Digital Impulses

Bit of a stressful Wednesday

As if the ugly phone call and news I got from Alex at WF this morning was not enough, I have to deal with a tremendous amount of FUD and angst at my workplace, as there has been quite a shakeup in staff and there is a lot of whispering and muttering amongst my colleagues reagarding what might happen next... This sucks, I tell ya.

Rescuing the Teenager
In the middle of all of this, I get a call from the teenager to tell me that he blew out a tire on the 405 san Diego freeway in Long Beach and that he needed help paying for a replacement tire.  He was lucky that the exit he took from the freeway was one that just happened to have a Good Year tire replacement store and he was able to get the car there without having to call AAA for a tow truck.

I took off immediately to where he was and by the time I got there, the repairs were almost done.  We waited in the lobby of the store for a few minutes and then eventually we went and paid for the repairs and he was on his way to his girlfriend's house in the O.C.

FICO discussions with Bert
After rescuing my son, I came home for lunch and had an interesting conversation with Bert regarding FICO scores, credit reports, how to care and maintain them and such.  It was one of those rare instances in which a conversation with Bert did not end up on a bad note or with him dumping a bucket of cold water on whatever happy news or project I am working on, as he usually does.

Teenage Drama

So there I am, minding my own business at my mom's house, watching TV, when my cell phone rings and it's my son's girlfriend and she is absolutely hysterical.  I get her to calm down enough to tell me that they had a big argument and she was very upset.

So, I go home, get in the middle of this and end up going to sleep rather late after having to go pick up the teenager in a not-so-nice part of town because after the fight with his girlfriend, he decided to jump on a bus and just get off at some random point.

We brought him back home safely and eventually they worked everything out. 

Teenagers.  Wow.

Drama with Pete

So this evening, before going up to PV to play Scrabble, my sister, mother, sister-in-law and myself met up at the El Torito Grill in Manhattan Beach near the corner of Artesia and Sepulveda to celebrate my brother's birthday.

What an unmitigated fucking disaster.

The service was abysmal, my food was spicy, the drinks took FOREVER to come to the table and the harried, scatter-brained waitress kept forgetting stuff that we ordered.  To top it all off, she brought my brother a hot fudge chocolate cake that was *cold* and then grimaced and said " Sorry.  I don't have anyone to sing you Happy Birthday" and left.

She then returned to the table moments later and stated that she "took a couple of the desserts" off of the bill to make up for the bad service.  Well, that did little to mollify my brother's incediary temper and so by the time the bill came to the table, my brother was steaming hot.

He grabbed his coat and keys, told his wife that he wanted to leave and then made perfunctory good-bye gestures to us outside the restaurant and proceeded to blow out of the parking lot at a high rate of speed, even going to the extent of ignoring a wave from me as he left.

This obviously left everyone feeling terrible and so we got into it over SMS text messages as I was driving up to Palos Verdes.  I took the time to mention to my brother how bad we all felt at his behavior and I got the token apology in response.

The dysfunction in this family seems to reach new and epic proportions with every family gathering.  I truly wonder how bad it has to get before it gets any better.  I hold little hope.

*sigh*.

Ho-Hum Thursday

Not a whole lot going on.  Issues with the teenager are still lingering. 

As a matter of fact, I just returned from a rage-fueled drive to the Manhattan Beach Pier because I got really, really upset with him upon entering the house and being confronted with him ignoring me as I walked by his room.

For some reason it really infuriated me to know that HE is still angry and has decided to demonstrate his anger by not talking to me.  It's unbelievable. It really is.

But. Then again, I am responsible for creating the self-centered, egotistical brat with the horrible attitude, so why act surprised and hurt now the fruits of my labor are on display?

What else can be expected when there was no line of respect ever drawn and his mother and I were never on the same page when it came time to instill discipline?

I was too busy trying to be his friend, instead of a father. 

The result of that is this. It's fucking depressing is what it is.  *sigh*.

In all of this angst and turmoil with the soon-to-be 19-yr old, I did manage to find some time to switch my printers around.  Now my all-in-one Epson CX8400 Printer, Copier and Scanner is next to Zeus, my new almighty 24" iMac and all is well with the world.

Oh, and the brat's XBox360 Elite arrived via UPS from Microsoft.  One assumes it is repaired and ready to use again, but the brat showed little interest in connecting it today, so I don't know what the deal is.

*double sigh*.

2003 / 2004 all over again: My own special circle of Hell

Un-fucking-believable.

This evening I felt as if I had gone back in time 4 or 5 years, to those black, stress-filled days, weeks and months that seemed to go on forever and felt like they would never end.

The same nasty attitude.  The same lack of respect.  The same lack of consideration. The same disregard for anyone's feelings.  The same self-centered ego trip. The same acting hard to impress the friends and just shit on the loved ones.

"I don't give a fuck". 

That's what I heard ring in my ears as he turned his back on his mom and I and walked away down the street,  with his crowd of  scary-looking, zero-head, low-life, wannabe gangster friends.  He actually WALKED AWAY, PREFERRING them to his parents.  The very same parents that would lay down their lives for him without hesitation.

Sometimes you wonder just how much disappointment the human soul can take.  Well, I gotta say:  Never underestimate a person's ability to swallow shame, humiliation and disappointment.  Tonight I learned that my capacity for these things was deeper than I thought.

Just when I thought things were good and I would never have to relive those terrible moments of long ago, I opened my eyes and there I was... standing in the middle of the street, watching him ONCE AGAIN DEMONSTRATING WITH HIS ACTIONS that he cares more about the animals in the street than he does about his parents and grandmother.

He thinks time heals all wounds.  He thinks we'll get over it.  He thinks he's the victim and we're "just trippin".

He has another thing coming.

Unfortunately for you, ACTIONS SPEAK much LOUDER than WORDS, son.

You did it again.

Unbelieveable.  Or is it?  Maybe I'm the asshole who just doesn't want to "get the message" that I am not as important as I thought I was.

Well, maybe, just maybe, today I started to understand.  You won't have to do it much longer. son.

Rest assured.

Drama with David

So I saw my sister at the donut shop this morning and she tells me that there was a really bad situation at her house last night involving David and the mother of his child.  We spoke for a few minutes in the parking lot of the donut shop and from what Isa was able to tell me, things escalated to the point where the police was called.

It wasn't very clear to me EXACTLY WHY they fought this time around except for the fact that David got some advice from other family members about going on Disability or some such thing.

Its clear that things have reached an untenable situation with these people and something needs to be done.  A family intervention may be required before my sister ends up in the hospital in a complete nervous collapse.

God, what a clusterfuck.  And I don't see an easy or efficient way out of this, considering the fact that there is an infant involved.

What a Saturday

The events that took place on this Saturday in March are such that they are going to require two posts.

The day started off routinely enough, with Breakfast at Piggies followed by giving Claudia a ride to Eastlake Juvenile Detention Center near downtown L.A. to see her son Aldo.  After dropping off Claudia, I called Bert and told him I was near by.  He asked me to come by and we drove to an In N' Out burger joint off of the 60 freeway and had lunch there.

After lunch, on the way back to the factory, we stopped at at Coffee Bean for some drinks and then I dropped off Bert and picked up Claudia from her visit with Aldo.

Later in the evening we had dinner at Asela's and that was pretty good.  After dinner, we drove to Palos Verdes to play Scrabble. 

Bert's black aura
How it all started I have no idea, but as the night seemed to go on, Bert just seemed to get darker and darker and the tension in the room and with his boys was so thick you could cut it with a knife.  At one point, Bert pushed back from the table and left the kitchen and I was certain he was going to deal with his boys.  as it turned out, he just went upstairs to wash up and change his shirt, to see if he could snap out of it a little bit.

Scrabble was ordinary and I do not recall the results of the games.

Aldo: Voicemail message from his Attorney

I just returned from lunch to find a message on my work voicemail. In the message he sez he just barely received the case notes from the P.D. and will be looking at the documents today and will show up in court tomorrow morning at 1030.

The actual case is set for 0830 and he says he has to be in court in Van Nuys first thing in the morning and will be showing up in room 240 in Inglewood tomorrow morning at 1030.  In the message he states that he can't predict what will happen tomorrow, that we need to wait until tomorrow to see how things play themselves out.

The fact that he just barely got the case notes today, a few hours before tomorrow's court date is unnerving.  He hasn't been to see Aldo, has not spoken to the D.A, etc.

I suspect things may not have an optimal result tomorrow morning and that portends to much drama for me emanating  from the women directly involved in this case that are family members of Aldo's.

I can't see the light yet at the end of this tunnel.  That sucks.

Aldo: 2nd phone conference with Francisco Zavala

Just got off the phone with Aldo's attorney. 

Unfortunately, here we are, 72 hours before court, and he *still* has not received any paperwork regarding the case from the public defender.  He states he expects to receive the paperwork soon, and that once he has received the paperwork, he will be better prepared to both talk to the DA and to go see Aldo.

He asked that we exercise some patience and have faith that everything will be O.K.

For now, he states he will call me back once he has received the report from the Public Defender and has had an opportunity to digest all of the information contained therein.

We'll see what happens.  This fucking nightmare cannot be over soon enough.

Sad & Overwhelmed: Mom and Sis

So.

There I am, minding my own business, having just jumped out of the shower and getting ready to go attack a clutter issue in my computer workspace in my garage.  All of a sudden, my cell phone rings.

It's mom.  On a Sunday afternoon.  Oh, oh.

Sure enough, I answered the phone and was treated to a 15 minute unloading, just an angry, bile-filled diatribe against my sister, with whom she's just had a huge argument.

Naturally, right in the middle of my mom's epic phone call, my phone's call-waiting is 'beeping', and there is my sister on the other line, most assuredly wanting to pull the same crap, to scream and rant and rave and tell me her side of the story.

Well, eventually, my mom ran out of gas and I promised her I would talk to her about it later in the week. So, stupid me, I call up my sister and get a SECOND DOSE of shit, mostly verbatim, bu this time pointing the finger at my mom.

Needless to say, after those 2 horrible phone calls I ended up completely and utterly overwhelmed and without an ounce of energy or the desire to do anything at all.  The clutter in my office got a reprieve and lives to tell its ugly story another day, or week or month.  Who knows. 

*sigh*.