September was a really long month.  And a lot of awesome things happened this month, aside that I celebrated my birthday this month.  Yay!

John Williams at the Hollywood bowl and gaggle of geeks with light sabers

Sept 1, TheGirl and I went to the Hollywood bowl tonight.  On the program was the music of the movies conducted by John Williams.  TheGirl and I had plans to have a picnic before the show, somewhere in Griffith park.  Yet, as it seems to all the time with us, plans change.  It's not a bad thing.  Rather it's a good thing.  Before the bowl our quest of the moment was founded upon TheGirl having a watermelon martini last week with TheHusband at a place called the Brass Monkey.  She loves those martinis, but every time we go out to have dinner and there's a bar in the restaurant she tries to order one only to be thwarted by the fact that no one has the watermelon pucker.  For shame!  Our quest took us to the Brass Monkey, but it was closed.  We didn't feel like waiting around for just over an hour before it opened, so we went down the street to another bar named HMS Bounty.  Bad move.  Of course they didn't have the pucker.  In addition to that, there was a ruckus party going on there.  We exited and decided to go where she had first had the martini in question, a restaurant at CityWalk.  Sure enough they had the pucker there, and the drink was worth the roundabout quest.  Actually, the time spent with TheGirl makes the quest something easy to deal with.  The night ended with us going to the bowl, enjoying the music of John Williams, and saying that we would see each other on Monday.  She told me she would wait for me to mention seeing each other, but she took the initiative and told me we were seeing each other Monday night after she gets back from camping.  Today we also finalized when we're going camping together, the weekend before going up to Big Sur.  It's crazy, but we're still spending more time together now that we're "broken-up" than we did while a couple.  I don't mind.  But I'm still keeping my emotions in check.  At least now she can't break-up with me, since we're already broken up.

Sept 6, The countdown to Big Sur is now twenty-one days.  TheGirl and I are going camping in two weeks.  It's a jammed packed month.  Tonight TheGirl is receiving visitors, aka TheChisel.  She told me last night that by day two of not seeing me she misses me a lot.  But, the cause of her missing me is this guy coming to visit.  Don't have this guy visit means problem solved.  Certainly it's not going to be that easy.  I'm still here though, since there must be something fulfilling in this pseudo relationship.  Sunday, after TheChisel leaves, it's my turn to celebrate TheGirl's fifty-second birthday.  Then next week mine.  I have some things planned for TheGirl, even though I'm on a tiny budget.  I've been spending money like water lately.  Couple that with the three days of work I missed a couple of weeks ago, and this last paycheck was about 1/3rd less than my usual paycheck.  Today was a hard day at work.  My body is aching big time right now.  I could use a drink to sooth this pain.  Maybe after I finish up this entry.  I got to officially meet my new boss, Thom.  I've talked to him in the past when he was in another department.  Now he's my boss.  I could tell he was doing evaluations, or introductions, or something mixing the two, today.  I'll have to ask my co-worker what exactly they were doing.  My day was packed, and I got out nearly an hour after my scheduled time dealing with special deliveries.  I don't mind, even though I'm tired, because I need the extra cash.  I need to find a way to make at least a hundred more dollars a month.  Two hundred or more a month would be better, but I'm setting my goal at a realistic target.  Not that it's really realistic to say I'm going to magically make a hundred dollars more out of the blue.

model of Sleeping Beauty's castle

Sept 8, In preparation for TheGirl's birthday tomorrow I took a quick jot down to Disneyland to get her a pin that says Happy Birthday, along with a "bumble-bee" cupcake.  Every time we went last year and this we would look the menu at the Hungry Bear and wonder what that particular cupcake tasted like.  Tomorrow we will both find out.  Meanwhile, she's off in Catalina today, with TheChisel.  Not sure why she went with him.  There's a significance in her not wanting to go with me.  I've offered, and every time she refuses.  That's fine.  TheChisel will hopefully fuck something up and she will finally tell him to take a powder.  That's wishful thinking on my part.  All I know is that she tells me she can't be herself when she's with him.  That she cares for him, but that she isn't in love with him.  That she and him don't show affection as much as she requires.  So again, I wonder why she's hanging out with him.  If it's purely economical, in that she likes him paying the bills of them going out, then that's pretty jacked up.  Whatever the reason I wish it would stop already.  Not because I think we're going to get back together.  We're not.  Although, we are still together in this pseudo relationship.  What I don't like is having to share her with another man.  I'm secure enough to know that he is a bum compared to me.  He's a mess, mentally, physically, and is probably a whacko to boot.  Nevertheless, she deems it necessary to spend time with him in lieu of spending that time with me.  Tomorrow I get to spend time with her and share her birthday.  She told me that she told TheChisel that he had to leave Sunday because she had plans with her kids.  She lies to him, have I mentioned that!  She's spending the evening with me.  We're going to dinner.  Afterwards we might be intimate.  But then all that doesn't make me stop wondering why she spends time with him at all.  There's more to this than my puny amount of information allows me to analyze.

TheGirl and I sharing a kiss at the San Antonio winery

Sept 9, TheGirl's birthday night was quite nice.  TheChisel was still around until around 3pm in the afternoon today.  Which was find since football season had its first big weekend.  With my new schedule I was finally able to watch not just the morning game.  It was awesome.  By the time the second game was over TheGirl told me that the coast was clear.  We went to The San Antonio winery for dinner.  TheGirl asked me to sing her happy birthday to her.  It's funny because I did hesitate to do it at first.  But the other day I told myself that if I had that hesitation feeling that I would go ahead and fight the feeling and do it.  The night ended with TheGirl and I cuddling.  She conked out and I went home.  A satisfying day.

Sept 11, 9/11 didn't really have the same impact this year as it did last year.  Perhaps because it's been over a decade.  Perhaps because the news wasn't all over it.  Perhaps because enough time has passed that the pain has diminished a bit.  Perhaps because a lot of things.  I just know that for me this year 9/11 was not on my mind.  That is not to say that I didn't think back at that day and remember the horror.  I did.  It just didn't hurt as much this year.

chicken fried steak

Sept 12, My co-worker Gil took me to lunch in between teaching my computer class and my regular shift.  He wanted to buy me lunch for my birthday, since Monday I'm in a hurry to get to my other job after working at San Marino.  We went down to The Colonial Kitchen, which is less than a mile from work.  I've been there before.  Long ago, when I had more money and more spare time, I went in there for supper before heading to work.  I ordered the chicken fried steak, which was super yummy.  But how could something topped with so much gravy not be yummy, I ask you.  Nice!

count down to the new iPhone being sold

Sept 13, Yesterday Apple announced the newest iPhone.  I've been waiting for this for a while now.  My current iPhone is jacked up, and I seriously need a replacement.  Aside from that I would have probably stayed with my current phone.  But, the time is nigh, and tonight I'll be, hopefully without a glitch, ordering the newest phone.  Last time I did this I got my new phone super fast.  It was waiting for me while others waited in line for it.  Good times.  If successful the phone will arrive next Friday, the day TheGirl and I are going camping.  But, I'll be going to work for a half day, rather than a full day.  So I plan on swinging by my house on my way out to the campsite.  That campsite means a lot to her.  She camped there with her family as a child, and then with TheHusband and such.  To me it's not as delightful because it's the site of her cheating on me.  First with TheHusband last year, and this year with TheChisel.  But now the tables turn.  I'll be the mistress.  I'll have to ask her what TheChisel knows about her trip with me.  Probably nothing, since she's keeping him in the dark about all this.  No worries.  I'll have the new phone in time for the Big Sur trip.  Can't wait to take pictures with the new phone.  I'm going to have to set-up a rig for the fisheye lens.

Creepy hotel at the Oxnard harbor

Sept 15, Saturday we went out to Oxnard to mill around the harbor.  We checked out this creepy abandoned hotel.  The hotel seemed like a happening place back in its heyday.  But now it's an abandoned husk, lifeless.  That's what made it so creepy.  Following our exploration of the hotel we decided that we needed food.  We drove to this one place called "The Whale's Tale."  The place had bad reviews online, and when I told TheGirl that we decided to go somewhere else.  I used technology to find us a place called "The Fisherman's Catch."  I had a fish sandwich, which was awesome.  Best fish sandwich I've had.  The thing that made it was the tartar sauce.  It was just right.  Very tasty and tangy.  TheGirl liked her salmon as well.  It was good, she gave me a taste.

vegan Big Mac tasted good

Sept 16, Because my actual birthday anniversary falls on a Monday today was the big day that I'm celebrating my birth.  TheGirl and I went to a vegan restaurant in Hollywood named Doomies.  They serve what can be described as vegan comfort food.  I had heard about this place because it serves a vegan Big Mac that tastes exactly like the McDonald's Big Mac, only bigger.  Sure enough, it did taste exactly like the real Big Mac, and was bigger.  So big that TheGirl and I split one and I couldn't finish my half.  But not only because of that, but because we split an order of nachos.  Good food, definitely a place I'll return to someday.  It was nice to spend this weekend with TheGirl.  Despite all the shit she's put me through I do like her.  She is deeply flawed, and if she really wants to be a good Buddhist she will one day stop juggling men.  She says she can't, but deep down inside she wants to be committed to someone.  Her fears don't allow that commitment to stick.  That is her fatal flaw.  And it will assure that never finds real happiness.

Sept 17, Today is my 41st birthday anniversary.  I hate just saying it's my birthday, because it's not my birthday, it's the anniversary of my birth.  Whatever.  Work was work today.  I worked my usual two shifts at both my jobs.  It was a standard day.  The people at my San Marino job didn't realize it was my birthday until I was leaving for my other job.  It was great.  I don't want to get too tired to that place.  I've been putting an emotional distance between that job and myself.  When I first started working there it felt like a second home to me.  It doesn't feel that way to me any more.  Not since I was passed over for two jobs.  I have no future there.  Just like I have no future with TheGirl.  But I stay because my options are limited, if not nonexistent.

Chandaka, TheGirl's new buddy

Sept 18, Yesterday I woke up with a little tickle in my throat.  It wasn't anything major, but I knew right away that it was an impending cold.  Sure enough, by last night bedtime I was feeling pretty lousy.  Today I felt better, only because I threw vitamin C and dayquil at my cold.  Tonight I'm going to try to get to sleep early, but knowing me I'll end up going to sleep at the same time as always.  You may be wondering who this little ape is in the picture above.  This is Chandaka, a toy that TheGirl bought on Sunday while we were out and about.  His name supposedly means charming. And the funny thing is TheGirl loves him.  So much that when I had the bright idea to make a Facebook page for the toy she said she loved the idea.  So now I administer his page.  The added bonus is that Chandaka was friended by TheChisel.  So he's friends with TheChisel now.  Too rich.  I'll have fun with this.  Oh, and I'm happy to report that I'm feeling pretty good right now.  I should be 100% sooner than later.  I have no intentions of being sick on Friday when I go up to the lake to camp with TheGirl.

Sept 19, Yesterday I woke up with a little tickle in my throat.  It wasn't anything major, but I knew right away that it was an impending cold.  Sure enough, by last night bedtime I was feeling pretty lousy.  Today I felt better, only because I threw vitamin C and dayquil at my cold.  Tonight I'm going to try to get to sleep early, but knowing me I'll end up going to sleep at the same time as always.  You may be wondering who this little ape is in the picture above.  This is Chandaka, a toy that TheGirl bought on Sunday while we were out and about.  His name supposedly means charming. And the funny thing is TheGirl loves him.  So much that when I had the bright idea to make a Facebook page for the toy she said she loved the idea.  So now I administer his page.  The added bonus is that Chandaka was friended by TheChisel.  So he's friends with TheChisel now.  Too rich.  I'll have fun with this.  Oh, and I'm happy to report that I'm feeling pretty good right now.  I should be 100% sooner than later.  I have no intentions of being sick on Friday when I go up to the lake to camp with TheGirl.

TheGirl cooking up some vittles

Sept 21, I have been missing a lot of work days lately because TheGirl, so I was reluctant to ask for more days off, even if it was because TheGirl wanted me to join her camping.  But, I found a compromise.  I would work half a day, still make a few bucks, and then speed up to the campground and have the entire evening to enjoy each other's company.  Today was also the day I got my new iPhone, the iPhone 5.  This thing is nice.  I went home after work, and before heading out to the campsite, and set up my phone.  Definitely good times.

TheGirl, me, TheGirl's dauther and her boyfriend, on Bubblegum alley

Sept 22, TheGirl had lots of plans for today.  She wanted us to hit Pismo Beach, then The Madonna Inn, followed by Bubblegum alley in San Luis Obispo.  Sure enough, even though it was the shortest day of the year we were able to hit all those spots.  Pismo looks nice from the highway, and it is.  But it's pretty much a typical seaside village.  We did stop at a place called "Old West Cinnamon Rolls" that boasted having the best cinnamon rolls anywhere.  The rolls were pretty dang good.  Following Pismo we went up to the Madonna Inn.  Crazy looking joint.  The person who decorated it must have loved the color pink.  The men's room is famous, and women even go inside the bathroom in order to check it out.  Well, TheGirl didn't just go and check it out, she peed in the famous "urinal."  Finally we went down to San Luis Obispo, which reminds me of a lot of Santa Barbara.  It's nice there.  TheGirl wanted to visit Bubblegum alley (pictured above).  The gimmick there is to leave a piece of gum on the wall.  Good times, huh!  We returned to camp and TheDaughter's boyfriend tried to start a fire.  When it didn't start I saw it as an opportunity to really get into the spirit of things.  I worked that fire for the better part of an hour trying to coax it to burn.  Sure enough, I was able to coax it to burn quite hot.  I refused to give up on that fire.  I wanted to prove to myself that even as a novice I could still do this camping stuff like the pros.  My catchphrase for my efforts was "I built that."

The view in the moring just outside our tent

Sept 23, Last day camping meant breaking down camp and heading back home.  I took to camping like a duck to water.  Of course the conditions were perfect.  It's hard to have a bad time when the weather is perfect, the food, and the company is awesome, and all the little things fall into place.  On our way to dinner after retiring to TheGirl's place she received a txt from TheChisel that makes me think their time together isn't going to very long.  She doesn't act like herself around him, according to her.  And also according to her, she doesn't want a relationship.  Despite his insistence, she will not be lead into a relationship.  Time will tell if she is true to her word.  So far she has been. 

TheGirl and me at McWay falls

Sept 28, Two months ago TheGirl and I were supposed to spend our second anniversary weekend up in Big Sur.  I had planned out a wonderful time, but we broke up and she didn't feel it was right to go.  But after hearing me talk about Big Sur so much she asked me last month to book us a room, because she wanted to go up to Big Sur.  Well today we finally made it to Big Sur.  TheGirl finally understood why I feel emotionally overwhelmed by the beauty of that coast.  She finally gets it.  We left early Friday morning, because I knew that it would take us more than the normal time of five hours to reach our destination in Monterey.  I stopped so many times alone with the way, each stop more breathtaking than the last.  TheGirl was moved, I could tell.  Our first of many stops was Cambria, where we had lunch.  Then Limekiln, where we saw a campsite that TheGirl fell in love with.  That moment was the first where I heard her gasp.  Certainly not the last, but that placed moved her.  She now wants to go camping out there.  I can't blame her, the campsite was beautiful.  We then continued until we hit McWay falls at Pfeiffer Burns.  She knew this place from my photos, but being here you get the scale of the place.  We went into Monterey, checked into our hotel, and then went to get some dinner.  Dinner was a quaint Italian restaurant called Basil's in Carmel.  We walked around, and ended up on Carmel beach.  It was nighttime, so the beach was dark, but the moon was just barely peeping through the fog to provide enough light that we could see the waves come in.  That concluded our night.

The famous rock at Pfeiffer beach

Sept 29, My main objective for our full day in Big Sur was something I missed the previous time... Pfeiffer beach.  The entrance to which is super tiny, and can easily be missed.  I know I missed it every time I passed by it on my previous trip to Big Sur.  But not this time.  I checked and rechecked my maps in order to find the beach entrance.  The beach is about a mile from the highway, down this one lane road that passes through thick forest.  It's well worth the drive.  TheGirl and I went exploring on the beach, and a little on the mountain right by the beach.  It's not a typical beach, to say the least.  The huge rocks, like the one pictured above, dominate the landscape like at no other beach I've ever visited.  Following the beach I took us to try and see Pfeiffer falls.  The trek wasn't long, but sadly I think the views were ruined by the encroachment of people on our walk.  There were simply too many rude dummies on our trail.  And when we arrived at the falls they seemed puny compared to the fall I found the last time.  Also, having to wait for a chance to see the falls ruined that moment for me.  Not to mention a group of girls that simply jumped in front of us, and sat on the rocks that allowed for the best photo opportunity in the falls area.  The rest of our trek was without incident.  We at dinner at Nepenthe and explored Carmel a little more.  TheGirl was definitely happy with today.

TheGirl and me on Peeble beach

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