i'm tired. i can feel that i have bags under my eyes. they're probably purple.
i don't like my cousin. she's 27 years old and can't take care of her own 5 year old daughter. and she keeps taking advantage of my Aunt. She's had a pretty fucked up life (seriously. molested for years by her step-dad) ...but enough is enough. when you can't even stay home with your own daughter because you want to go out and drink and do whatever you do...something is wrong.
AHHHHHHHHHHH! it just irks me!!!!
***
anyway.
i came across a blog of someones that wrote about El Cajon. Where i want to live in California:::
Exploring the 'Hood'
It had been several months since I moved to El Cajon, California and my well intentioned plan to walk two miles each day, downtown and back home again, had not materialized. However, certain events occurred that made it necessary for me, to actually walk those two miles each day; essentially, the idea was to walk off the fifty pounds of me which the doctors considered surplus. I decided that I had to do it, despite the fact that after careful research, I have concluded that it will take me one hundred seventy-five years to ‘walk off fifty pounds’. Meanwhile, being condemned to a daily forced-march, has actually allowed me to make an assessment of the ‘Hood’, as my daughter calls it. “The ‘Hood’ is a colloquialism defining an unsavory rather unsafe ‘no-man’s-land’ in the midst of drugs, gangs, violence, danger, and mayhem. Technically, my daughter is correct, except that the hood is any neighborhood in Southern California. However, in the case of my ‘Hood’, I must say that it does not resemble in any way the tenements of North Hartford, Connecticut, the ‘Hood’ where I worked, in my earlier work productive days. My ‘Hood’ today though, is downtown El Cajon, It is attractive and appealing and it has changed drastically in the fifty years since I last lived in this fine city. In 1956, El Cajon had a population of five thousand and twenty percent of the population lived in house trailers (house trailers were not assigned the dignity of being mobile homes, then). Today, El Cajon has a population of ninety-eight thousand people. Fifty years ago, the most important store downtown was W. D. Hall’s Lumber and Hardware Store; today, the most important store appears to be the Salvation Army Thrift Shop. The El Cajon Salvation Army Thrift Shop offers many real shopping opportunities and bargains. Fifty years ago, you saw cowboys walking Main Street in El Cajon in well worn Levis with dirty seats and cowboy boots with run down heels. Today, the people you see walking on Main Street are not nearly so well dressed. We seem to have a rather large population of ‘street people’ here, in my town. I think it is proper to say that El Cajon probably has the most well mannered sophisticated street people, ever. El Cajon’s homeless people have the neatest arranged and nicest looking grocery carts that anyone could imagine. When I take my daily hike, I like to dress the part: dirty tennies, jeans, and a black cap with Jack Daniels written across the front. My daughter disapproves, telling me that, “We have enough characters, downtown, we don’t need you, too!” She really gave my ego a boost, since I have always wanted to have character and now I am one. I think I am gaining some local recognition too, because some of the other characters downtown have been greeting me lately. Damn, I am being accepted! Being over-educated for my needs and at least half-intelligent, I decided to take an inventory of ‘my town’, during my daily excursions. Having always been pragmatic and having worked in academia and administration all my ‘other’ life, before retirement, I find it difficult to deliberately waste an entire hour of walking per day, simply getting exercise and nothing else. Instead, that hour that I walk will be used to observe and record; my town’s kind of people; businesses; traffic; note daily changes and improvements; and become familiar with the businesses, the proprietors and the quality of their services conveniently starting with the local bars and taverns. Thus, my daily walks have purpose!. On my first daily excursion, I took note of: the Grand Bar (the oldest standing bar in El Cajon), The Irish Sports Bar, and Cat Daddy’s Sports Bar, all on Main Street. After ordering a short beer and sampling the fare in each establishment, discussing politics, the weather, and my domestic problems with the bar tenders, I concluded that businesses in my downtown El Cajon were quality enterprises. Satisfied, I confidently determined which direction I needed to go and continued my walk home. Subsequent walks downtown were equally enlightening. Considering Main Street, from Lincoln to Magnolia and a little beyond, to be downtown El Cajon, I now consider this my domain. This is my ‘Hood’ and this is my town! One day I overextended my usual tour and discovered a restaurant I didn’t know existed on Main Street, the Kahramana Family Restaurant. The restaurant advertised that it was the, “home of real kabob”. Now that works with me! I can not wait to taste how the ‘real kabob’ tastes. I certainly intend to find out soon! It would appear to me that the ethnicity of the Kahramaa Family Restaurant would probably be Iraqi. Not many people know, but El Cajon has a huge Iraqi population. I suppose because of President Bush’s idiotic war against Iraq, many American people believe that people with Iraqi heritage are bad, or terrorists, or something; I know what that is like. People resented my German heritage during World War II and they called me a ‘heinie’ and hung a swastika on the local German Lutheran Church in my home town. Boy, I hate that American bigotry! If ever politicians wanted to make America a better place to live, they should start by eliminating the ethnic bigotry that is so prevalent in America! Several weeks ago, I supped at another Iraqi restaurant on Main Street, the Ali Baba. What a delightful experience. I had one of the best waiters to ever serve me and their marinated lamb shanks and rice were fabulous. The décor in the restaurant is tastefully Arabic. However, I should hasten to admit that all I know about Arabs is what I read in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khyyam, one of my favorite narrative poems. Like an idiot, I asked for a house red wine, which was not on the menu at the Ali Baba and my waiter told me that they did not serve wine in difference to their clientele, even though the restaurant had a license, to serve wine. It had occurred to me that I should have known better. My Muslim cousins also have religious objections to drinking alcoholic beverages. The waiter told me that I was welcome to bring my own wine and they would serve it with my dinner. All of this really impressed me. I respect people who have religious objections to some foods or beverages, such as my Mormon, Methodist, or Jewish friends. However it does not make me feel guilty, in any way and I must admit to reveling in being a heathen, free to eat or drink whatever I like. El Cajon has a lot of very fine looking restaurants on Main Street downtown and I intend to try them all. A few weeks ago, I had dinner in the Downtown Café and it was really good. I had dinner in the garden and they had a Country and Western trio performing there. Country Western is not my favorite but I did enjoy the rendering by Sonny, Caleb, and Mac! A few days ago, as I was waiting for a light to go across Magnolia Street, I made an amazing discovery about El Cajon. Magnolia at Main is in the heart of El Cajon and the Salvation Army Thrift Store is right there on the corner. As I stood there day dreaming, I was startled by the thunderous bonging of a huge bell. It is not something you commonly expect to find in America; huge bell towers are quite common in the middle of Medieval European towns, and are expected. However the El Cajon bell striking the hour was a little embarrassing for me; I must have jumped three feet off the ground when it startled me.. It was then that I noticed a huge clock above the Starbucks Coffee Shop, across the street, where the sound was coming from. It gave me cause to wonder if the bell was an invitation to worship at the Holy Cathedral of Starbucks! That particular building is only two stories high, so the thought of a bell tower existing on Magnolia and Main in the middle of El Cajon was certainly a stretch of the imagination. The clock chimed eleven times and it was deafening! Fortunately, Starbucks serves coffee in paper cups, surely the bell would have cracked ceramic cups. Now, this is something that I have to investigate further because a bell of that size, to make noise of that magnitude, would drag the ground, even it it were hung at the ceiling of that two story building. The sound, in this case, would have to be electronically produced and amplified. Wow! I would never have dreamed that my town had a virtual bell tower in the center of El Cajon, at the corner of Magnolia and Main. You have to be there exactly on the hour, though, to hear it.
Today was a busy day. 
So we headed down our street and headed a little farther to the end of the neighborhood. it isn't that bad really. although...the river has come to the street. and if you look at the trees way out there in the picture...maybe 20 or 30 feet PAST those is where the river should be. give or take a few feet. i'm awful at trying to figure out distance by feet. haha.
