When things turn against you it seems they really turn against you.  We had moved to Los Angeles from Chicago about 5 years ago now.  We got there at exactly the right and wrong times.   When I think about the fact that we are now listed as an official Los Angeles Bankruptcy, I just can't believe it.  Neither can Michelle.  We are right back to where we were 5 years ago when we came out here.  In fact, we are worse.  We are facing a total loss of everything, except our 401k savings.  Disaster started to happen when Michelle lost her job, then we couldn't rent a house, then another, and then another.  We couldn't sell them, either.  Many of the people who could have purchased those homes couldn't get the easy loans anymore.  We lowered the rental prices, made them all rent to own, and we still had three empty homes.  That left only one home rented and we had five other ones that we were trying to flip.  It seemed like overnight things had just dried up, like turning off the shower suddenly.  We had come out here with no idea of getting into real estate, but soon ended up with eight homes that we were either renting or rehabbing slightly to flip. 

My sister was having a terrible problem with facial hair.  She’s only a teenager, still in high school and she’d been getting picked on quite a bit by people in her class.  She almost seemed like she was at the end of her rope, that there just wasn’t anything that could help her.  She tried plucking, she tried waxing, she tried over the counter creams and shaving but nothing seemed to be doing the trick.  I think that she visited every Chicago hair remover in the phone book, and not even the professional treatments were giving her the results that she wanted.  She finally visited a dermatologist who prescribed an oral medication for her to try.  The prescription doesn’t remove the unwanted hair, but it does inhibit the hair from growing.  She took the medication for a few weeks as the doctor had directed before hitting the spa for a removal treatment to clean up the hair that had remained and the results have been very positive for her.  There doesn’t seem to be any new facial hair coming in since she had her last treatment.  She’ll have to continue taking the medication, but if it’s going to help her lead a more normal life she certainly doesn’t mind.

There is one more healthy recipe I have to scan and upload before I go to sleep! I think I must be the busiest I've ever been. I've just spent nearly the entire day and night gathering all the recipes I've had floating around on index cards and coming up with my best data storage solution to date. It drove me nuts seeing all these fantastic healthy recipes scattered in different drawers and folders or jammed in between other recipe books. I've become much more comfortable accessing information online and it only seemed to dawn on me today that I would have a lot more fun cooking and baking if I could just pull the recipe up online and find everything in one area instead of wasting time hunting for everything. I did a little test run with it today and found that I cut at least a half an hour off my search time. Maybe it was even forty minutes!  Anyhow, I know that I was able to spend the extra time reading the latest organic chocolate recipes! I need all the extra time I can get if I want to be able to keep up with some of these gourmet chefs!

Well, after searching for three months, I finally found a job. My dream job! Starting this Monday, I will be a professional chef! Not only that, but it’s in a five-star restaurant! The only problem is the uniform. I have to wear a chef hat! You would think that since I’m in the kitchen the whole day and none of the customers would see me I would be able to wear whatever I want. But, no! I have to wear a white apron and a chef hat! Who wears chef hats these days?! Of course, nothing can go perfect. I finally find a job, my dream job, and then I have to wear a chef hat that makes me look like a freak. And I thought that finally getting a good job would impress Annie, but now when she comes to visit me at work, she will see me not at my best, but at my very worst. One of the worst parts is that I have to tell my mom. She knows how much I hate chef hats. Whenever I told her about wanting to become a chef, we always started talking about how I think chef hats are the most ridiculous things ever invented. What is the point of chef hats? They are these tall, white, ugly things that are totally and completely useless. Well, at least I have a good job, right?

I can’t think—the golf ball must have hit me really hard! I am a golf trainer and some of the people I train need a lot of training. And when I mean a lot I mean really and seriously a lot. This big bruise on my head is definitely a proof of that! Just yesterday I was training an old lady and she just couldn’t understand how to hit with a golf club. She knew the steps alright, because she practically repeated what I told her word for word. What I taught her entered her brain, but certainly not her eye and hand coordination. So I did the next best thing: I showed her what to do. When I thought she was about to finally get it right, when she already had the club in the air ready to bring down and hit, she just gently placed it down on the ground in front of her feet and stared at it. I asked her what in the blazes she was doing and the only thing she said was “I can’t do this, I’m utterly hopeless” over and over again. This got me annoyed, so I raised my voice a little and I told her to focus. She then looked at me with really crazy eyes and told me that I should never again tell her what to do. I had no idea what was happening when she got all physical on me and lifted the golf club to my head and whacked it across my head. She then dropped it and ran as fast as lightning. I was stunned and couldn’t believe what had happened, and if anyone tells me that my job is boring, I’ll be forced to tell them otherwise.

These leg presses are starting to get to me!  I have to keep reminding myself not to overexert because I’m trying to lose weight, not gain it back.  This gym is great, though!  Lots of great-looking people to stare at when I’m not busy trying to improve my own body.  If it hadn’t been for my executive health program I wouldn’t even be able to afford to come here to work out.  I’m a middle manager for a financial concern and normally I would just buy my own equipment, such as treadmills and weights, but this gym has so much more to use.  It’s like being in heaven!  Most of the time I just come here early in the morning—they open up at 5—and run a few laps and lift some weights before starting work, which is only two blocks away.  It gives me quite an appetite for breakfast, but usually I’ll just grab a box of cereal and some OJ and down it as soon as I get inside.  The company pays for the use of the gym anytime as long as I don’t spend longer than an hour here on company time, in other words, the length of time I have for my normal lunch break.  Now, I’ve got to be good.  I’ve been thinking all week about that spaghetti and meatballs special over at Pazooli’s on Grand…but this afternoon, I’ll just have to be content with a spinach salad…

There are some commercials that stick with you throughout the years, even though you may not have seen them in a couple of decades.  Every time I see a commercial for an ambulance chaser lawyer, or someone else offering some service via commercial, I would think of Peter Francis Geraci.  At all hours of the day and night Peter Francis Geraci pawned his bankruptcy info tapes.  Another classic was the Karate Kid commercials.  They were over the top for a non-budget amateur hour style commercial.  I do not know one person that grew up at the same time as me that would not laugh if they heard, ‘you must be Karate Kid.’  One commercial that has lasted through the ages is the Where’s the Beef commercial.  There is a great joke about that commercial in the movie EuroTrip.  Several teenagers adventure through Europe and end up in Eastern Europe.  The place they end up is so far behind that commercial is still a popular catch phrase.  One company that has provided great commercials and plenty of pop culture references is Budweiser and Bud Light.  If it is not the Clydesdales, then it is dude, whazzup, or frogs.  Regardless of what it is, they are always memorable.