Busy Bee Random

-Yesterday I accomplished the impossible. I convinced a Republican to vote for Obama. Yes you read that correctly. I even drove him to early vote. I also convinced him to vote no on amendment 2 which discriminates against gay couples (and actually would negatively affect more heterosexual couples who live together and common law couples than gays so I'm not sure how it even got on the ballot). Can you guys believe it? Uh Huh. You're welcome.


-We're looking for a new apartment. There's nothing wrong with this one except for the fact that I'm getting sick of walking up and down several flights of stairs with groceries and/or a dog. Plus electricity costs a damn fortune up here. It's also drafty and with winter creeping in, I'm not in the mood to freeze my behind off again. We're in no hurry though and we're both very specific about what we're looking for. I need lots of windows, a kitchen with plenty of counter space, and my own walk in closet. Mr.Pea requires a fire place, tile floors instead of carpet, and a big porch. We both agree we want a lower price too but that goes without saying. We might end up in a 1/1 if it's nice enough. This idea uneases me a bit as I've hinted at you guys before about my loathe to share a bathroom with him and especially a closet. If my marriage unfolds after we move into a 1/1, you guys will know why.


-I went for coffee with my nephew and we passed by my very first apartment. It was in a first floor of an old house that honestly was 37 steps(I counted) from the beach. The place was drafty, salty, made scary 'old house' noises at night, and the hot water didn't work if someone else in the building was using the outdoor shower but oh how I loved that apartment. The guy who had lived there before painted the walls a soft pale aqua and I remember my gauzy curtains billowing every evening. I had shells all over the place(but no shark teeth as that beach doesn't produce any) and books galore. I rode my bike to work on the beach when the tide was low and drank tea every night on the front porch to the sound of my bamboo windchimes. I was also a hop, skip, and a jump from my favorite coffee shop (which is still there even though Starbucks moved nearby a couple years ago) and a couple skips more from the library. (My dad was particularly pleased about the police station located one block away in case any psychomen tried anything funny with his daughter.) I can't comment on any of the resteraunts since I was too damn poor to eat at any of them. I never had any money. I didn't have a car. My fridge was always sparse, my phone was always being shut off and I was always by myself(because did I mention that I never had any money? Oh yeah I already did. Well I'll just say it again anyway, I was always broke!). But I remember being so happy in that cozy little apartment and wanting to live there for the rest of my life. I'm not sure why but it makes me happy to see that who ever resides there now, kept my sun sticker in the window and happy face I painted on the mail box.

-My allergies are driving me insane. I don't get stuffy nose. I get the bloody-murder-painful sore throat and ears. It's the worst in the mornings when the air is dry. Zyrtec sort of works. Only sort of though.

-My endocrinologist had her baby. The one who told me I couldn't have kids until she said it was ok. I know already told you guys about this but I'm feeling particularly jealous so I though I should mention it again. Anyway her office called me today and said I needed to get some blood drawn this week and suggested I get a flu shot just in case I end up having more cancer crap to do. I'll get the flu shot but if they suggest I need radioiodine again I'm going to say hell no. Which really means can I just put it off a few more months because I was enjoying not having to see them.


I haven't been leaving comments lately, I know. I've been busy and lazy- can you say that in a sentence and still make sense? Ya'll know what I mean. Anyway, you'll see me soon and more often, I promise.

I'm feel like tattle-telling

Because someone needs to hear about this and there was no one around to whom I could bitch about it.

There are very little things I despise in this world more than pollution. I realize some pollution can't be avoided. But when I see people leave their garbage all over MY beach and flick their cigarettes out the car window(I mean, we're only driving GASOLINE-FILLED vehicles) I make sure to give them the evil eye, if they happen to be looking my way. Last week the wind was blowing a ton of seaweed from the Sargasso Sea and with it all the crap people must be throwing off their boats or dumping on their beaches. Nasty people.

I first encountered this bottle.


At first I got excited because maybe there's a message in it....maybe I was wrong. Upon closer inspection I notice it said Havana Club on it. Does this mean it floated here all the way from Cuba? Is there such a drink that can be bought here in the US called Havana Club? I just want to pretend the answer is no because at least then this is pollution I can maybe get excited about.







More bottles with no messages inside.....

Someone's big gulp.


And the cherry on top was this nasty shoe. I did not find it's mate.

If you see the people who did this, you tell them I'm not very happy with them right now because I hate cleaning up after people.

Vlog the vote. Makin' History :O)

I voted today!
I felt all "historical" so I had to make a video. I ended up having to do another take when I realized I was holding my camera the wrong way. Typical....

Here is my message(s) to the world:


Oops. Take two:










And here is my ballot. I encourage everyone to do the same whoever you vote for.

Random is as Random does

-I got an email inviting me to a high school reunion. My 15th year high school reunion. Well, well, well. It's pretty odd to get an invitation in October for an event that is going to happen in June but I suppose it;s like a wedding invite where you need to plan around. I'm feeling pretty indifferent about it since I already keep in touch with the people I had wanted to and frankly don't care one way or another to hear about the rest. High school was for me as with anyone, shitty most of the time with a few really great memories. I probably can't fit back into my cheerleader uniform but I was never a huge fan of the school colors anyway. I'm not going to go and I'm not exactly sure why I should feel bad about it since everyone I've told about it says,"No! No! You should really go." It's not so much that I'm LOATHE to go, it's just I don't see the point, there's not going to be anyone there I'm dying to see and since I moved back here, I run into just about everybody anyway. Do you disagree?



-Confession: I accidentally ran over some one's newly paved driveway the other day on my bicycle. Really though, not much harm done because the pave guy(I don't know what the job title was but he was nice to me) was able to fix it since it wasn't completely dry. Still though, I felt bad about it. Absolve me Internets.


-Um. Last week while I was looking for shark teeth, this guy came up to me bragging about his find. That was fine. But when he started with his lectures and instructions about how wrong I'm going about it I had to shut him down by reaching into my pouch pocket. My smallest one was bigger than his biggest one. Does size matter? Absolutely when you've got some jerk in your face telling you what to do and talking out of his ass. I hate when men do that to me, actually everyone does this to me. Just because I'm small and smiley, I must be stupid and in need of guidance. I wrote about this before, small people of the world, you know what I'm talking about. You guys know my shark teeth prowess, I don't need to tell you guys about it.

-Speaking of shark teeth hunting, I wonder how I must look to people who may happen to look out the window and spot me. Big floppy hat, green bathing suit, pink flip flops. Yellow pouch worn sideways that my husband makes fun and says makes me look like a crossing guard. Eyes furtively looking around, head down, shoulders crunched, staggering like a drunk person, gleefully giggling with every find and quickly putting in my bag before anyone sees because I'm stingy like that. Oh and don't forget my pepper spray conspicuously clipped to my bag so as to warn Psychoman if he decides to try it. Or do I look like Psychoman?


-The other day my sister said this to me:

Her: My gawd! You went to the beach again? What the hell, Angel how many shark teeth do you need?

Me: Wellll, it's just that.....low tide was at 1.... and ...and... and the North wind is picking up so I thought...

~~~pause~~~~(defiantly) well guess what?! I'm going again tomorrow!

Her: You're going to drive yourself blind girl. You need to calm down.

Me: SO?!

Her: Didn't you just go Monday? What do you do with all those shark teeth- put them in a damn bowl and sit there whispering,"mine mine all mine?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~LONG PAUSE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Me: SO!!!!?


Yeah. It's that important to me.

Great White!!

I think.

And two Tiger Shark teeth. These are the two species I'm always really happy to find because they are the most difficult, at least for me.


I'm particularly impressed it with because it still has ridges.

(BTW my hand is greasy-lookin because I just put on more sunscreen)

Blue Canvassing in Red Territory(or so I thought)

Saturday I went canvassing for the very first time. I had shied away from volunteering to canvass because I live in the darkest, blood Red section of Florida. In fact I was actually a little scared of my safety when I saw how nasty, and ok I'll just say it right out, RACIST supporters seem to be comfortable enough to get lately.(It's actually worse than what's been shown on CNN-don't believe me, just look on youtube) When I heard that someone had yelled,"Kill him," at a rally in Florida, I wanted to apologize on behalf of the state of Florida. I had visions of some crazy person chasing me down with a pitch fork because I was campaigning for "that one." Mind you, I have nothing against republicans, in fact, my whole family and one of my closest friend have Rs on their voter registration card. And I'm in NO way saying that republicans are racist, of course they aren't. Racists are racist, it's a simple as that. (I never heard anyone yell death threats at the Obama rally that I went to a few weeks ago. ) But I grew up in the South. Biracial, in the South. And I love the South and I love Southerners but as a woman, who's half Asian, I can tell you guys some stories about some of the stuff I had/still have to put up with. So it would be safe to assume that an Asian girl canvassing on behalf of "that(black) one" whatever the political affiliation, might be a little nervous. At any rate any Democrat would not be very enthusiastic about canvassing in Republican territory. I did it anyway. Actually my team leader told me that we outnumber Republicans in my county but we've just not been as vocal until recently. Whatever the outcome, I'd like for all of us in my community to just accept the fact that we don't all agree on everything, and there's nothing wrong with that.

So you guys would be happy to know that my experience was a really good one. Just about every door we knocked on was happy to see us and those who were not, didn't chase us away with pitchforks. And the people who were happy to see us acted as if they had been in hiding and were happy to be discovered. It was as if they were being intimidated by their neighbors to just shut up and take it because they were outnumbered, actually no it wasn't as if, it was. So they were all so excited to see friendly faces. Most of our house calls were senior citizens(it is Florida) and wanted to talk issues with us but spoke in hushed voices. When they did this I told them loudly,"No. Let your voice be heard, this is your community too. You're not a second class citizen just because you're blue in the red zone. You would be surprised how many of us there are, I have 7 pages here full of people to visit, almost all Democrats. There's no reason we should all remain quiet. " One lady wanted to make copies so that she could make some new friends but of course I can't disturb anyone's privacy. One old guy raised his fist when we told him who we were and said,"Yeah!!Yeah!! Go young people!" Some couples offered us cookies and told us they were proud of us. Another was worried about us and said,"Don't let anyone see what you're doing, you guys are gonna get yelled at or something. We had our signs run over." I said,"Let them see us. I want them to know we're here. And I will smile at them and flirt and win them over too." They liked that. One lady expressed concern over his middle name being Hussein because she really liked his ideas before that. I told her my middle name was Marie but that didn't make me the Virgin Mary, she laughed at that and asked for a ride to the polls. Another couple was still in their bathrobes and was embarrassed about the fact that they slept so late(it was only 10:30) but they had just started taking a dance class the night before. How cute is that? I thought about my Grandparents a lot. I don't even know what their party affiliation was, I know my Grandma was a huge fan of Reagan. Huge. I wonder if they would approve of my volunteering and if they would be proud of me.

The next day, I went to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription. On my way in, some guy made a smartass comment about my Obama teeshirt. Honestly I can't even tell you what he said, I wasn't even paying attention because I was thinking about all those people whose homes I visited and again understood why they felt the way they did. As I was standing in line, an old lady, who had heard, whispered to me,"I see you're wearing the right shirt." I said, "Say it louder ma'am, don't be shy. You're among friends here even if you didn't know it. I'm one of 90 volunteers." So she did and her husband did too. And they told me they already voted by absentee ballot. I told them I would be waving signs near the library and all over the beach next week so if they see me, to beep.

Phone banking, I'll still do, especially since the people I called yesterday didn't even know and never heard of early voting. But the human connection was better. It's nicer to see a smiling face knocking on your door than to hear your phone ring during dinner time, I think. And like I said, whatever happens in this election, I hope I have contributed in some small way to opening a dialogue or at least gave a feeling of belonging to the people I met who felt like outsiders in their own neighborhood. Needless to say, that night I called my team leader and told her to count me in to canvass at every date we have left.

It's getting too serious lately, have a laugh at my expense

I don't mind.

Recently I was asked what my MOST EMBARRASSING moment of my life was. I thought, my word, do you have a few days cuz that's how long it's gonna take since I have so many. If you've been reading here for a long time(those of you who are still left) you might think it was the time I accidentally felt myself up in front of some prisoners. Um. Yeah. This kind of stuff always happens to me, be it my fault or not. But believe me, this does not even top my mortification list. I have one just as bad, maybe even worse- you decide.

The summer I lived in my very first apartment, I was 19 and I had a job at a fancy pants chocolateir shop. This place was so expensive and sheesheefoofoo, they did not even have price tags or any indicator for how much things costs. They just assume anyone shopping there has so much damn money, they know it's expensive chocolate so they don't need to ask(those were my manager's exact words). I loved making the chocolate and dipping the strawberries, pretzels all that stuff- I did everything. I put all the assortment boxes together and wrapped the solid forms with plastic wrap and ribbons. I even made ice cream. And truffels, OMG the truffels ok? The best perk was that I could eat anything I wanted as long as I didn't take it out of the store. Yes, you guys, an all you can eat chocolate buffet. I hearted this job. I didn't even mind that they made me wear a really ugly hot pink hat. Because it was such a small store, I worked mostly alone and I had my own key to the place so I could close up the shop on my own after weekday evening shifts and open the store on my Sunday shifts. I was the only girl employee. And one thing started to bother me about being the only girl employee. After about 2 months I started to notice my coworkers were not cleaning up after themselves and leaving HUGE, DISGUSTING messes for me to clean up at the end of their shifts. Anyone out there ever clean up gobs of dried chocolate stuck to the floor? Not to mention the squished strawberries and nuts mixed in. It's not a whistle while you work kind of task. It took a while but, I finally got up the nerve to do something about it. I complained about it and my manager said that it's always the responsibility of the person who closes to clean up. I said,"No. When I work in the mornings, you guys always have a clean area when you come in because I clean up after myself. Fair is fair. I'm not every body's wife or mommie, I shouldn't have to clean up other people's sloppiness. Of course the store needs to be clean at close up, but this is food we're making here when it comes down to it and this room is disgusting." This was pretty bold of me, because I am a really passive person who's always too shy to rock the boat but that's how bad it was. But for a while it was ok. Then they got lazy again and this time I was ignored and treated like a whiny little girl. It started to make me feel more timid to even say anything at that point cuz I needed that job. So the day I knew I had another job lined up I went to eat lunch with my sister and was working myself up into such a state talking about that I finally said," that's it! I'm not going back there, not even to give those jerks a two weeks notice!" Of course because of how belittling he was to me the last time, I was too timid to just call my manager and say I quit, I'm not coming back. So me and my sister came up with this wonderful plan for her to call him and say, " Angel had to leave the country for a family funeral, she doesn't know when she'll be back." So she did. Big problem. I needed to pick up my last pay check and give them my key. Of course once again, I'm too chicken to do it because I just couldn't take his smartass smirk PLUS I'm supposed to be out of town remember? So my sister volunteers to do it for me but I have to come with her and hide in the car. We were too stupid at the time to park in the parking lot behind the building because my genius plan was just to crouch down in the car so no one could see me. My sister went in and came out empty handed because she said they refuse to give a check to any other person but me. So we're sitting there arguing back and forth because I wanted her to go back in there and demand my check as my sister and tell them all to screw themselves because obviously someone like me who crouches in a car so as not to be seen doesn't have enough nerve. We're still arguing about what to do next and I hear a tap tap on my window. There's my now former boss standing next to the car with my check. I said,"oh," and rolled down the window and he gave it to me not speaking. We then slowly drove away in hu-mil-i-a-tion. I can still see his smartass smirk in the rear view mirror to this day.

Yep. Big lesson learned: never lie in the place of sticking up for yourself. I should have easily sauntered in and told every one of those jerks where to go.

I've been busy, Phone banking

I participated in my second phone bank today. Mostly no one answered but there were a few friendly supporters. Last time I was able to convince 2 people who were undecided to vote for Obama and sign up 2 volunteers but none today. I got yelled at a couple times too. It's kind of hard to grit your teeth and say, "Oh I'm sorry I disturbed you, thank you for your time and have a nice day." But I do. In my sweetest voice. Gosh! How hard is it to say, "I don't want to talk to you, goodbye." Next time a telemarketer calls me, I'm going to be nicer.

There's one woman who I keep thinking about. She was around my mother's age and told me she was undecided. When I asked her what issue she was the most concerned about, she started to cry and said,"Jobs. I got laid off a month ago." I didn't know what to say. I felt like an intruder. At this point I wasn't about to go off with a list of reasons why she should vote one or another while this poor woman was crying- ok I am a human being. I just told her I was sorry and that I hope things get better for her. I said I understood how she felt, that I still have hope and not to give up. I'm not sure why she didn't just hang up on me for I would have, but she wanted to talk to me. She told me about how hard it's been for her lately and how stressed out she was. She asked me about my family, where I was from and how old I was. She was surprised, she said, because I sounded so much younger and that the youth in my voice gave her hope. We ended up talking for about 15 minutes because she wanted to know why I was supporting Obama and told me not to read from a script. Of course, I wasn't. At the end of our conversation she told me she would pray for me. She said she was still undecided and would make her decision after watching the debates but because of my phone call, she was leaning a little and she actually thanked me. Obviously I'm glad about the leaning but most of all I'm glad that I was comforting to her. I can't even believe that a total stranger with so many problems of her own would want to pray for me. This makes up for all the mean people who yelled and hung up on me.

(I'll be canvassing for the first time this weekend so if I come to your house, be nice to me. Offer me some m&ms.)

It just kept getting better

I wasn't planning to blog another beach post today but yesterday was so full of treasures I had to share.

This particular shell is not the prettiest in the world but I like them because they are called Baby's Ears. You can see why below.

This one is either a Moon Snail or Sharks Eye. I'm pretty sure it's Sharks Eye. I'm not exactly sure and I'm too lazy to look it up but I have a thousand of them.

You can see how this one met it's demise. I didn't keep it because the last time I encountered one of these shells, something was living in it! My BFF's daughter found it, kept it in a tupperware. She brought it to the beach the next day, we opened the tupperwear and the poor hermit crab was walking around so we let him go. Now I usually leave these small to medium sized shells alone.

Of course I found my usual handful.

But then I saw this one. This big boy was in the water and I risked ruining my camera to get it. I saw it being pulled away in knee deep water and snatched it up. Actually I wasn't even 100% sure it was a tooth until I picked it up. It was a good gamble. (I'd love any excuse to buy a new camera anyway)

A few minutes later and a few feet away I saw this one being pulled away too so I was quick.

Another few minutes later, this one found my toe. It's not as big as the other 2 but it looks like a Great White tooth and it still has ridges so I'm happy about that. (The heart shaped one is from a Tiger Shark and the other one I have no idea as I've never found one like that before.)

I always use a quarter to show the size in case I decide to send the pictures to the Florida Museum of Natural History so they can identify it for me.

It was time to go home but I decided to take one more look. Just five more minutes I thought. This is what I brought back.

I didn't think I would ever find a prettier Whelk snail shell than the one I found Monday but this one is just gorgeous. Look at those burgandy-brown stripes.

No hermit crab inside I promise!