A Fresh Start

Wednesday I'll be leaving the house that I share with Mike and Jeff and moving back to my hometown of La Verne after being gone for 12 years. I'm getting a 2 bedroom condo on Bixby and I'm really excited about it. For now at least it will just be me, but that will most likely change. The very next day after I move marks the start of the 30 day countdown to my birthday, known to the rest of you as the month of July (my birthday is the 31st).
To celebrate my newly found space and to help countdown to my 30th birthday, I've decided to do 2 things during the 30 days: eat only what I cook and exercise for an hour a day. Then we'll see where I'm at when my birthday comes. Oh yeah, did I mention that it's the "30 Days to 30" countdown? Yep, I'm officially becoming a "30 something" along with a lot of my other friends from school this year.
I've got a Wii Console (in black) and a Wii Fit Plus bundle of my own and money set aside for groceries, so now it's up to me. It will be nice to be able to work out and cook in my own house instead of always being at Trina and Gregg's. It will be nice to have THEM over to MY house for a change to eat and work out.
It's not just getting to cook and work out. I've been wanting to move back to La Verne for a long time. I have this idea in my head that moving back to the town I grew up in is going to somehow be significant for me. To be honest, when I was younger, I used to call La Verne "Mayberry" and complain that "nothing ever happens here" but then when I left at 17 to start living on my own I really missed "Mayberry" and the peace and quiet that comes from "nothing ever happening." Maybe I was just unable to appreciate it at the time.

I used to look like that?

I was at my Mom's work on Friday using the fax machine and visiting for a bit. I don't like to stay too long because a law office is typically a busy place, but being Friday things were a bit more relaxed than normal. I took a minute to look around my Mom's office to see what embarrassing photos of me she had hanging up. I used my cell phone camera to get shots of a few of them to share with you, though they are kinda blurry. Some of you knew me back when these photos were taken. The first shot is my Dad and I at the St. Lucy's Freshman Father Daughter dance, early Fall 1994. I was really into silver back then, and instead of wearing a traditional corsage, I opted instead for a wreath made of white baby roses, silver ribbon and baby's breath.
I'd also like to point out that even though I was not allowed to wear my silver Doc Martens with it because it would have been "inappropriate", I was permitted to leave the house in a thin, satin, spaghetti strapped dress without a size 36C strapless bra on. Since I had finally grown out my perm and my bangs and wanted to start fresh, I also had super short hair here. In fact, at the time, the back of my head was shaved underneath my over-gelled bob haircut, which, ironically enough, meant that I had to keep my hair this length for a while until the shaved part caught up enough for me to grow my hair out. It took about a year and a half for it to get to the length shown next.
The second shot is towards the end of my sophomore year at Bonita, so I'd say Spring of 1996.
By this time, I think I had learned to wear bras with formal dresses, only I didn't care if the straps showed. Much to my dismay, I was a D cup here, so going bra-less was not an option anymore. My hair covered the straps, so it was OK. I convinced my Mom to buy me this dress because I told her I would wear it to Prom, even though I was only a sophomore. I had no intention of going, I just wanted the dress, which was black velvet and went down to my feet and had a slit to just above my knee down one side. This showed off the fishnets and black Doc Martens I wore underneath it. By now my Mom had stopped fighting with me about my clothes and decided to let me wear them as I saw fit, since we had spent so much money on them anyway. This pose, shoulders rolled forward, arms folded over my chest and stomach, and a sullen, jaded stare, was typical of me most of the time back then, whether posing for a photo or just standing around. Body language experts would have all kinds of fun with that photo. Back then, between the mostly black clothes, the ankh necklace I never took off, and the "how come they don't make anything paler?" foundation I wore, I was in the early stages of goth. It got worse over the Summer before I started going to Citrus College. That's when I started buying pants and bikinis made of pleather and go-go boots and dresses made of shiny black vinyl and all sorts of other things that I would never let my 15 or 16 year old wear. When I started working at Hot Topic at 17, it got ridiculous.
These next 2 are from Hawaii, Summer 1996, during a day spent at one of my favorite places: The Kualoa Ranch, about 2 hours by private bus from Waikiki on the island of Oahu.
Yes, that is a cigarette next to the toy gun in my left hand. By then, my parents knew I smoked. I was a high school graduate, so I guess that was OK with them. I think I was trying to look like an outlaw here. The periwinkle shirt kills it though, doesn't it? I had on a black pleather bikini underneath it but my Mom refused to let me take my shirt off for the picture. Funny, considering she let me buy the bikini.
This horse was so old. The only way to get it to move was to keep a switch in it's peripheral vision. My posture in the saddle here is awful (slouched forward as always), but at least I'm holding my reigns correctly. The really sad part about this horse is when I went back to the ranch 8 years later while on my honeymoon, this horse was still there. Thankfully, I didn't get stuck with it that time.
You never realize you're getting older until you see pictures of you when you were younger. I was between 14 and 16 in these photos, and in July I'll be 30. Crazy.

Kratos: The Knargle of War

Trina told me the other day that they were offered the chance to adopt another cat. With Atreyu, Storm, Luna (aka The Knargle) and Harlequin, this would make Cat #5, which I reminded her officially qualifies them for Crazy Cat People status. Yvonn brought the kitten over today during Amber's birthday party (by the way HAPPY 7th BIRTHDAY RUNT!) and the minute Trina, Gregg and I saw him, we knew he'd be staying. He is the TINIEST thing, mostly white, with a half a dozen spots on him like Luna, only the spots are gray (Luna is a Calico with red and black spots). Trina remarked how he had gray Knargle spots, so they now had a boy Knargle. But what to name him?
Trina named Atreyu, Amber named Storm, Raven named Luna (though we all call her The Knargle, after the invisible creatures described by her namesake in the Harry Potter books) and Gregg named Harlequin, plus Raven and Gregg named the Bearded Dragons (Jasper and Alice) and the Mexican King Snake (Toothless). Normally my suggestions for names for the pets are considered, but never used, but this time I finally picked one that got used.
Raven's friend Melanie suggested Hercules. Though immediately dismissed, it reminded me, as I'm sure it did the rest of the family, of when Gregg beat Hercules in the last God of War video game. Trina, Raven, Amber and I would watch Gregg play God of War III on the PS3 for hours at a time, before he beat the game after about 5 days. As I sat there thinking of this, holding the kitten with the ashy gray Knargle spots, it hit me. I looked at Trina, Raven and Amber and, after struggling to remember the hero's name from the video game, I blurted out "Kratos! We can name him Kratos!"
Now if there is one thing my best friend Trina and I do with some regularity, it's disagree. Not argue or fight, just disagree. Though we enjoy a lot of the same things and share some of the same beliefs, when it comes to matters of personal taste, we couldn't be more different. Though we never get angry, it annoys the hell out of anyone within earshot. She likes blue, I like red. I think the cashier at Costco is cute, she thinks he is not. She thinks "Minority Report" is a good movie, I think it was awful. She likes NCIS, I like Law and Order. It's just the way we are. So when I made my suggestion, I was fully prepared for a veto from her, and the look on her face ALMOST looked like she was going to, but then she paused for a second and said "Yeah, we could do that." With Gregg's, Amber's and Raven's approval, the kitten was named "Kratos: The Knargle of War"