directions and will just randomly return to her home screen.  Three times I told her how to upload the resume after she showed me that she did have it in her documents folder.  But then she's on the mobile site and she says, "Should I go to settings?"  Like why?  Settings?  To upload a resume?!  I gave up and walked away.  Then I had to take some things to the back and that's when Katie ended up helping her on the computer, after I told the lady three times that she needed to do all this on the computer.  Katie spent the time there with her, ultimately telling me that at the end she ended up just doing it for her.  No!  We can't do that anymore.

The committee for something or other, work happiness, sent out some cookies to all the branches.  I guess snacks are the new pizza party.  There is a thing nowadays where the pizza party is the embodiment of the bad corporate culture where instead of actually appreciating the employees the employees get a pizza party.  Because it's always cheaper than providing healthcare, or giving employees a raise.  I didn't eat the cookies.  I'm trying to be good.

I walked all the way up to Campbell and Mountain again today, but as I approached Campbell my left hip started hurting... a lot.  Thankfully the pain subsided after a few steps.  What was that about?

I was checking out the new children's event flier when I noticed that they had a picture of the bookmobile in there.  The driver was a frog with a tie on.  They turned me into a frog!  I was associating the frog character driving the bookmobile with Mr. Toad.  Hmm.

Friday, March, 6, I was walking upstairs when I ran into Solomon.  He turns to me and asks me, "Did I tell you that I'm leaving?"  No, but I get it.  I knew he was not long for this library.  It's not a good place to work if you have ambition and want to move up in the world.  I figured he must have been looking for another job when they didn't make him the assistant director last year.  They had a good person in charge and of course they let him go.  Typical of this place.

For the last week I've had a pair of face twitches.  One right above my left eye, and the other on my lower right lip.  Where do these come from?  They are so annoying.

In addition to the new furniture we got new fake trees on the main floor.  I think they look really real.  It looks like they took some real trees and either made molds out of them, or more likely they treated them in some way to preserve them.  Then they attached fake leaves.  I kinda like the trees.  One coworker didn't like the style of tree, but to each their own.  Joseph did have a good idea that during the year they can put different colored lights on them.  Yes!  Next year they can put lanterns for Lunar new year.  Pride is coming up, maybe they can get rainbow lights.  For sure lights during Halloween and Christmas.

Saturday, March, 7, I went to the mall to pick up some food, but the take out place got my order wrong.  I checked last night what I wanted to order.  I even wrote it down.  I went up to the counter and told the lady a number twelve A, and a number ten.  What did I get?  I got a twelve B, which is a chicken kabob instead of beef.  I usually don't like online ordering, but I think from now on I will for this place in the future.  That's assuming I come back to this place.  Zankou is just as good, and has wonderful garlic paste.  This place doesn't.

I was chilling in the backyard, feeding the squirrel, when I turned around and noticed little plants coming out of the dirt.  Later my aunt confirmed what I had already figured out.  That she had spread the California poppy seeds that I bought for her a couple of weeks back.  Good.  I'm going to like having a little mini super bloom in my backyard.

Monday, March, 9, It would seem that many patrons like the new prison furniture at Central, because we've actually received some compliments about it.  I would say that the not black furniture is actually OK.  I still think the black furniture is way too dark.  And I don't like the configuration.  Also, those tables are heavy and they don't have wheels.  Boy, they know how to fuck something up every time.

I was telling TheGirl about this community survey they keep touting like it means something.  Well, I found a typo in it.  Also, the survey is said it would take ten minutes to complete.  Yeah, right.  It's so long that I feel it will take twice as long as that, at least.  Whatever!  Maybe that's the point, to make it so boring and long that no one completes it.

Tuesday, March, 10, For this week's Tuesday Adventure I went up to Griffith park with TheGirl.  Specifically we drove to Travel Town and walked up the now closed road, Griffith park drive.  Partially closed.  I came to find out later that the portion we walked up to from Travel Town to the composting site is closed.  But the other end is open.  That's nice, because there's a nice park by the composting facility that looks good for a picnic.

When I was downtown at the library I bought TheNewCute a journal.  It's taken me this long to finally mail it to her.  She should get it by Saturday.

Work was chill tonight, like it pretty much is every night at Casa Verdugo.  I think I'll bring a book with me on Thursday.  I have a bunch of books in the other room that I bought but didn't look through them.  Time to do so.

My aunt likes to leave me little notes on the dining room table.  This time it was another one of her idiotic notes telling me not to put too much seed in the bird feeders.  Like why?  She claims it's because the gardeners are coming tomorrow.  Like what does that mean?  As per usual, I ignored her note and did my thing.

Wednesday, March, 11, So many people have their birthdays this month, and so many just this week.  Everywhere I went today I was offered pastries and treats.  At Brand I did have a taste of the yummy Portos croissant.  But then when I got to Adams I was offered cannolis.  I only ate half, but tonight is also dinner with TheGirl.  That means booze.  I'm going to need to make up for all these snacks with a lot of walking.  But it's going to be hot for the rest of the week, so it's a good thing I got a lot of steps yesterday.

TheGirl's new hobby is Legos.  Which is good, because it keeps her mind distracted.  She's made quite a few sets over the last couple of months.  She says it keeps her focused on building rather than thinking about Cheyenne.  I'm glad that she has found this hobby on her own.  Now she just needs to find a job to continue funding this hobby.

For dinner we went to the Yard House.  It's become our go to place since Cheyenne passed.  TheGirl likes their watermelon margarita.  I had the cheesesteak, because it's one of the cheaper items on the menu.  She had the orange chicken that's the veggie version.  She let me try it.  It was yummy.

TheGirl and Cheyenne used to walk up the bike path on Chandler.  Tonight we walked it with Chan in tow.  I bet everyone asks what the hell is it with this guy and a stuffed monkey.  I just like bringing Chan along.  Like a dummy I didn't record my walk on my watch app, but I needed to walk after all the sweets I've had today.

Thursday, March, 12, When I start work at Casa Verdugo I login to the computer and open up several programs and webpages in order to do my job.  These programs include a browser, as well as the print queue client.  For some reason today I had to use two factor authorization three times for three different things: work email, Teams, and email again.  It was a bit frustrating.  I can never get through a single day without the library's technology being a pain.

As I stated in a previous entry I brought a book with me to read while on the desk.  The day can be busy, but come 4pm it usually gets quiet since most patrons are at the library to work on things.  Today's book was a book entitled "Maps of the Disney Parks."  It's what it's called, a book of the many maps of the many Disney resorts.  There isn't much to read, so I plowed through it all tonight.  Good times.

Kerri mentioned today that Solomon took a pay cut in order to leave this job.  That's how bad he must have wanted to get out of Glendale.

TheGirl has had a hard time getting over Cheyenne's passing.  In a previous visit to her doctor she mentioned that they told her it might be a good idea to get on an antidepressant.  A low dose one for a bit, so she can cope with her feelings of loss.  Today she said that the doctor mentioned it again, and further told her she is suffering from what is called prolonged grief disorder.

To quote psychiatry dot-com:

For most survivors, the symptoms of grief dissipate over time.  For a small proportion of people, however, intense and distressing symptoms of grief persist, cause problems in daily functioning, and may even pose challenges to simply getting through the day.  Prolonged grief disorder is characterized by intense and persistent grief symptoms which are not only distressing in themselves but also associated with problems in functioning.  Thus, those who meet criteria for prolonged grief disorder constitute a group of bereaved persons who are significantly disturbed and disabled by their grief.

TheGirl has mentioned that she hasn't been able to let go, and in the past she has said how she still feels she could have done more.  And that perhaps the day we put Cheyenne down was not really the most ideal day to do that.  I think she feels Cheyenne would rally, but I was there.  We had reached the point of no return.  Believe me, I cry at the drop of a hat when I think about Cheyenne.  I miss her so much.  I can't even imagine how much TheGirl misses her.

I was checking Ancestry dot-com again tonight, specifically my yearbook from 1987.  I saw some people I hadn't thought about in a long time.  One of them was a girl named Kimberly Alexander.  She was gorgeous.  I did a search for her online and I found that she's an actress.  Still gorgeous. I'll have to check out her filmography to see if I can watch something she did.

There's a lot of AI slop out there, but once in a while some of that slop actually looks interesting.  Like the above gif illustrates, someone made Carrie Fisher wearing the slave Leia outfit from Return of the Jedi in AI.  Hate to say it, but it does look appealing.

Friday, March, 13, Solomon made a video goodbye to the library.  In it he mentioned not wanting to do an Irish goodbye, which I had never heard of before.  I asked him and he said that it was a goodbye without saying goodbye.  Gee, that's my style of goodbyes... where I just walk out.  That's my style, nice to put a name to it.

Anyway, his goodbye was nice.  After he left I was at the desk with Tahmina standing right next to me and I just started crying.  I had a Mr. Bergstrom moment.  Solomon was only at the library for a year and a half, but he made a positive impact.  He came in just as TheNewCute was leaving.  Circle of life, I guess.  Or as Bogart says in Casablanca, "They grab Ugarte and she walks in... that's the way it goes, one in, one out."  I will make an effort to keep in touch with Solomon.

I got home and I needed to take a piss but OF COURSE my aunt is in the fucking bathroom again.  EVERY FUCKING TIME!  Once again I had to piss in my piss jug.  Why must the Algorithm be so mean and do this to me over, and over and over and OVER again?!

Today is the anniversary of the start of the lockdown in 2020.  I remember having to post the fliers on all the library locations saying that we were going to be closed until March 29th.  Oh how naive we were back then.  Two weeks, we said.  The lockdown would only last two weeks.

Saturday, March, 14, I went to get my taxes done at the CSUN VITA.  I owe $1,024 this year.  That's less than last year, but the tax preparer told me that I should adjust my Covered California income information so that I don't have to pay as much.  I'll look into it.  I don't have the money to pay the entire tax bill, so I'll have to wait.  I do have some funds, but those are for the end of the year and my property tax and fire insurance.  I started a fund to pay both of them by the end of the year, when the bill comes.  I have $2,000 in that account right now, but I don't want to cut that fund in half so early in the year.  Because it means that I'll have to save more money each payday.  Which isn't impossible, but for the last two months I've had the bank warn me that my back account is less than $100.  Three times I've had to move funds from the savings account to my main account.  I may just bite the bullet and pay some of that tax bill with those funds and my next paycheck.  My paycheck should be a little fatter this coming payday, because I worked Sunday.

In commemoration of the hundred years of the Los Angeles public library every branch has stamps that can be stamped on index cards.  I thought it was a great idea, so since I was at one of the branches I took advantage to get my first stamp.  Later I was able to swing by the Mid Valley branch to get a second stamp.  I'm on my way!

Sunday, March, 15, I watched the Oscars tonight.  They had a funny sketch where they made fun of the ongoing trend of movies on streaming services repeating the plot several times during the movie.  They used Casablanca to illustrate the joke.  There was also a tribute to Robert Redford by Barbara Streisand which was touching.  She sang the end of the song "The way we were" and it made me cry.  Sniff.

Emma posted a reel today where her face looks a little puffy from weight gain, which makes me wonder if she's pregnant.

Monday, March, 16, As I walked up to Central today I noticed little buds of life coming from the ginkgo trees.  Soon we will have leaves.  Love these trees.  It's the circle of life.  Back when Cheyenne was still with us I took pictures of these trees with their yellowing leaves.  Whenever stuff like happens I do think of her.

Mo from ISD gave me the last laptop that's going to be used in the laptop kiosk.  I took it down stairs to storage, where I put the rest of them.  That storage is right next to Solomon's old office.  On it he, or someone, put a little note that says to the next person welcome to your new office.  I like to think it was him that put that note up.  No one from upstairs is good enough to be that thoughtful.

It's going to get hotter tomorrow, but it was still too warm to walk outside.  So I did my new move to walk inside the library.  I didn't have a lot of time, so I only got to walk a mile.  While walking I got an email saying that my credit score went up nine points.  Nine points?!  I think that's the largest difference in my credit score ever.

Last week TheGirl mentioned that she was going to go on antidepressants.  Well, she tried them on Saturday and she said that she didn't like it.  She went walking and forgot what street she was supposed to turn.  She said it was like being in a haze.  So that's it, no more antidepressants.

Today is the twenty-ninth anniversary of my Mom's passing.  I can't believe it.  I don't commemorate these dates when someone passes, so I actually completely forgot until I looked at my calendar.  I think of her more these days than I did in the past.  Probably because I knew this unhappy anniversary was coming up.  In the twenty-nine years she's been gone I think I did alright for myself.  I'm not rolling in dough, but I was mentioning to someone recently that my mother wanted me to work a desk job.  Two days a week I do.  And I get paid well for it.  Sure, the other three days I'm hustling out in the rain, heat, or perfect weather.  But they do pay me well (now).  I'm paying off my bills, and I'm a responsible human that tries to stay out of trouble.  Don't always succeed at either.  Still, I think she would think I turned out OK.

Tuesday, March, 17, TheGirl couldn't go walking today, so I went to the mall to stay out of the heat.  I thought I was keeping a good pace until this one lady passed me like I was a senior citizen.  My average mile walking is about twenty minutes per mile.  Today I was about eighteen minutes per mile.  But the lady was early doing seventeen minute miles.  I tried keeping up with her, but she blew me away.  The good thing is that I walked for an hour and walked over three miles.  I'm going to be working at San Marino the next couple of weeks to help with the upcoming Delicious Destinations fundraiser.  Which means less walking coming up.

After my nearly three and a half mile walk I decided to check out this one store that I spotted from the first floor.  I wasn't sure what it was.  It was a bunch of Hello Kitty and other tchotchkes.  I ended up buying this mystery box labeled Snoopy's restaurant.  It was cute.  I got the appetizer, plus the table and a menu.  Pretty darn cute.

I had some time to kill before work, so I went to Forest Lawn to visit my Grandmother, Godmother and Silmarillion.  My Grandmother's plaque needs a little bit of cleaning.  Next time I go I'll go with a brush and some cleaning fluid.  As I squatted in front of my Grandmother's crypt I looked down and noticed a little bug.  I could detect some movement, but it wasn't actually moving anywhere.  Upon closer inspection I could see that it was struggling.  It was upside down and its legs were franticly moving.  I didn't know what I could do.  It was so small I feared that any action on my part would actually hurt it.  Then I thought to blow a puff of air on it.  That did the trick.  I was just enough to turn the little bug over.  Be well, little bug.

The Silmarillion's grave needed the grass to be cleaned off her headstone.  There was a woman near-by that told me they don't usually clean the lawn clippings.  I can see that.  So I took a cloth and cleaned off her headstone.  On this visit I could see the indentation in the ground of her grave.  There were no flowers, only grass clippings.  I didn't stay long, but it was strange to see that indentation.

I worry that the heat is going to be too much for my aunt.  I worried until I saw that she was wearing her robe the entire day.  She's not overheated.

I went to Buellton last year in September and toured the area around Pea Soup Andersen's lamenting its demise.  I checked the news today and I found several articles showing that the new owners plan a new development.  To quote the website KEYT dot-com:

"... the ground floor of the building will feature commercial spaces along the street frontages - including a 4,595-square-foot reborn Andersen's restaurant- with the upper three floors dedicated to 125 for-sale condominium units."

So there's hope that Andersen's will return.  Nice.

The A/C hasn't been working at Casa Verdugo.  I mean come on with this shit.  Every fucking time the heat comes the A/C unit dies.  Then it takes the city months to fix it.  Just in time for it to get cold again.  Pure bullshine.

Wednesday, March, 18, The office manager in admin texted me on Monday to see if I could pick up some paper goods from the warehouse.  I pointed out to him that the yard closes at 3pm, and it was about half an hour past that when he texted me.  On Tuesday Nicole asked me to go to Adams before coming to Pacific Park, but in my notes I wrote it the other way.  Duh me.  I was also asked to move some tables from Brand to Central for some upcoming thing.  All that got piled on me today.  Thankfully I'm capable of moving on the fly.  I had to double back from Adams to Pacific, but that set me up to go to the yard and pick up the paper goods.  Once at Brand Stephanie helped me with the tables.  That girl is nice.

The eternal question on Wednesdays is where are we gonna have dinner?  Tonight I was craving enchiladas, so we naturally went to Don Cuco in Toluca Lake.  I ordered my enchiladas and TheGirl ordered something different.  I don't remember the name of the salad, but it had grilled chicken.  As I write this I don't remember if she told me she liked it.  Ha, too busy having booze.

And speaking of booze, the alcohol makes TheGirl and I wistful, and we start talking about Cheyenne.  It started when she started to tell me the story of running into a woman on the bike path.  She knew TheGirl and Cheyenne, and knew of her passing.  She informed TheGirl that one of her dogs recently passed as well.  That leads into talking about Cheyenne and the hurt comes bubbling up to the surface again.  This is a hurt that will live long after Cheyenne's passing.

Thursday, March, 19, I showed up to work and Kerri wasn't there.  I came to find out that she wasn't coming in until 11:30am.  No one told me.  This is so typical.  One of Gitmo's duties is to manage the schedule.  But he has abdicated that to Vivian these days.  Now that she's out on medical leave the schedule is a mess.  Jeez.  Anyway, I had to get most of the opening procedures by myself.  Which is fine, since there aren't that many tasks.  Katie arrived at 10:30am and picked up the holds.  I did the money and the bookdrops.  Piece of cake.  I told Kerri about not being informed and she went off on Gitmo.

One of the librarians at Central sent us a link to the Instagram account for the Santa Clara county library bookmobile.  That bookmobile puts Glendale's bookmobile to super shame.  They actually have a functioning bookmobile.  I checked out more of their feed, which led me to check out their about page.  Their bookmobile actually goes out and serves the public five days a week.  And it also doesn't just park itself in one park.  It goes to senior centers, community centers and schools.  Imagine that!  A functional bookmobile that serves its community.  What a concept.  Something Glendale didn't do.

Kerri went to lunch and I was on the desk on my own during the 3pm hour.  No problem, the library was quiet.  I started to play online poker.  The cards I was getting dealt were so bad.  The above shows one hand that I lost.  The dealer was showing a Jack, and I was able to make eighteen with four cards.  Of course the dealer had a face card and I lost the hand.  I lost almost all of my imaginary money.

A patron came in with a DVD to return.  He said it smelled.  I took the DVD and smelled it.  It was the smell of hot plastic.  It's super hot out, and this man probably had the DVD in his car to bring it back to the library.  We were not his first stop, I suspect, and so the case got hot in his car. Sometimes hot plastic emits a smell.  I told him so, but he seemed to be obsessed with the smell.  I get it, it's unusual.  He didn't let go of the idea though, and it was starting to annoy me.  He turns to Kerri and says, "The director of the movie should be informed about this."  Like what the FUCK does the director of the movie have to do with a smelly DVD case?  What a dummy.

Friday, March, 20, I noticed a lot of the Cesar Chavez children's books were in the bins marked Central today.  I wonder if they are getting rid of his books because of the recent allegations that have come out against him.  Now I never admired the man, but the line was that he was good.  But then we come to find out years later that he might have been the face of labor in California, but that he wasn't a good person.  The movement was started by another man, Larry Itliong, but Chavez thought he would be a better spokesman for the cause because he would be more appealing to whites.  Now another member of the movement, Dolores Huerta, has come out with allegations against Chavez saying he raped her on multiple occasions.  I don't know if the allegations are true, but Chavez isn't around to defend himself.  I don't believe Huerta would make up things, but I also don't like when someone is character assassinated without the chance to defend him/her self.  Oh well, I never celebrated his day, and perhaps this is a moment we can take to reflect on causes rather than the leaders of those causes.  All I know is if in a month I do a search of books about Cesar Chavez and they all say something like checked out I'll know the real reason.

It was another busy day on the route.  I still had to get the second half of Brand tables to deliver today.  In addition to that I had the giant toys to pick up and deliver, as well as the canopy going from Central to Pacific Park.  ARGH, and it was so hot today.

I went to the desk to chat up Tahmina.  Laurel mentioned that some drug rep came into the library and dropped off some eyedrops.  They were sealed so I tried the drops out.  They were pretty good, so I'm going to use these drops instead of the previous ones I had bought.  Tahmina did make a funny saying, "What if you use them and the next morning you're blind?"  I hope not.

Saturday, March, 21, This morning I wanted to cut my hair.  Since the pandemic I cut my own hair outside.  I have a mirror that I use.  As soon as I came out the back door the squirrel was looking up at me for some nuts.  I went back inside and got him some.  It's so funny.

I was craving a breakfast burrito from IHOP this morning.  I thought of maybe getting one from More Than Waffles, but I was getting hungry and I wasn't sure if they had a breakfast burrito.  Turns out they do, but I found that out later.  I went to pick up my breakfast and that one waitress with the perfect butt was bouncing around looking amazing.  What is her deal, I thought to myself.  Does she go to school?  Does she have a fella?  What's her life like outside of IHOP?  Anyway, I'll never know the answers to any of these questions.  She hasn't let herself go, like so many of us have.

I don't usually watch the morning show on KCAL 9 on the weekends.  But I think I should, because they had the ladies on high chairs to showcase their legs.  One could assume, since all the ladies on the morning show had great legs.

I had a notion to go to the Brand library today, because Stephanie said they were going to have some lowriders in conjunction with the current gallery show.  But, I got the timing of the lowriders wrong, but I had already scoped a place to eat that's on my Yelp page for I don't know how long.  I figured I would try it.  I checked out the menu and knew what I wanted to get for my aunt and myself.  I was not disappointed.  I ordered my aunt something called the Antonia, and I got myself a grilled chicken caesar wrap.  I can't speak for my aunt's sandwich, which did look good.  My wrap was excellent.  Might be the best thing I've eaten this year.  Well, second to the patty melt from Cassell's.  Or maybe even with that, it was that good.

I checked the library's catalog today and saw that several of the books said that they will be deleted.  Hmm.  I wonder if any of his books will survive this.  Well, bye.

Sunday, March, 22, Ever since I got my glasses I notice that I not only see better, I seem to see more.  Like today I went to the market it felt like I was seeing what was going to happen before it happened.  Well, more like predict what was going to happen.  I don't even know how to put it into words.  I just seem to see more.  It's yet another one of those things that make me wonder if this is all a simulation.  I watched a video about Disneyland being a hyperreal place that really has me thinking.  I'll have to figure out what I'm trying to say for future entries.  For now that's all I can say.

Monday, March, 23, I have multiple alarms to wake up, because in the past I've overslept after drinking a bit much the previous night.  Well, I blew it this morning by getting out of bed, but not staying out of bed after.  I went back to bed and boom, next thing you know I'm fifteen minutes late for work.  I did shower though.  No way I wasn't going to not shower.  Especially in this warm weather.

I think that the Algorithm is feeding me hotter and hotter ladies that are nearing the perfect girl.  The other day a porn star named Koda Monroe popped up on my radar.  The line of pretty and thick girls has reached to Koda.  Before that it was Elle Nova.  And before that was Lily Hall.  And before that was Abella Danger and Alexis Texas.

The Algorithm is seeing what I search and is feeding me ladies that are thick but super pretty.  Could Koda be the pinnacle?  Time will tell.

When I was loading up the van I saw a guy wandering around the front of the library.  Nothing unusual there.  Ah, but he was carrying a big stick.  Not good.  Thankfully he walked away from my location.

Part of my job is to take the mail to the graphics department so that a mail carrier can take it to the post office.  I check to see that the envelope is going to where it should go.  Today I checked the mail and one piece stood out.  It was addressed to 222 E Harvard, which is the library's address.  Some joker in circulation put "Return to sender" on the envelope.  Ah, there was no return address, so the mail carrier is just going to return it to the library.  Yes, it was addressed to some other company name, but it's still going to come back to the library.  I tell you, sometimes I wonder who are these mental geniuses that I work with.

Because I showered and didn't eat breakfast I was a little hungry this morning.  I thought about just waiting until lunch, but then I was thinking that I did need to get something small.  I ended up going to Burger King and getting a Whopper.  Not exactly small.  Well, BK redeemed themselves a bit.  The burger was actually good.  Almost like Burger King back twenty years ago.

When I got my burger from Burger King they gave me some ketchup packets.  I didn't check right away, but as I was walking to the van to eat my burger I noticed that they were not the regular Heinz, but rather "Simply" ketchup.  Which uses cane sugar instead of corn syrup.  I think it tastes better too.

Tuesday, March, 24, On my commute this morning I saw a tiny fly in the car.  I tried to have it go out the window, but it never got close enough to fly out.  How did it even get in my car in the first place?  It's not going to survive in there very long.  What is it going to eat?  Not my problem, I tried to get it out of the car.

They asked me to drive the route today, because my coworker was out for some reason.  I had to finish it in six hours instead of my usual eight.  But it's easy when you don't have two big stops that use up a lot of time on the route.  One is going to treasury.  Our standing appointment is at 9:30am.  Which means I don't get on the road until after that.  Usually 10am.  Today I was on the road at 8:40am.  So of course Tony finishes up faster than I do.  He starts his day at 7:30am, which means he's probably on the road by 8am.  Anyway, it was an interesting route, since it went by so fast.

I was jumping out of the van in front of the Perkin's building when I heard squawking coming from the trees across the street.  It turned out it was a pair of parrots.  But it wasn't the kind of small parrots that frequent the San Gabriel valley.  I haven't seen many in Glendale.  Also, these looked to be bigger than those other parrots.  I think they used to be owned by someone in town and they got away.

I was standing next to Winona looking at the pile of CDs on the desk, and I noticed something strange on the covers of one of the albums.  The former first lady of the Philippines in the 1980s Imelda Marcos.  To quote Wikipedia: "Marcos and her family gained notoriety for living a lavish lifestyle during a period of economic crisis and civil unrest in the country.  She spent much of her time abroad on state visits, hosting extravagant parties, and indulging in expensive shopping sprees, spending much of the State's money on her personal art, jewelry and shoe collections - amassing 3,000 pairs of shoes."

To quote Wikipedia about the album: "Here Lies Love is a concept album and rock musical made in collaboration between musicians David Byrne and Fatboy Slim, about the life of the former First Lady of the Philippines Imelda Marcos."

I checked online and right now the Mark Taper forum has the musical.  Crazy!  That must be the reason why the album was checked out.  What a crazy idea for a musical.  I'll have to give this a listen.

Wednesday, March, 25, I received an email informing me that the book I placed on hold was ready for pick-up.  Only I didn't place a book on hold.  Which makes me wonder how it got on my account.  I'll never know for sure, but it's just strange.  Too bad it wasn't a book that I actually wanted to read.

I was in Joe's office when I saw some of Solomon's old stuff, such as his employee ID card and his business card.  I noticed his phone number was different from the one I had for me.  I had a notion that the one I had was his work phone.  Looking at the number on his business card confirmed that I had texted his work phone.  Joe confirmed that the one on the card was his personal phone.

TheGirl isn't rolling in dough these days, since she quit her job.  So when it's her week to pay for dinner I don't mind going to places like the Dog Haus.  The plus is that I really like the food at Dog Haus, especially what they call the love boat.  Which is tots or fries covered in chilly and coleslaw.  Love it.  One time I got it with fries, but I like the tots a little more.

As we were finishing up dinner I looked down at the tray and saw a little but moving around.  I don't know what kind of bug it was, but it was cute.  I didn't want it to get hurt, but I wasn't sure how we could get the bug off the tray.  Well, the bug itself fixed the problem.  It climbed up to the edge and fell down to the table below.  Yay!

TheGirl and I drove over to the area near the Smoke House to park the car and walk around the neighborhood.  It was a nice hour-long walk around all of the southern part of Toluca Lake.  The weather was just cool enough that the walk worked to warm us up, but not too much. At one point we were passing this house with a beautiful wisteria plant.  But right across from it I could hear the sound of a hummingbird.  I looked up and there was one feeding.  Getting dinner before sundown, no doubt.

Thursday, March, 26, When Katie and I finished checking in the books from delivery I noticed that there were no routing tags for the branches bin.  Later in the day Jade told me that he needed some tags at Montrose.  For some reason my coworker Tony not only doesn't distribute them, he actually takes them.  After Jade texted me I decided to make more tags.  So I printed out a bunch, with the plan to laminate them Friday at Brand.  I really don't get why Tony does these silly things.

The A/C hasn't worked at Casa Verdugo since the heatwave started over a week ago.  Kerri was telling me that she put a work order to get some portable A/C units to Casa, but I told her that I saw a bunch at Chevy Chase.  She thinks that the guy in charge didn't read that she wanted them at Casa, and by mistake sent them to Chevy.  Which also has a busted A/C.  Jade later texted me saying that he heard Kerri put the order in wrong and did request for Chevy.  I don't know who is right, but either way all we got today was a lousy big fan.  It doesn't even oscillate.  This is why I bought my own fan for the desk.

Friday, March, 27, The Onion had a really funny headline saying All of world's problems solved overnight while you were sleeping.  If only.

I was walking to get the keys for the delivery van when I saw a book on the donations cart.  It was a book of stickers.  I looked inside and found that most of the stickers were already used.  But, on one page I saw that there were cards featuring various animals.  One of those was a monkey card, which made me want to get it right away.  So I took that and a duck card with me.

I was driving to Grandview on Grandview and while at a stop light I saw a toy car on top of a fire hydrant.  There's a Instagram account called Only in Glendale that spotlights the bad drivers of Glendale.  I should send them the picture above.

They had me hang another sign at Chevy Chase library telling the public that the branch would be closed Saturday - again.  I don't know why the A/C never works when it needs to.  And not just here, everywhere in the city.  Bullshine!  Oh, but it will work on the coldest day of the year.

I was chilling outside in my backyard when a small hawk flew in and perched on the fence behind me.  I barely had time to take the above picture before it flew away.

Saturday, March, 28, I've been wanting to try the chilaquiles from More Than Waffles for weeks...  well, today is the day.  When I got there there was a line in front of the check in desk.  The group there was fronted by this slack jawed looking dope that stared at his fellow slack jawed dummies standing in my way.  It took them nearly a minute to move out of the way.  I should have gotten a picture of these dopes to show you just how cartoonishly stupid they looked.  Also, as I was coming down the stairs I noticed a sign that warmed people to not walk through the planter.  The funny thing is, this means it's happened.  The planter, I will point out, is mostly water.  It's a fountain.  But that means dopes are not just going through the planter, they're going through the fountain.

I can't say today's chilaquiles were the most amazing I've ever had, but the potatoes that came with them were awesome.  I probably won't be ordering chilaquiles from this place, but those potatoes are so good I have to order them with whatever I get next time.

AI is getting too good too fast.  There is a lot of AI slop out there, and it's only becoming more prolific.  One thing I notice a lot on Instagram is the proliferation of celebrity AI portraits and videos.  One video going around has various celebrities swapped out for Jennifer Connelly riding a mechanical rocking horse in the movie "Career Opportunities."  I've seen so many different versions of this scene.  It's kinda harmless, but in the long run it blurs what the past.  Is someone who has never seen that movie going to know the context of that scene?  Are they going to know the origin, and that Jennifer was the actress these slop videos are copying.  AI has many faults, but I heard someone say that the worst is how it's being used to erase reality and substitute it with another reality.  When you can tell people that their past is not real you can tell them anything.  Sadly the majority of my fellow humans are pretty stupid.  I like to think I can be immune to this, but I know I'm not.  I catch myself looking at AI pictures and nodding some sort of approval.  Like the one above of Millie Bobby Brown.  For a half a second I thought it might be real.  To be fair, the above picture is one of five posted, and the first one was of her standing in front of the mirror, phone in hand, taking a picture.  Believable.  But then the one above came up and I thought to myself, she's not that kind.  Then the poster to her right looked wrong, because at first glance it looks like it says Katy Perry backwards (because it's a reflection).  But I put it in Photoshop to confirm that it doesn't say that at all.  I read that AI is trying to be a utility.  To sell us back the "intelligence" that we will lack in the future, because we will be dependent on it to do everyday tasks many forgot how to do.  Or worse, never knew in the first place.  They will sell us back that intelligence, for a price.  And it's working.  At work I see so many dopes that are going to be susceptible to what's coming, because they don't have the tools to think.  But even those who think have an uphill climb.  I think, I believe I don't just take the world for granted, or not examine it, but that nod of the head means something.  It's getting to me too.  My plan is to read more books, and take more and longer walks.  The walks are my means to see the world.  The books will be to educate myself like humans have for thousands of years.  It's simple, but I think I can at least build something in my mind that will not let it be turned to mush.  That's my hope, anyway.

Sunday, March, 29, After breakfast I usually go to the market to get the week's groceries.  I usually hand a piece of paper to my aunt so she can tell me what she wants.  Today she told me what she didn't want... bread.  Ah, that's fine.  I am having chicken sandwiches for lunch this week, so I WILL buy bread, I thought to myself.  I came back from the market and I start to get my things set for lunch this week.  I took a couple of slices of bread, but I didn't take the end piece.  I left that inside the bag.  I came back later to get some more slices, because I wanted to make croutons.  Sure enough, the end slice was gone.  My aunt took it.  To be fair, passover doesn't start until Wednesday.

As I walked through the the doors of the market today I bumped into a lady wearing a white top and wearing yoga pants.  She was a little older but attractive.  After that interaction at the entrance I bumped into her several times.  She had a nice figure, so it was nice running into her.  It would have been kinda nice to have had a conversation with her.  Maybe.  Maybe.  Oh well, I'll never see her again.

My aunt found some Mexican money and gave it to me to exchange.  She said I could keep the money I received.  Super King has a window that supposedly does money exchange.  I went today, but they told me they don't offer that service.  I might have to try another place.  Otherwise I'll just drop it in the trash.

Monday, March, 30, Because my coworker loves to take these routing tags I decided to brute force the problem and make a lot more.  I made thirty more tags to distribute, and I might end up making a whole lot more.  For now it's going to be thirty in addition.

Two people called out sick, so they had me cover the desk from 4pm to 6pm.  It's going to be a couple of extra bucks at the end of the week.  Which is always good.  It makes up for the time I lost while doing the bookmobile.

TheGirl went to Universal Studios with her family today, so I didn't bring Chandaka along with me.  I just went straight home.  I'm sure she had fun.  I kinda want to go check out Mario land, whatever it's officially called.

Tuesday, March, 31, Because I'm working the bookmobile event this weekend I had a Tuesday off.  But, instead of doing my Tuesday Adventure thing I went to San Marino to print out some stuff for the upcoming fundraiser.  I ran into the woman who was the children's room head librarian at Glendale about four years ago. 

After printing stuff I took myself down to Pasadena, to Pass ave. to be exact.  It was a place I used to travel more when I didn't have a working car.  I was walking through some of my past while on Pass.  And I was getting my steps.  I like exploring the city.