Hate-Love#20: Parking

I have been so busy wrapping everything up at my job and completing a tour de force of the local spas, that I have had little to be annoyed about. Yesterday, however, this Prius reminded me of one of my biggest pet peeves.

I hate...

When people park on corners. It dawns on me now that many of the things that bug me have to do with driving, but what can I say; living in California with many of the nations' worst drivers makes all things car related rather bothersome. This one, however, takes the cake. When someone parks on a corner, it means that you can't see around them to the street beyond, which, especially in a hill situation, makes it impossible to see if there is another car careening towards you. Thus, not only will this stupidly parked car make you drive further into the lane of oncoming traffic than in even remotely safe, but you also won't be able to see if any of said oncoming traffic is in fact "coming". This usually results in you edging ever so cautiously around the poorly parked car, whoever is coming around the turn in the opposite direction slamming on the brakes in an effort not to hit you, and then you getting flipping you off when the other car realizes that you're in their lane on a blind corner. "It's not my fault!" I want to scream, "Look how this idiot parked! Let's BOTH hit his car so he knows what a moron he is!" But, naturally, there is no time for this exchange in a near death collision. Seriously, who is dumb enough to park right on a corner and think it's just a dandy place to park, especially when there are a million other spaces to park on the street?! I don't understand how they could not have had a similar experience as the one I just described and realize that they are perpetuating an already rampant problem?! Oy.

However annoying this may be, I will admit that there is one, albeit small, plus to this for me.

I love...

Things that make me slow down while driving. I know that this "love" may sound odd, but I really do drive waaaay to fast. I cant' help it; I'm usually in a rush, and I hate driving, so the less time I spend in the car the better. Thus, it really is good for me when something makes me slow down, especially in residential neighborhoods where this issue is most common. After all, I don't want to kill anyone crossing the street to get their mail; THAT would be a hassle.

Hate-Love #19: Cats

I know I am probably going to catch a lot of flack for this one, especially from my Mom, but here goes nothing anyway...

I hate...

Cats. Let me preface this by saying that I haven't met all the cats in the world, and there may be some seriously awesome felines out there (a friend recently told me that he had a cat that liked to ride in the car with him and stick its head out the window like a dog-now that sounds like one cool cat! and my parent's cat, Angel (pictured left) is of course an exception) but for the most part, I'm just really not a cat fan. Unlike different dog breeds with differing lengths of hair and shedding abilities, pretty much all cats have crazy long hair and shed EVERYWHERE (especially on chairs where they nap). I cannot leave my mother's house without looking like I seriously sat on a cat. Very annoying. Cats are also not very big on affection, unless it's on their own terms, and who wants to deal with that? A dog greets you when you come home after you've been away for three days or three minutes with the same enthusiasm and need for attention, a cat? Not so much. Even if your cat does greet you at the door, I would bet money that it runs away shortly after your start paying attention to it, doesn't wag it's tail, and most definitely doesn't act as if your coming home is the best thing that's happened all day. A dog also wants love whenever you're willing to give it. A cat, on the other hand, may come sit on your lap, but as soon as you start petting it, or do anything it deems unworthy, it leaves, usually by digging it's claws into the tenderest part of your thigh and bounding away. What kind of pet is that?! What kind of a pet is one who sheds everywhere, only wants attention sometimes, and who will probably scratch you if you piss it off? I would rather have a goldfish. If I cry, or say "ow!" my dog comes over and licks me until he thinks it's all better, would a cat do that? Never! I just think cats are far too selfish to be considered pets, they are more like very hairy house-guests who poop in a box you have to clean and eat smelly, expensive food. Wouldn't it be easier to let your brother live with you for a few weeks to keep you company? I just don't get it.

I may not like cats, but like any sane person, I love...

Kittens. There is no way around it, kittens are friggin' adorable. Kittens are usually much more cuddly than cats, they don't shed as much (and they are just so soft and tiny who cares anyway), they are too tiny to cause any real harm if you freak them out, and are generally just too wonderful for words other than "awwwww, I WANT one!" This is, actually, how my parents ended up with a cat. It's actually a fairly strange story. When I was in elementary school I asked my parents for a cat, and they said, "Go read a book about cats, and then tell us if you want one." Determined to prove them wrong, I read a very informative book about raising a cat and decided, "So, yeah, I definitely don't' EVER want a cat." Imagine my surprise when my parents got me with a cat for my 16th birthday. I was a bit confused, but please tell me what 16 year old girl is able to say no to a 4 week old kitten? I named him Angel, and I was in love. I slept with my kitten, played with him, fed him, bathed him, and generally just smothered him with so much love that he got used it and became pretty much the best kitten ever. The next year, when I left for college, Angel didn't come with me. I didn't visit all that often my first year, and to my astonishment, when I returned home, my parents had turned my adorable kitten into a fat somewhat obnoxious cat. Hmmm.....I should have seen it coming. And that is how my parents came to permanently own a cat named Angel, and I came to get a dog. Thus, I loooove kittens, as long as there are willing parents available to take over their care when they magically turn into cats.

Hate-Love# 18: Traffic

It's amazing that I have been so busy lately that I haven't even had time to be annoyed about things, much less blog about them! One thing did come up yesterday, however, that really makes my blood boil!

I hate...

Traffic. If you have ever been in traffic you know that mostly it just sucks: it's usually very hot, it wastes gas, it's boring, the scenery doesn't change, and you can't get to wherever you're headed in any sort of timely manner. Honestly, there is probably no one on the planet that actually likes traffic, however, there are certain things about tailgating on the freeway that really gets my panties all up in a knot. I mean, just sitting in traffic by itself is enough to make me want to mount a paintball gun on the hood of my car and start open firing on the sparkly white Beamer in front of me. Add to that sitting in traffic for 30 minutes only to find that the hold up is the idiots rubbernecking a guy changing his tire, is beyond aggravating. Similarly angering is the phenomenon where you are sitting in an epic traffic jam only to have it clear suddenly after 45 minutes with no warning and seemingly no explanation at all. Arg! My other, and perhaps largest traffic pet peeve is when it's taking damn near forever to get through a city street and the moron in front of me stops, AT A YELLOW LIGHT, thus making me miss not only that light, but all the green lights after it! A yellow light means slow down, or speed up so that you make it through before it turns red, not STOP! Red lights are for stopping. When the person in front of you stops at a yellow light they make absolutely certain that you won't get the opportunity to gun through it semi-legally. Infuriating.

as much as I hate traffic, however,

I love...

Finding enough time to catch up with my friends and relatives. My Nana lives in Florida, my BFF's live in Utah and San Diego respectively, and my lil' bro lives in Rhode Island, so keeping up with all of them requires a lot of skyping, e-mailing, facebooking, and, when I find the time, talking on the phone. The problem is, however, that I find it difficult to schedule time to have the marathon talk sessions that are required to keep abreast of my loved one's lives. Traffic, however, affords me this time. While sitting in traffic I am captive in one place with my only form of entertainment being my cell phone. Thus, though I may groan when I hit a massive bumper to bumper sesh, I just whip out my bluetooth and settle in to hear about Paige's pending marriage, Dylan's new internship, and the latest Florida gossip; not such a bad way to pass the time after all.

Hate-Love# 17: Laughing You A** Off

As far as days go, today was (in the words of my favorite blogger, Perez Hilton) pretty Craptastic with a capital 'c'. So today, in an effort to lift my mood (just in case the large glass of wine I'm now babysitting doesn't work) I'm going to write only about something I love...

Moments so funny you cry, your face hurts, and you pee (just a little!). These are the moments I live for: the knee slapping, belly quaking, can't stop until you physically hurt from laughing so hard, kind of moments. These moments tend to come out of the blue, but are so amazingly worth the wait when they finally do. Funny moments can, of course, come from random YouTube videos, someone falling, being frightened, or generally humiliated, something hilariously original that your friend says, or maybe even a really good stand up comedian. Any way they come, however, rip-roarious moments are possibly more satisfyingly tasty then a BBQ-ed Rib Eye steak.

Above is a photo of my beautiful BFF, Paige, who has quite possibly one of the best laughs on the planet. This photo always reminds me of the wonderful and hysterical adventures we enjoyed during our three month trip to Southeast Asia, and thus always succeeds in lifting my mood. Do you have a photo or a friend who always makes you fell better? This kind of friend is a good one to have in your arsenal, so if you're lacking this in your inner circle, go find one, stat! I have to admit though, that my fav funny moments are the ones that take you by surprise, one such moment happened recently, and though I may not do this story justice, I'm certainly going to try.

I was over at a friend's house watching the end of the San Jose Sharks game and we were all yucking it up as usual; paying no real attention to the TV. As the game came to a close, some commentators came on the screen who were most likely talking about something related to the game, but we were all so busy talking at once that we didn't much hear what pearls of hockey wisdom they were imparting. All of a sudden my boyfriend says, "WAIT! Rewind that!" All in the room looked at him a bit puzzled, but the remote holder complied and rewound a couple minutes, "Watch!" My boyfriend said. None of us were ready for the unexpected hilarity that ensued: on the screen were the three commentators who seemed to be sitting casually in one of the upper boxes in the hockey arena. All three (commentators) guys were holding large foamy microphones in different colors and it was clear that the two guys further from the camera were the ones doing most of the chatting. The other guy, the one closest to the camera was, instead of talking, resting his microphone between his upper lip and nose and staring at the other two guys, which was strange but not altogether notable. Then, this guy (the one in the foreground) looks directly downward, tips his nose to rest on his mic and snnnniiiiiiiiiiff, takes a big smell of his foamy green microphone! Even better was that neither of the other guys noticed and the sniffing noise was incredibly amplified by the mic itself. Holy. Moses. I haven't laughed that long in eons. Needless to say, my amigos and I watched the moment at least 10 times, laughing harder with each instant replay. I'm laughing just thinking about it. Ahhh....my day is looking up after all! What's your funny moment?!

Hate-Love#17: Gardening

Over the weekend I did something I never do: I gardened. Although my mother (pictured at left tending to her beautiful hydrangeas) has quite the green thumb and also holds the esteemed title of Master Gardener (no, seriously, it's a real thing!), I seem to have been born without the gene because I hate...

Gardening. Let's see...dirt under my fingernails, check. Grime, sun, and sunscreen creating a mudslide on my face, check. Every manner of insect buzzing about my head, check. Bags of worm casings, bat poop, egg shells, and ground up fish attacking my every sense, check, check, check, and check. Wait, remind me, why is fun again? I rest my case. Seriously though, there is nothing I would like to do less then spend my time on a beautiful day out wading in dirt. If I'm going to get dirty in the warm California sun it's going to involve a football, some beer, a bikini, and a lot of serious sun worshiping; not coveralls, cow poop, and a garden trowel. It is extremely hard to get a good tan in coveralls. Not only that, but once you plant all your pretty veggies and flowers there's even more work to be done, and I can barely remember to water the darn things! I think that this is largely because unlike my dog or my boyfriend, plants don't audibly complain when you don't take care of them. The squeaky wheel gets the oil in my house, so unless broccoli plants develop a distinctive cry when they need to be tended, I think I'm SOL. I tried having indoor plants in college; I even picked an ivy vine for my first foray into gardening because I figured, "It's a weed, how can I kill it?" Well, I did the impossible, I can't even keep naturally occurring pest plants alive; the ivy was dead within three months. Additionally, gardening is a never ending commitment; it requires hard work, dedication, and time, and since I'm already in a serious relationship, two just seems like a stretch (even for someone as enterprising as myself). If you don't keep at a garden it gets attacked by secret gopher squadrons, nibbled on by roaming deer, suffocated by invasive weeds, and crippled merely from lack of pruning; it just seems more like a war zone than a hobby.

at the same time, however, the end result of a garden is nothing short of a fruit and vegetable revelation which means that though I don't want to do the work of gardening I love...

Fresh Fruits and Veggies Straight from the Vine. Being in my mother's garden is like being in an enchanted forest: roses of every shade bloom everywhere, sunflowers greet each new day, broccoli of prehistoric sizes shoot from large planter boxes, tomatoes seem to ripen before your very eyes, and towering green bean stalks threaten to disappear into the clouds. Watching my mother in her garden is just as enchanting as the place itself: it's like watching an enthusiastic conductor with his orchestra: her plants seem to grow prolifically in her presence. Although I have seen this many times, I still don't particularly know what goes down in this magical garden behind the scenes, one moment I am watching mommy wend a tomato vine through its allocated trellis, and the next she will produce a fresh, perfect bean from nowhere, "Green Bean?" She will ask. And as I eagerly take the bean and pop it in my mouth, I think not only of how lucky I am to have such a horticulturaly inclined mother, but also how positively scrumptious a veggie plucked at the height of its readiness can be. It is at these moments that I wish that I had a garden like this: need a fresh pepper from for the evening's dinner? No problem, I will go pick one for the garden! Fancy some lettuce for a light lunch? Hold on a moment, let me flit into the garden and harvest some! When you love to incorporate fresh fruits and vegetables into your meals as much as I do, a garden at one's finger tips is a blessing almost too wonderful to imagine. So despite my hatred of getting dirty, or my previous inability to keep a plant alive long enough to produce edible food, fresh veggies or herbs in my own back-yard may be a luxury worth working for.

Hate-Love#16: HOT Weather

To the left is a photo of me trying not to expire as I fry in the California sun. Luckily, I was able to escape to the (far cooler) beach on this day, but normally I don't have the time to do so. Yesterday it was even too hot to type an entry into this blog!

I hate...

HOT weather. You know that kind of hot that means that even laying down doing nothing, you're sweating? Yeah, YUCK! I hate this kind of sweating not only because when it's that particular brand of hot I'm never wearing the proper sweat friendly attire, but also because it's too hot to even shower without becoming sweaty again not five minutes after you towel off. Most people would say, what's the big deal, it's the 21st century, turn on the damn air conditioning! Well, being a resident of the beautiful northern California area in which I reside, air conditioning seems to be reserved for movie theaters and retail stores, because few people have central air conditioning equipped homes. Here, we instead rely on the natural air conditioning more commonly known as fog, which I swear was much more effective until global warming showed up and turned Marin County's summer season into a giant festival of HOT. Additionally, I'm not made for the heat. I am decidedly a mix of all things European and white and thus tolerance for hot weather just isn't in my blood. I recently went camping with my boyfriend's family at a place that was so hot that I at one point swore that I was actually going to die. I sat down in a chair, and not wanting to make a big fuss in front of the family, decided that I would die quietly and hoped that someone would revive me in someplace air conditioned before it was too late. Well, I didn't die and no one had to revive me, but I think it's safe to say that camping in HOT weather is not an adventure worth repeating. Why can't someone invent an invisible air conditioning body suit? Honestly, is portable air conditioning too much to ask when my iPod pays my bills for me?

at the same time, however....

I love....

Swimming. There is nothing like swimming when the weather is crazy hot. Whether it's the pool, the ocean, a lake, a stream, whatever, there is nothing like dunking into a great big bucket of cool when the temperatures soar. In fact, many natural bodies of water require that it be extra specially hot just for you to consider getting in. Have you ever been in the Pacific Ocean round about San Francisco? It's cold enough to freeze your nipples clean off and often necessitates becoming numb to the crippling cold before you can fully get in. Even if it's not hot where you live right now, just imagine it...you're hot and sticky with the day's grime and the force of the heat all around you, but manage to squirm into a swimsuit and sit still long enough to let the sunscreen dry on your nose. The pool awaits like a shimmering oasis of relief, and as you plunge into the deep end and water rushes past your ears and shoots tiny bubbles over your scalp, that's all you can feel: relief. The hot day is suddenly but a distant memory as water shimmies down your spine and threatens the barrier of your bathing suit. You hover momentarily in the weightless world of aqua bliss before kicking to the surface and breaking into the sunlight that now glints off your face with abandon. Ahhhh...there's nothing like swimming on a hot day....

Hate-Love#15: (Bad) Rap Music

I just found out the tragic news that Reggae Rising will be cancelled for 2010. And though I'm not surprised considering their totally lackluster lineup this year, I still found myself going through old Reggae Rising photos from years past this morning. As I was reliving the glory, I somehow started thinking about rap music (which has little connection to reggae, so I'm not quite sure of the synapse rail line I took, but here I am) and how much I hate...

Bad Rap Music (or "Skank Music", as my Dad affectionately calls it). Haven't we heard enough about hos, bitches, bitch slapping, big d****, and bigger rims already? Isn't there anything more original that rappers can come up with than just new things to rhyme with drinking, money, and crazy sex? I mean, really. You may think I'm anti-rap, but I'm not. I don't listen to The Postal Service or Jane's Addiction (though there is nothing wrong with these either), reggae and rap are the rhythm to my life; I'm just so tired of hearing the same thing with different beats behind it. There are some original artists: I am as I have always been, madly in love with Snoop Dogg, Jay Z, the late 2Pac, and godfather of the Bay Area hyphy movement, MacDre. But the likes of Gucci Mayne and Lil' Wayne, save for the occasional song that's just too catchy to pass up, sound the same as every other rapper out there. Has the business made rappers so cookie cutter that they really have nothing novel to say, no new art to contribute to the musical community or the public at large? I think it's a sad day when a once new and altogether exciting musical format becomes so trite that one can't decide who it is that they're listening to anymore, but rather let it drone on as one looped beat of degradation and dreams of millions to be squandered the moment they're made.

though there may be artists out there that make my poor ears threaten to crap out entirely, there are still those that have me listening to their albums on repeat for weeks...

I love...

Snoop D-O Double G. Oh boy do I love the Dogg. weather he's letting loose with a voice synthesizer or waxing poetic about his wife and kids, I just love to hear that man get down with his bad self. How much I love Snoop as an artist doesn't even rely on his invention of an entirely new language in the early 2000's, or his avid use of Mary Jane: to me, Snoop epitomizes an artist's ability to grow and change without losing his following or respect. If given the chance to meet Snoop, I don't even know what I would do other than make a giant fool of myself, but would I leap out of my shoes at the chance to meet him anyway? Fo shizzle, my nizzle!