So Long South Natomas

My commute is currently about 5 minutes. Sometimes 7 when I try to avoid 1 of the 4 stoplights and get stuck behind a car that doesn't realize it can TURN RIGHT on a RED. Adam Carolla had a hilarious rant about right-turn-on-red drivers, oh how I miss that show. Anyway back to the commute. 7 minutes, give or take. This happens to be the ONLY consolation for living and working in the ghetto that is South Natomas, a community in the northwest area of Sacramento. We all know crime is everywhere, especially in Sac. But in the 1 year I've lived in this area we've had a burglary at my office and several incidences of crime at my apartment complex including my own vehicle, my only possession worth anything, being vandalized. TWICE. Furthermore w/ several people crammed into one complex trying to save on rent, there are never any open parking spaces for ourselves or our guests forcing some to designate their own parking spaces which may or may not result in a very expensive impound fee. mother#*&%ing tow companies.


These are among a few of the many reasons why we desperately want to leave this area w/out having to find jobs in the bay area or elsewhere. After scouring craigs' for about a month, we opted for a walk-thru in a couple houses on the outskirts of town. 30-40 minute commute for a better living situation is entirely worth it, I now realize. But we got extremely lucky and found an adorable, remodeled 1920's house in west sacramento, in a unique area where the old homes share the neighborhood with a skyscraper and a pyramid building. The house for me defines maturity, and is the first place I've ever been excited to live in. Instead of settling for the housing that was just what I could afford, instead of getting a roomate to share expenses, I am choosing this place because it suits me. And I am feeling incredibly privileged to have the option in such a rough economy. I only wish the move-in date were sooner than 1 month from now! I'm so excited I want to drive by every day and sneak pictures from my iphone to swoon over all night. I want to sleep on its vintage little porch. I will actually have a porch! Yes... you could say I have a bit of a crush on this house.


One of the best parts about moving is no longer subscribing to the South Natomas police crime blog, although I really do have to hand it to the police for their impressive take-downs. Go female cops btw... I could never do that job. And not to say there won't be crime in my new neighborhood, but I'm willing to bet I won't be awakened by arrests outside my bedroom window, gunshots, or ghetto birds. Llookin forward to that! Especially now that it's summer and ghetto teens have nothing better to do than burglarize people's cars. So long foolio's! Hah.


While my work situation won't change for a while and regretfully I won't be able to avoid this area between 8 and 5pm Mon-Fri, how sweet it will be to drive away from it every day across the river to a welcoming neighborhood where I will love my neighbors, they'll love me, and I'll park whereever I damn well please.

I hate it when i...

...run into someone i friended on myspace/FB and i dont really know them but they think they know me and it makes for a very awkward eye contact/pause/just kidding keep moving moment. If this has never happened to you, Congratulations. You've avoided one of those rare (why did i wake up late and yet HAVE to have a cup of joe, making my trip 15 minutes later in the morning than usual) super cool moments of Adulthood.

Because first off, the eye contact is accidental, and then you realize they're looking back at you, and then you think for about 3 seconds 'do i know him/her? does he know me? god where do i know...OHHHHHHH...dammit" and now it's 3.5 seconds into the eye contact and you quickly divert your eyes because a Friend Request accept is clearly not the same thing as an in-person, 2-way street, introduction. I'm the kind of person who rejects 95% of friend requests from strangers, too. Commenting on my friends' wall, for example, is not an invitation for you to "Friend" me, for what, to say 'yo.. nice comment.. what's up' And the remaining 5% seem perfectly harmless to add because 1) I am taken and pics of boyfriend and blog posts of relationship are enough evidence...and 2) I never think i'll actually SEE them around town!!!

There is absolutely no way to get around this awkwardness other than to hope they're still not staring when you grab your latte and bolt through the emergency exit. And if they still think it's ok to email on myspace/FB later and say 'hey, was that you I ran into at starbucks?' then, you know, probably safe to just reject all 100% of strangers to save yourself from any of the above mentioned awkward occurances and then you'll never have to forfeit your favorite coffee shop with the only barista in town who knows how to properly steam soymilk.

I enjoy...

...when women change their names when they get married. Don't know why, but hyphenated names kill me. maybe cause i grew up w/ a stepmother who already had a daughter and when she married my father, didnt wanna change her last name from her other married name, which was also my stepsisters last name. so she hyphenated, and sometime shortly before my sister married (and took her husbands name) my mom dropped the old married name and kept ours. I think that's why in my mind, i believe keeping your old name is to somewhat 'reject' your new life, to have one foot over the threshold and the other firmly planted on the old trusty doormat.
not that im in love with my boyfriend's last name. it's very two-syllable english/scottish/bland. mine is three syllable sing-songy to match my three syllable unique first name which when people hear it requires them to hold their breath for a satisfying closer. my last name, all but cinches the deal like a note to end a song. Like the familiar trumpets at the end of a mariachi song. You expect it, you welcome it, you love it.
Of course it'll be difficult to give up my last name one day. So I've long ago accepted that I will throw out my middle name (as much as I adore it), shove over my last name in its place, and be happy that I got away with a non-hyphenated name change. Is that bending the rules? Probably. I definitely see nothing wrong with hanging onto the name and hiding it with an initial. I'm Latin, people, to adopt an English name will be like lobbing off my arm and replacing it with a prosthetic. And they don't make brown prosthetics. Well maybe they do, but no doubt it just wouldn't feel the same.
But I do love this man, and should he become my husband some day, I would be honored to take his name and scootch my own to the backseat. A silent G. to anchor my name but allow the first and new last name to be my identity. No one will even notice. It can be our little secret.

Disturbing? You be the judge.

Maybe its being home alone for 5 days that's got me sketched out at everything. Noises. My dogs bark and I jump out of my skin. Blinds open. I need some light but the scary creepy men outside are checking me out! They must know i'm alone! Even TV... the MOST disturbing season finale i've ever seen - private practice - where 45 week pregnant violet gets drugged by her psychotic and dellusional patient who is about to CUT her baby out of her uterus and the show ends. Just like that. Yeah didn't sleep a wink! No I'm not pregnant, but could you imagine if i was?! it was bad enough I had dreams about labor and scalpels but thankfully woke up and just had hunger pangs.

I seriously cannot get that episode out of my head. There's a reason I don't watch scary movies. I really hate being scared! I dont get an adrenaline rush and then go back for more. NO. I get pissed off and want to slap someone. So why would one of my fave TV shows that I'm truly loyal to (no matter how overly dramatic the plot lines are) go and do to that to me. WHYYYY.

My first thought upon crawling into bed (after trying to kill some mosquito eater thing that I was convinced would crawl into my ear while i was sleeping and leave its eggs... Yes, it was too big to fit in my ear, but you never know.) was Thank God i'm sleeping at my friends' place tomorrow... screw this sleeping alone in scary dark mosquito eating dweller apt and its peeping toms. I'm outta here!

Jealousy.

I'll be the first to admit it. I struggle from time to time with the notion of bashing flirty female heads in when it comes to my boyfriend. Is it entirely my fault though?

Let's pause a minute. I happen to be with the most faithful man God ever created. He's stubborn as all hell, and is basically too stubborn to cheat when unhappy in a relationship, as if thats the easy way out. He just won't do it. Let's be grateful for that. Let's also be grateful that he thinks my jealousy is sexy.

And YET being that I work in an office of the same 80 people ive encountered on a daily basis for 4 years, (let me sum them up in a quote from a friend "engineers are nature's birth control"), I cant exactly relate to working with the public, as he does, at the mall, with anyone from tweens to cougars hitting on him. Yes i said tweens (read sluuuts).

So maybe jealousy isnt necessarily always based in fear of being hurt but sometimes of an innate need to protect one's territory. Not that my 5'3" frame is about to squash anybody, let's also remember that I'm Latin. And with that comes enormous amount of attitude and passion for all things I love, and that goes for him. So back off beyotches.... he's mine. And yes, he knows how cute his butt looks in those slacks so you don't need to tell him. So go ahead and scrape up the remainder of your self-respect, take your haggard self to the next man, and please...let's try not to have this nice little chat again.

On the work front

I realize I haven't really written about work at all, what it is that I do, what projects I'm working on. Sometimes it's hard for me to even put my job description into words, which hardly makes sense because I spend about 75% of my time writing reports. Speaking of not making sense, not sure how I got a writing profession out of an engineering degree. Still trying to figure that one out.

I work for a multi-disciplinary engineering consulting firm. My group specializes in environmental infrastructure (water/sewer supply and treatment). I don't do much of that, mostly I do water resources (storm drainage, hydrology, floodplain assessments). It's some computer modeling, some AutoCAD, some GIS, and a LOT of report writing.

This week I'm writing a feasibility report on water and sewer supply alternatives for a proposed prison expansion job and when that's not completely getting hacked by corporate politics, I'm writing a water supply assessment for a community that conveys its entire water source for 50,000 people in a 150-year old flume. Should it get taken out by accident, supplies could potentially run out for the community within a week. Pretty scary... but again, local govt politics keeping any back-up supplies from getting constructed to prevent that from happening. So I think it's all pretty interesting, how you can't really get away from politics no matter what side of the job you're on.

Lately I've been really discouraged to see the turnover rate in our industry. Since civil/environmental engineering is heavily dependent on development, once that slows, you'd better either work for a big firm that can move you around, or have a beefy resume to fall back on. In my case, my company is large but office is fairly small and my department tiny. I was trained by someone who made me as self-sufficient as possible, and I'm convinced that's the only reason I still have a job. Very few engineers can work for several depts at one time with little supervision. Oh, and if all else fails, I can write a damn good report.

I suppose my advice to others in this industry is to be adaptable, take initiative to keep yourself indispensible whether that's by getting on a variety of projects (however unexciting) and getting as many trainings, certifications, etc. to stay ahead of the curve. Our education doesn't stop after college, there's even tons to learn from the people who got to their positions w/out a degree but w/ experience alone. It's those people that have all the job security.

I really hope all my dear friends who have fallen victim to the rise and fall of the economy and our industry find that perfect job really soon. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed and my eyes out for hiring opportunities!

On the home front

I borrowed this picture from a website called pawsitivepuptraining.com because it best describes the horror I came home to last Tuesday.

As horrified as I was, grabbing the camera and snapping a picture was not high on the priorities list. Normally our dogs (2-yr old puggles, Hazel and Littlest) hang out in the kennel while we’re gone at work. They also sleep in the kennel and occasionally in the bed, though no bed is big enough for 2 (even little) dogs that want to sleep on your feet and legs, so that rarely happens.

Occasionally I’ve thought to myself ‘what would the dogs do if they ever got out of the kennel during the day’… well I found out last week and the answer is: chew up everything they can get their grubby paws on and greedy little mouths around.

Somehow, the boyfriend didn’t properly close the kennel and they roamed free and pillaged our small apartment for about 8 hours. How would a dog remove a cap from a sharpie w/out fingers you might ask? Well I’m not sure, but I know now that it can be done. I will be wondering how permanent that marker is when I attempt to bleach it out of my white blanket.

Try digging out the remaining pieces of your Planet Earth DVD set from their teeth and then tell me again now having dogs is training for having kids? Not sure how that works, or how you can feel justified in punishing the dog hours after you find the poop on your newly shampooed carpet.

Either way, the child training is only making me more terrified at the thought of children unless they one day come already 4-years old with pottie-skills and a vocabulary. Until then, I’ll let the dogs teach me the virtues of patience (one day I’ll learn it, I swear) and the beauty of having a partner who willing to help clean the mess AND do all the disciplining. The damn things are cute though.