My friend and former coworker, “Stella”,  just sent me a note through Facebook alerting me that our old boss, the doctor in the optometry center where we both worked, met and became friends, is in the end stages of what sounds like a terrible cancer I’d never even heard of until about 4 minutes ago.

I’m… stunned and well, I’m just floored.  And I’m so very, very sad for her and her beautiful family. Such wonderful people. It seems so unfair.

I met Dr. M in 1992 when I walked into the mall to get an eye exam.  First I met Stella, who gave me my pre-exam, then Dr. M, who five minutes into the exam pulled back the keratometer and said, “I like you! Do you want a job here?”

And there you have it. I’d never even had an eye exam, but within minutes, I had a job as the new optometric technician. It all just clicked and I knew right away that I wanted to work for her. I didn’t even hesitate to say “Yes!” even though I already had a perfectly decent job for slightly more money.  I started in a few days and over the next few months, Dr. M. and Stella taught me everything they could about being a great optometric assistant.  They even taught me to fit contacts so I could study for my NCLE (which I never did end up getting — I’m wishing I had now, for some reason).

I loved everything about working for Dr. M.  She is bright and brilliant (literally – I think she’s a Mensa member), tall with beautiful long curly auburn hair.  When I worked with her she had kind of a quirky style and she often joked about being built like Olive Oyl.  She has sparkling light eyes and a soft voice that I still hear in my head sometimes when I think of her.

Dr. M. challenged me (and I’m pretty sure I challenged her, since I often seem to with those who mentor me — though not in the same way!) and she saw potential in me for so much.   I was so grateful to her for giving me chance to work in her office and get to know her and become not only an employee, but a friend.   It wasn’t hard for me to leave the company — after a couple years, Dr. M had moved to another office in another mall and I was still at the same location, but over the years I’ve always thought fondly of her and wondered where she was, what she was up to.

I think one of the biggest impacts Dr. M had on my life was she introduced me to a lot of jazz and blues.  She used to crank up Joe Williams, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn in the office… to the point the retail side would ask us to turn it down.  And if her exam room door was open while the music was playing, you’d often catch her bebop-ing her booty around while she peered through the keratometer at some unsuspecting patient’s retina. She was an excellent OD and I know her patients loved her.

I knew through the grapevine that she was living in the midwest, still doing her optometry thing, along with her husband and (now grown) sons (who are awesome in their own right).  And I’d looked her up on Google a few times and finally found her new clinic in her new state, saw a photo and thought, “I should really call the office sometime and see how she is doing.”

And I never did and I wish, I so wish that I had.  Her husband says that she can’t receive calls or emails right now, which  I can imagine, so I won’t bother them, but I wish I could tell her what she meant to me. She is such a strong woman and I just never envisioned this, never thought she would get sick, never even considered that she wouldn’t be around for me to tell her… eventually. And while thankfully she is still with us, I don’t think I’ll get that chance.

This one is for you, Mag.

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For those who don’t know, I’m moving out of my apartment in a week and a half.  I am really going to miss Casa Cocktail and all the good things about it, but lately the crap has started to outweigh the good things.  To start, Slick (a.k.a. Guitar Hero) picked up the electric guitar and bass as a hobby, which he played  every day at 4pm for 2-3 hours.  Is it not bad enough that his girlfriend made sex sounds like a caffeinated baboon, he had to fancy himself The Edge at least 5 days a week?  But… a blessing!  He moved out in April and took Ape Escape with him.

But then, GFI moved out.  I don’t know who the hell she thinks she is just moving out and having a life and stuff. I mean, god, lady. Don’t you know everything revolves around my happiness?  Obviously I’m kidding, but I miss her as a neighbor.  She never made a peep, we were BNF: Best Neighbors Forever.  I could text if she needed help when I heard she might’ve dropped something, she could text me to ask if I had margarita mix, we could sit on the patio and gossip about the neighborhood and I never, ever had to hear her pee.

When GFI moved out, we really pushed to get a woman to move in upstairs because we thought it would be better. It’s mostly women on this side of the building and, historically, single professional women tend to be quieter and more considerate than say… a guitar-playing baboon fucker.

And lo, we got a woman — a nurse, no less!  GFI met her and she seemed nice enough.  If only she’d known at the time that this woman — nay, this late-20′s girl — has feet made of cement and a double-wide disposition.  She walks so heavily, I half expect to hear “FEE FI FO FUM!”.

She also vacuums at 10pm or later indiscriminately.   Once at midnight in the bedroom on a weeknight!  She finds it impossible to enter or exit her apartment without sounding like a stampede of yaks and… this is the one that really gets me: she is incapable of going to the loo without stomping over to the bathroom, doing her business, then dropping the lid of the toilet and flushing every. single. time.  Now, this is something most people do, right? You go, you do, you flush, but for some reason, she even flushes loudly.  I never really noticed when GFI flushed, but I can actually hear this girl pee. And then she slams the lid and flushes… even in the middle of the night.

My name for her is Godzilla.  Also sometimes The Beast, Moose and “Oh my god, I hate you so much right now, wtf!”.  I tried to make nice in the beginning. I welcomed her with wine and smiles, both the property manager and I alerted her to the fact that this is a very old, very quiet building of single professionals and sound travels, so things like heavy walking and loud TVs/radios should be kept to a minimum. I also let her know I work at home and I gave her my phone number so she could text me if she needed anything or if I got to loud (and of course, it was just a ruse to get her phone number for the same purpose).

She doesn’t care. She told me we had to “learn to live together”.  I’m not your roommate, woman.  I pay my own rent and never had issues with upstairs noise until you got here. Check yourself.

And she lives a ‘younger’ lifestyle than I do, clearly.  Which is her prerogative, but one day, she turned up her radio SO loud it sounded like Fergie was playing live in my kitchen.  And all her little friends were clomping around on the terrace in their kitten heels, so I popped my head outside and there she was, hanging over the railing with a can of Miller Lite (sorry, I’m a beer snob), knocking some back before she and her friends hit “the club”.  Meanwhile, I was looking forward to a hot bath and the Ghost Whisperer, you know?  Different strokes.  I don’t begrudge her the fun, I just asked if she could turn it down a little because it echoes through the tile in the kitchen.  She turned it off and then sent me angry texts about how she feels like she’s “walking on pins and needles” and “I might as well turn it off — I can’t hear it outside”  Uh, it’s not my problem there’s a freeway, an ocean, some train tracks, a trolley and an airport outside that whisk away the sound.  Get a radio for the terrace, Mensa.

I even bought her a little giftie (of slippers — hint hint!) with a note that said I hoped we didn’t start out on the wrong foot and that she’s truly welcome in the building and I hope she enjoys it here.  If she could just try to walk a little lighter, I said, I would appreciate it.   It worked for like, a week. Now she’s back to Riverdancing around the house.

Bottom line?  She’s just a clod.  No grace.  NONE. I don’t expect her to go to Barbizon, for chrissake, but didn’t anyone teach her how to walk like a lady?  She’s a tall girl, but I’m 5’10 and not exactly the slimmest of slims and I’m capable of walking without shaking the damn tschotschkes, why can’t she?  Put a book on your head!  She came home last night at almost 3am, banging and crashing about, peeing and slamming and flushing and finally, I reached over and banged on the wall.  LOUD. I’m done being nice about it.

I gave my notice to move a couple weeks ago. It makes me sad to give up this beautiful view.  And I really do love this apartment, but it pains me to live here sometimes, too.  It’s a vintage building and the apartments have good energy… or used to.  But the landlord doesn’t care about the building as much as I do and I’m tired of caring about the building more than he does.  In fact, I dream of winning the lottery and restoring the building to it’s original glory, then rennovating it to make it eco-friendly.  But that won’t happen and I’m sick of my sink smelling like rotten eggs and the plumbing backing up. I’m tired of the foundation crumbling and the lack of A/C.   There’s not quite enough space now that I’ve got Lulu and while they are going to do some improvements to the building (all new triple-paned windows and a fresh air circulation system — like central air without the conditioning part), I don’t want to wait around for that.  Besides, since the landlord is such a cheapskate (and he’s not paying for these improvements, the Port of San Diego is), he’ll most likely raise the rent once it’s done.  The view is beautiful, but if I’m going to pay more rent, I want a washer/dryer more.

I decided to move to an area of town that doesn’t have a view, but is centrally located — about 10 minutes from everything.  It’s not the most beautiful area of town ever, but the property itself is like an oasis and it’s a big complex with proper maintenance staff and amenities like a pool, fitness center and the like. I’ve got a washer/dryer in my apartment.  It’s bigger than this place and it’s got a new kitchen and a big soaking tub.  It’s very much like my apartment in Dallas, which was comforting somehow.

Like I said, I will miss this place… quite a bit. It’s been one of my favorite places I’ve ever lived and I have great memories from here. But it’s not the same building it once was… the good juju I felt when I moved in is replaced by cursing and wall-banging and other rude neighbors.

It’s time to move on.

I was also kind of unclear about how BlogHer handles the submissions and presenters. It would be perhaps several weeks, if not a couple months before I even heard if my panel was chosen, and since it doesn’t appear that speakers get free admission (like SXSW), I wanted to make sure I got my ticket before “early bird pricing” passed me by.  Then I decided if I was going to pay for my ticket, I didn’t really want to be anxious about presenting, too.  Despite my gregarious nature, I get a little nervous speaking in front of groups… alone.   I want to enjoy myself, network, sign some books (I’m working on setting up a signing with our publisher) and mingle with all them fine ladies.

I changed my mind about something else this weekend, too. I’ve been considering a move to a larger place so that Lulu could have a ‘room’ that’s not the dining room and I could have a proper office.  I found a too-good-to-be-true place in Encinitas, a beach community about 30 minutes from here:  3 bedrooms, 3.5 bath, fully-loaded, utilities included, private beach access (so basically a block or so from the beach), ocean views… it sounded like a dream.  And all for only a couple hundred more than I’m paying now.

Of course, if it sounds too good to be true, it generally is.  After exchanging a few emails, I decided this had to be a scam.  Here are the red flags:

1. Homeowner on “missionary work” in West Africa
2. Doesn’t have anyone in the States — not a broker, not friends or family — to show me the unit.
3. Insists I send a deposit, at the very least, for them to send me the keys and documents (who goes on a missionary trip knowing they’ll have to rent their home, but takes all of their home documents and keys with them?)
4. Contact info given by the homeowner is in Nigeria.
5. The name the homeowner gave was a decidedly Anglo name, but the emails clearly indicate that English is not the first language. Major spelling and grammatical errors.
6. The name the homeowner gave doesn’t own that property according to public record, though there is someone by that name who lives in the same city… but he owns another address which is actually a business, not a residence.
7. Despite the incredible price and despite him telling me he had “a lot of interesting” in the property and it would be “first come first serve”, he kept lowering the price every time I told him I wouldn’t send money overseas to a stranger without meeting someone in person in the States with a viable background check and the appropriate legal documents.
8. A reverse lookup indicates someone else of a totally different name currently resides in that property.

So… I told them thank for playing, but I’m not some 75-year old Jesus-loving retiree from some yokel town who fell off the turnip truck yesterday.  I know a scam when I see one. I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but not to my own detriment.  It’s sad that someone will probably fall for that.

I reported them to Craigslist and flagged the ad as ‘spam’, as well as contacted the Federal authorities in the internet scam department.  Take that, Nigeria.  You messed with the wrong broad.  Of course, probably nothing will ever come of it, but at least I didn’t fall for that crock.

I am, however, still looking for a little house, preferrably two-bedrooms with a yard for Lulu to play in and washer/dryer hookups. I’m feeling increasingly unsafe in my neighborhood, despite it being so lovely.  Three cars have been broken into in the last couple months, a guy got pulled over for a DUI on my street last week and mikey‘s car even got broken into last year parked in front of my place.  So if anyone in the San Diego area hears of a bungalow or small home for rent in an area of town that doesn’t require Truck Nutz or that I put bars on my windows, please let me know.

Here are a few of my favorite Blossom Dearie tracks…

Visit my blog to listen to the audio!

Visit my blog to listen to the audio!

Visit my blog to listen to the audio!

I hope you enjoy the tunes… she’ll be missed.