As I said in the intro, May felt like it would never end, despite it moving rather quickly through the days.  It was the longest month of the 1st half of this year.  And so much has happened, as will be evident on this page.  All-in-all it has been a good month, despite its length, and despite the last horrible week.

May 1, My longest day of the week is Tuesday.  For nearly a year now I've been working both jobs on Tuesdays.  Ever since I bought Crockett.  Before I wasn't able to make both jobs because I was on the bus.  I could barely make it to one job, let alone both on the same day.  I can hardly even think that it's already May.  This year is flying by.

Crockett hits 17,171 miles on the way home from work

May 3, First day back on the delivery route after last week's smash-up with the firefighter's car, and thankfully everything went well.  I didn't run into the person whose car I hit.  Not that he would beat me up, or something.  But the week at work had been tough to handle up to that point, so I didn't want something else to pile on.  For some reason I've been really clumsy lately.  I'll have to think about why this is happening, and fix it.  Also, as an aside, my car made it to 17,171 miles today on the drive home.  It's not a milestone or anything, just a neat number.

The photogenic Mad Tea party at Disneyland

May 4, Our semi-traditional dinner trip to Disneyland was amended as "I'll met you there" scenario, since TheGirl went to Disneyland earlier in the day with her daughter.  I was to meet them for dinner.  I went ahead and asked work if I could leave an hour earlier, and they agreed.  So I made my trek through the crazy Los Angeles traffic.  It took just about an hour and twenty minutes to get from Glendale to Disneyland, but it was worth it.  I'm not a huge fan of Pizza Port, but the BBQ chicken pizza I had was tasty.  The rest of the night we went on a couple of rides, but my tired body from a day that felt longer than it really was didn't allow me to enjoy everything.  But a night at Disneyland is WAY better than a night not at Disneyland.

TheGirl washing her car, Dharma

May 5, TheGirl and I woke up rather like we do many Saturdays that I sleepover, late into the morning.  Our Saturdays usually consist of us sleeping in, taking late showers, eating, and finally getting down to doing something at around 2pm.  It's fine, since who wants to wake up early on a Saturday?  Today we ended up going to the car wash to give our cars a bath.  I was done early, so I went next door to get a Tommy burger.  After that we went back to her place, walked up the street to a local restaurant, and had some food and booze.  The margaritas we had were not watered down, at all.  I downed two, and she one.  When I went home I actually sat in my car for nearly an hour before I felt it was safe for me to drive.  Later TheGirl wondered why I left, since it appeared that I would be inadvertently sleeping over.  I don't want to impose.  I rather she sleep tight and not have to worry about me.  Hence me spending nearly an hour getting sober in my car.

One of the many upholstery business along Lankershim

May 7, Finally a day off.  I can't count Saturday as a day off because I'm with TheGirl, and doing nothing is not an option.  We always have to do something.  Not that I mind.  I rather do something since I know that my Monday alone is going to be spend doing as little as possible.  Today I took Crockett to get his oil changed and tires rotated.  Good little car of mine was done in less than an hour.  Instead of waiting in the sad waiting room I decided to take a walk on Lankershim and take some pictures (pictured above).  Most of the business are closed on Monday, so my walk was rather lonely.  Oh well.  At least the car is ship shape.

May 11, All I have heard for the last couple of days at the Glendale library is whispers pertaining to the bad budget news.  The city is in the hole, and is going to have to make deep cuts to the budget.  TheGirl was told the other day that come July 1st she is being laid off.  It basically means she no longer has a job at the library, because the money for her job comes from the state.  The state no longer funds her job, and with the cuts it means her job isn't going to be funded by the city either.  She has a job lined up, but it's not certain.  So she's in a terrible limbo of not knowing what to do.  But I started this by mentioning whispers, and the whispers are everyone talking about the cuts.  This looks like it's going to be a bloodbath.

May 12, TheGirl left me to my own devices this weekend because she has this tendency to runaway when there's a holiday that hits a sore spot.  Like Thanksgiving and Christmas, and this time Mother's day.  I resolved to not beat her up about it, and just let her go away like she wants.  What I don't like is her lack of communication.  I sent her a txt last night saying good night, and she didn't respond until this morning at 10am.  I don't want to think ill of her, but when she goes away it makes me think that I'm not important in her life.  I know she loves me, but it still stinks.
In lieu of spending the weekend with TheGirl I went to watch "The Avengers" with my homeless buddy from the Glendale library.  I like spending time with him, because it must be hard for him to hear about current movies and want to see them.  So we made a day of it.  I took him to the movies, then he and I went to get some flowers for TheGirl downtown, and finally we ate a burger in Pasadena.  If not for having to pick up my aunt from work as promised I would have hung out some more.  Tomorrow TheGirl comes back and I'm taking her to dinner.

May 16, After taking off on her weekend I needed to talk to TheGirl about her distance, and her taking off with a male friend this past weekend.  We certainly cleared the air, but at the same time she also said that she wasn't going to stop traveling with this male friend.  In the back of my head some bad thoughts came to mind, mainly is she cheating on me.  And cheating right to my face.  I want to believe her, but it's hard since she has put so much emotional distance between us.  I have no choice but to believe her though, despite me not feeling her trips are appropriate.

May 17, TheGirl and I had another talk during our lunch break.  Again, more air was cleared, but once again she reiterated that she wasn't going to stop traveling with this guy friend of hers.  I once again voiced my objection, but also told her that it was something I had to deal with.  I'm not happy about this turn of events.  I've been seeking advice from my friends on this.  Most of them tell me to give her that space she keeps asking for.  They're right.  It's not going to be easy, since I feel clingy these days.  But I have to be strong and let her figure this on her own.  She also mentioned that her impending divorce being finalized make her sad.  She doesn't love her husband, and says she can't stand to even think about him.  But she does miss him.  I can and can't understand that.  It's been nearly a year and a half and she still misses him?  That's shit.  You would think that the good times we've shared would cause her to finally just let go of her storied pass.  But I guess not.  She also informed me that next weekend she's going off on another trip with her guy friend.  OK, whatever.

May 18, I worked for nearly ten hours today.  I'm so tired I can't even write about it.

TheGirl drinking "strawberry" beer at Oxnard Strawberry festival

May 19, TheGirl, her daughter and I went to the Strawberry festival in Oxnard.  We walked around and checked out the crafts and the food.  The messed up thing about the festival was the lack of strawberries.  I wanted to have strawberry pie, and ice cream, and margaritas.  But there wasn't any pie, that I could see.  The ice cream was nonexistent, and the strawberry margaritas were weak and barely tasted of strawberry.  All-in-all the day was great because I got to spend it with TheGirl.  However, the actual strawberry festival itself was kinda a bust.  One would think there would be all kinds of strawberry foods, not just pie.  Yet except for the strawberry margaritas and strawberry pizza there weren't any strawberry based foods.  The strawberry margarita I has was super weak.  And the strawberry beer TheGirl is drinking in the picture above was not much more than regular beer with a strawberry on top.  Boo!
TheGirl and I had what I think is our last conversation pertaining to her trips with this guy friend of hers.  She told me she wasn't sleeping with him.  She told me if I didn't believe her that I could just walk away.  I told her that I've been working through it, and I find that I love her too much to leave her.  I still don't like these trips because I don't trust the guy.  But she's a grown woman, and is going to cheat on me if she wants to whether I like it or not.  She did it to her husband, she'll do it to me.  I don't think she's cheating on me.  I am taking her at her word.

burger from The Bucket in Eagle Rock

May 20, Today I implemented the advice several of my friends gave me.  I would give TheGirl her space and let her miss me.  The idea behind this is to limit contact and let her miss me.  She will then realize what a good thing she has with me.  That's the plan anyway.  After work I usually bolt to her house.  But she was out with her son and daughter, and planned on getting home later than usual.  So I took myself to run an errand and then treat myself to dinner.  I was first craving Tommy's, but then remembered a place called The Bucket in Eagle Rock that I've been wanting to try for a long time.  So I went there and ordered a BBQ burger (pictured above).  It was pretty good, if not a ten.  After dinner since I hadn't heard from TheGirl I told myself I would just go home.  But just before reaching my car she texted me that she was home.  That was nice.  I went over to her place, taking care not to rush as to appear too available.  Outside her place I ran into her son, who doesn't really like me.  We talked.  It was polite.  I don't know what he thinks of me, but I'm certainly not going to not treat him well.  Anyways, after hanging out for a little while TheGirl and I went for a little "walk."  The walk was actually an intimate encounter in my car Crockett.  It's the first time we've done it in my car.  It was quite exciting, and harkened back to when we first started.  Good times.

May 22, I found out today from one of the librarians that I'm first in line for a promotion to library assistant.  It will supposedly happen as soon as one of the library assistants gets a job and leaves for greener pastures.  It was nice to hear that I'm considered.  But it was nicer to hear that the bosses think very highly of me.  That's always nice to hear.  Time will tell if they are serious about promoting me.  I told TheGirl about this and she asked if perhaps this is why I didn't get the other job.  I will say that I'm 1000% more qualified to be on the reference desk than the co-worker that got the promotion over me for the last job.  Meanwhile she is working the desk and she can barely handle a patron's simple question.  Perhaps they will give me her hours on the desk.  Time will tell.

May 23, Tonight, while trying to go home after spending time at TheGirl's place my car didn't want to start.  It has an immobilizer that is supposed to prevent a thief from stealing my car.  Well, tonight it prevented me from going home with my car.  I called the auto club and the little guy that came out to help couldn't do anything about the immobilizer.  I didn't expect that he would.  So I ended up borrowing TheGirl's car and then driving back the next morning to pick her up and go to work.  I left work early in order to get my car towed to the dealer, which couldn't fix it until the next day.  What a night.

I didn't think I'd see my car towed, but there it is

May 24, After working a shortened shift today, I called the auto club and had my car towed to the dealer.  I never thought that in less than a year's time I would need to have my car towed.  But there it was, up behind the tow truck as inert as can me.  Work was nice enough to understand that I needed to get this done, but I would have liked to get an earlier start.  As it is I was only able to drop off the car today and take the bus home.  Knowing that tomorrow it would take them 10 minutes to fix my car.  Oh well.

Deetjen's Big Sur Inn website - our anniversary destination

May 25, Since I knew I wouldn't be able to pick up my car until later in the day I told work that I was most likely not going to come in today.  In a sense I gave myself a day off, because I knew that the car would be fixed early, and sure enough at 10 am I was getting the call that the car was fixed.  I didn't get out the door until noon.  I then didn't pick up the car until a little after one.  By that time I didn't feel like going into work, so I decided to do something productive and see if I could get my iPhone fixed.  It's been having issues for the last few months.  Since the new one is hopefully right around the corner, I don't feel the need to drop too much money on it.  Of the three placed I've taken the phone each one of them has told me it's something different.  Whatever, I opened it up myself and did a little testing on what I could do on my end.  I found that tapping a certain area of the phone will more likely than not fix the problem (if only temporarily).
The other big news is that TheGirl and I's anniversary is coming up fast, at the end of July.  I told her my plans to book us a room at Deetjen's Big Sur Inn in of course Big Sur.  I've been wanting to go back there since I first discovered it some seven years ago.  Now I'll get to not only visit, but be there with the woman I love.  I can't wait, it's going to be awesome!

May 26, TheGirl went off to San Luis Obispo this weekend with her friend.  She's been going out of town every other week for the last month and a half.  So I was left to my own devices.  Last night my buddy and I went to get some dinner and drank.  I drank too much.  I nearly threw up, but there wasn't anything in my stomach to throw up.  This morning I set-up my Aunt's new TV, which she bought yesterday.  Then I drove out to San Marino to hang out with my co-worker Holly.  She works at the Old Mill, and it's pretty dead there.  So since I didn't have anyone to talk to I figured I would keep her company, while she kept me from going insane.  It worked out, and we even got to try out some awesome onion rings and chili fries at this place in Pasadena called Big Daddy's Grill.  I went with TheGirl earlier this month, and it was good.  But I should have ordered the onion rings, because they are absolutely the best rings I've had in a long time.  I still like the old Monorail cafe onion rings a little better.  But there's no way I'm ever having those again, since that restaurant doesn't exist anymore.  I came home, watched a little TV, talked to a couple of friends on the phone, and went to bed early.  Not really, I intended to, but never did.  Instead I tried to fix my phone.  I think I found a solution to the problem.  It's not a fix, just a patch.  Tomorrow TheGirl and I get to have some time together.  I can't wait.

May 29, Today might have been the worst day I've ever had to deal with at work.  First my supervisor doesn't show up.  It would seem that no one knew he was still on vacation.  The books we had to deal with this morning was nearly overwhelming.  Then I got a phone call from a co-worker's husband saying she had an aneurysm the day before, and that she was in the hospital.  But it wasn't until some of my co-workers went to visit her and saw how grave the situation was that I really was.  She may not make it very much longer.  On top of that news, I found out that the job I was supposedly the number one candidate for has been filled.  I didn't even get a fake interview that's just for show, like the last couple of interviews.  I'm pretty much done at that job.  This one job was the only job that was going to be available for a long time that I could get.  With it now filled the writing is on the wall.  I'm not wanted there, not in the long term anyway.  I best hitch my future to another star, somewhere else.

May 30, Today's bad news topped how bad work was yesterday.  A couple of co-workers and I went to visit our co-worker that had the aneurysm on Monday in the hospital.  The news wasn't good, but there was hope.  But then by 3pm we received the bad news that she was declared brain dead.  The family asked for a second opinion, but the bad news still hit the library like a bomb.
I worked with Erma for about three years.  I stopped when my car died and I changed my schedule to earlier in the day.  I will miss her.  The news that she was brain dead didn't hit me all at once.  I already knew the prognosis wasn't very good from what we were told at the hospital.  But then it did hit me, as it did everyone at work.  We lost a dear friend and co-worker.

A love note left by TheGirl

I've been doing these 52 week projects for the last two years.  This is year three.