More from LA

I haven't forgotten to post, I promise. LA sure has been quite tricky for us. I have lots of photos and stories to share, all in good time.

To back up, I wanted to add a photo of Terry and I with baby Max, born Jan 1. He's a cutie, quite blonde though, and Sadie seems quite smitten with her new baby brother. I think she was more smitten by the Ice Age and Horton stuff we brought her, but you can tell she'll be a great big sister!





**Housing**

Our first month, we subletted a room in a house. The place was just awful. For those of you who know about our old Wash Heights apartment, it was quite similar to that. There was never any heat (turns out the heating system was improperly installed and was a fire hazard, so the company had it turned off MONTHS ago). Dishwasher didn't work, washer/dryer didn't work. Friends of the housemates were constantly using our bathroom and leaving it filthy (and they would often crash on the couches outside our bathroom). Mosquitos were EVERYwhere, but they weren't biters, which is good. And eventually, the house went into forclosure. The owner had pocketed the rent money and stopped paying for utilities, which also explains why we had no hot water or cooking gas for a week (I was washing my hair in FRIGID water).

We got lucky and were able to get the keys from the owner of our new apartment, so I showered there when I could, until we moved in.

My phone stopped working while we lived here. This was the powerhouse phone that I could use for an entire week and only have to charge once, maybe twice. And it worked EVERYwhere. ONce we moved to LA, but esp in that house, it died. Now, I have to charge it EVERY night. And, even when I do, if I talk on it for 20 minutes or so, it dies within an hour. And I get really bad reception in most places. I've triangulated with the towers and inquired about it from Verizon people, but no such luck. It's a msytery. So I'll soon be switching to sprint, since my sister can get us a great deal.

we have a great little apartment in a gated community of condos, so there's 3 pools, a small gym, an association (who has proven useless and annoying), elevators, 2 parking spaces (tandem though, which i'm sure will get annoying after a while)... HIGH ceilings, and a deck.

apt came with 2 bathrooms, 2 bedrooms, a dishwasher, a really old crappy stove, and we had to buy a fridge. that was a trip.

However, we had a problem with our movers, of course. The truck arrived 5 days late. It was awesome, yup. Then, the association wouldn't open the gate immediately behind our building made for trucks because we needed to contact the fire department to open it. Uhuh, thanks for the warning. So we had to pay $400 extra for the movers to rent a crappy smaller truck that they could shuttle our stuff from their 18 wheeler to our apartment. Amazingly, stuff seemed to have survived the long trip. The guy in the truck was a schmuck, though. Our box spring has to be replaced, it was pretty much destroyed. Most of my plastic storage containers got smashed. we only lost one glass. All in all, not too shabby, though everything appeared as though it had been to war and back.

LA life has been interesting.


**Jobs and Auditions and Disney**

Terry likes his job. I think it took him time to warm up, but I do think he really likes it now.

As for me... sigh... I have been on a ton of auditions. It's weird. Out here, I just seem to know when it could happen or not happen. I've had some great experiences and some not so great experiences. Lots of musical theatre and student films. I seem to be doing ok.

But I still needed a job. I applied for all kinds of things because nothing I was looking at would pay the bills alone, I'd need two jobs. I must have applied for everything found on craigslist that paid more than $8/hr. out here, they really refuse to pay you. I thought NYC was bad, disguising real work opportunities as an "internship." Here, they just flat out say, "full on job here, must have a decade of experience and a masters degree and know this whole gambit of programs, and you must LOVE the work because we can only pay $8 an hour." nice guys, nice.

I also sent my stuff to a good handful of event planners to finally get that babysitting business of the ground that I'd tried to make happen in NY but couldn't because of my job at AGP. And I sent my stuff to over 40 caterers about catering work. A few asked for my resume, a few said they weren't hiring but would keep me on file, most never responded.

I just had a kick butt audition for Disneyland! I sang very well and guess I projected the energy they wanted. Then I had to do an improv, and I think it may have been a bit strong (basically, it was the same thing I would do at AGP to get the kids pumped, but it may have come off a bit different in this scenario, since it's a completely different scenario than AGP). But I had a ton of fun. I mentioned that amazing audition in 2005 when they came to NYC (and apologized for sounding crazy by bringing that up), but the CD remembered me! They dont often go to NY, so by bringing up a very rare audition they had, once I was sure it was them who had attended, she remembered! It's crazy because they probably audition over 1000 people a year. So to remember a tiny audition in NYC several years ago, thats really cool. The entire panel was so nice and so much fun. Yea, I really want to work at Disney, can you tell? hehe

I also got a job doing live infomercials. It's kinda tough to explain, but I'll get to that soon. I have a 4 page monologue to memorize, or else I won't get to keep this job! So I'm going to get moving on that, and will post more later.

The secondary job I'd gotten was as a waitress at a small family owned chain of restaurants, with a new location opening up in our neighborhood. There was a lot of poor communication and dragging of feet (for 3 weeks), so eventually, I ended up getting fired. What's funny, is that because of all of the communication issues and dragging of feet, I didn't even know I had a job to be fired from. But still a noteworthy milestone. First time ever getting fired. Lovely.


**Driving and Parking**

The same week I also got my first speeding ticket. That was awesome too.

And said job above? They don't provide employee parking and didn't inform us where to park. Parking in LA is tricky, worse than NY probably, too many signs and rules o follow. Apparently, on the post where I was parked, there were 7 signs, and after reading them and the times you can or can't park there, assumed I was ok. Came back to my car to discover a ticket. The sign buried in the middle was "no parking at all other times", unless you had a permit. Lovely. Be sure to always read ALL the signs.

First parking ticket, first speeding ticket, first time getting fired from a job.

LA has been lovely so far.

I have tons of pictures and videos to post. but I have a doctors appointment and then the blinds people are coming to measure us for new blinds, then TWC is coming to set up our phone and internet. Finally.

So I have to get going. More later!