Day 36 - LA County enters yellow tier

Lots of drama in my French Cinema class…

6/7/21. Monday

8:30-9:30 – My alarm goes off but I lay in bed for another 30 minutes. Up and I go downstairs to greet the animal.  This is early for her so she’s still asleep. I rub her tummy three times to gradually wake her up, then she grabs her tennis ball and we go outside.  The workers at my neighbor’s house are there, bright and early.  Great. Going outside with the dog in my pajamas every morning is so embarrassing…BUT I notice that it’s not embarrassing enough that I bother to get dressed.

The dog seems to have lost the rat’s scent – maybe the workers at my neighbors’ house scared it off? – so she is no longer distracted.  She goes potty right away and I fill my watering can and water my new jasmine potted plants. Return inside and coffee for me; pepper-jack cheese for the dog. I go upstairs. I weigh 100 pounds today.

9:30-11:00 –I sit in the shower, drink my coffee, and listen to The Daily. Lotion. Covid-19 uniform. I should mention that I put Alba Botanica sunscreen on my face every morning. Light make-up.

11:00-1:00 – L. and I leave for Costa Mesa with the primary intention of touring Ikea [I’ve never been].   L. has planned our itinerary. Our first stop is Coffee Dose, a hip-and-trendy “pop-up” coffee shop that “pops up” in other businesses.  I’m aware of two locations thus far: 1) one is inside a clothing store in Hollywood; 2) the other is inside a hair salon, in Costa Mesa, which is where we’re going today.  Their coffee cups have logos that say, “Anti-Bitch Serum” and “Blessed be the Coffee [from the Handmaid’s Tale] and “F—k Mornings” [yes, the cup actually says the F-word – there is no redacting].

We stop at Sam’s Club first, so L. can get gas. This is the cheapest place to get gas and L. is a Sam’s Club member.  However, the lines are very long.  As a “fun” [not really] exercise, we calculate L.’s gas savings in correlation to the time spent in line, waiting. Is her personal time worth the wait? We discover that the savings equates to about $1.00 per minute – somewhat significant, but it might have been worth her while to drive up the hill to Econo Gas instead of several miles across town to Sam’s Club.

Driving.  We listen to The Sunday Read - The Native Scholar Who Wasn’t and two episodes of Adulthood Made Easy: 1) Landlord Nightmares; and 2) The Roommates from Hell

1:00-2:00 – Arrive at Coffee Dose and enter an establishment that L. describes as “culture shock” because NO ONE is masking.  Not the staff, not the customers, no one in the entire hair salon. L. and I are the only customers masking.  Of course, I’m a sheep and want to take off my mask because I’m afraid I look weird and stupid.  L. doesn’t give a s—t, so we leave our masks on. I get…drum roll, please…a regular coffee with almond milk. L. gets…something?  Coffee Dose has laid Astroturf in the alley behind the building, near the parking lot, and has set up some chairs and tables out there, so L. and I sit in the sun and drink our coffee and talk.  The weather is beautiful, although a bit chilly.

L. says we have 2:30 lunch reservations at The Outpost so we leave.

2:15 – 3:45 - A mere 10 minutes away, and the world has changed again. Now, we’re in the Costa Mesa Art District, an expensive section of Orange County, and everyone is masking, even while walking through the parking lot. The Outpost is in the South Coast Plaza, and there is a large sign posted at the entrance instructing everyone to mask and social distance. The sign includes the appropriate pictures in case people can’t read. Although this sign is located at the entrance of the restaurant, which is located inside the South Coast Plaza building at ground level, Wait Staff give L. and I the option of eating inside or outdoors and when we choose inside, they seat us between two occupied tables that are basically on top of each other. There is no social distancing at all, in violation of the very sign that is outside their own establishment. I feel so uncomfortable, sitting inside, right next to these two couples who are eating and talking. I don’t think I will do this again…

Nevertheless, the food is incredible, although the service sucks. Our waiter is abrupt and it takes forever to get our check. L. orders the Intergalactic Pancakes and I get the Glitter and Gold Skillet and a glass of champagne. The two tables on either side of us “turn over” rather quickly so the customers aren’t seated next to us for that long, but then Wait Staff seats two new couples next to us again. Of note is that Wait Staff are still, in fact, masked.  Nobody was masked at Coffee Dose.

3:45 – 5:00 – L. proclaims that she actually feels more comfortable at the Ikea in Burbank and would like to go there instead of the Ikea in Costa Mesa.  I gently say perhaps she could have thought of that before we spent several hours driving to Costa Mesa for lunch at The Outpost?  There are numerous restaurants in Burbank where we could have dined had we known we were going to the Burbank Ikea. She concedes the point and we head to Ikea in Burbank.

We are in the thick of rush hour traffic.  It is absolutely horrible. We listen to On Our Watch, so L. can hear exactly how dirty cops can be.

5:00 – 7:00 – Arrive at Ikea and it’s empty for the most part.  Recall that it’s 5:00 on a Monday – everyone is rushing home from work so they can make dinner. We tour the entire store and I get a few ideas for the garage, i.e., turning it into an art studio for L. One thing about Ikea is you can’t back track – you must keep going and tour the entire store in order to reach the Exit.  It’s a great marketing technique.

I like the displays/models of the rooms and find the store very interesting.  It appears that the goal is for people to live comfortably in as small a space as possible. In America, bigger is better, but Ikea seems to convey a minimalist philosophy, while still managing to brainwash the customer into thinking he/she will need a lot of supplies to live the minimalist, “tiny home”, small space, slow living, lifestyle. Genius marketing.

7:00-8:00 – Driving.  Traffic is still horrible. Continue listening to On Our Watch.

Home and L. leaves to spend the night with N. and J. at N.’s house. She packs an overnight bag and will stop at the grocery store for ingredients so she can make her famous Rigatoni at the slumber party.

8:00 – 8:45 – I have one last paper due by midnight for my French Cinema class so I pick up where I left off the other day.

8:45-9:15 – I stop working on my paper and run to Whole Foods to pick up some prosecco-in-a-can before the store closes.  I’m low.

9:15–11:30 – I finish my French Cinema paper and submit.

 OMG – there is so much drama in this class right now.  A few days ago, the French Department emailed me that I would be receiving an Occupational Skills Certificate for Basic Competency AND a Certificate of Achievement in French, in light of the classes I’ve taken and my high GPA. These “awards” will be noted on my transcript. HOWEVER…

there is a Final Project due in my French Cinema class that involves finding a group of 4/5 people, selecting a French movie, and then each of us acting out a scene from the movie via Zoom.  The scenes will allegedly be spliced together and submitted??? I wasn’t clear on this last part, but it didn’t matter because from the first week of the semester, I decided that I was never going to complete that Final Project. What a hassle!  Working with a bunch of kids, via ZOOM, and the roll out for Covid vaccinations was extremely slow, so it didn’t look like any of us would be able to meet in person. This is an ONLINE course and I don’t want to work with anybody – I want to watch the assigned films and write papers about them. That’s it.

Anyway, the Final Project is worth 20% of my grade, so I estimated that if I got As on the remaining 80% of assignments and an F on the Final Project, I would get a C in the class. It’s a bit of a gamble, but as long as I don’t get a D or F, I don’t care – a D or F would be somewhat devastating in the event I decide to pursue my 4-year degree in French because I would not be able to transfer the class and would eventually have to repeat French Cinema or a substitute. But even that is not the end of the world as things go…I mean we just came through a pandemic.

So, I got As on every assignment in preparation for the fact that I would NOT be completing the Final Project. I even submitted a synopsis of a Zoom interview several of us attended involving a French director, because my teacher casually asked us if anyone wanted to prepare a “review.”  I submitted a review immediately, even though it was for NO CREDIT, because I knew I wasn’t going to complete the Final Project and was hoping to give myself a slight edge in the class.  The French Club published my review in their online newsletter and my teacher sent a link to my review to all of the students in the class [insert smile emoji here].

The last month of the semester, I never bothered to join a group.  My “partner” from two previous papers “we” had to turn in [I told my partner I was writing the papers, then added his name to the assignment – he was extremely grateful] asked if I wanted to partner up with him on the Final Project, but I said I was going to skip it.

My teacher, just this week, has realized that I am not in a group and has sent a flurry of emails asking what’s going on, informing me that I need to get in a group ASAP…she can’t seem to fathom that a student who has received As on every assignment is opting out of this Final Project.  If this were one of my students, I would send a couple of emails and then give them a 0 on the project…we’re all adults here…I didn’t think my teacher would be so pushy so now I have to respond to her emails.  I resolve to do this tomorrow.

11:30-3:00 – I spend the rest of the evening cataloging my expenditures over the last 6 months and assessing my budget, while listening to Room 20. This is the end of the second quarter and the half-way point of the year, i.e., it’s when I review my budget, rein in my spending, and knuckle down for the next two months of July and August, because I typically do not teach over the summer so am not receiving additional income.  I squirrel away money during the semester to tide me over during these lean summer months but it’s never enough. While I’m able to live entirely off my pension, it’s a bit tight without my part-time gig(s) [although after tracking my time, I find that I’m working between 35-40 hours per week so this is not part-time]. For example, I would have to cancel my monthly Wine.com order if I had no supplementary income [insert smile emoji here].  Obviously, this is a white privilege problem…

But, things are a little different this summer.  Allegedly, I’m teaching an online summer class at College No. 2, although we’ll see if I hit enrollment.  In 23 years, I’ve never earned additional summer income, so this would be very helpful, IF the class actually runs.  I also signed up at College No. 1 to teach Summer Session 2022 – online only - [schedules are prepared a year in advance] so we’ll see what happens next summer.

3:15-4:00 - Nighttime routine. Bed.