Dogs, Wine, Singing, IMPEACH! and Boris...

I’ve been walking dogs and working in the Animal Shelter on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Dogs such as Bam Bam, Missy, Zerro and Christopher Tracy didn’t take long to be rescued, fostered of adopted, but others are there for ages. I was chuffed as I got Zerro adopted. Part of the work there is talking to the ‘customers’ as they are walking around and steering them towards certain dogs after you have found out their circumstances which in the case of Zerro was successful (even though previously he’d been returned 6 times due to escaping. On one of the days a red haired TV actress who had a volunteer T shirt on and who I still can’t place and didn’t like to ask, brought 2 friends in to adopt Paris, the Pitbull boxer mix who had been at the shelter for 2 years. One of the men was a film producer. I’d walked Paris for 45 mins in the yard playing with toys. She’s nervous around other dogs, so I was on hand to bring in Charlie, a large Labrador, German Shepherd mix, to walk around Paris with the new adopters. She was fine thank goodness and Charlie got a good walk too. They liked her and it was wonderful to see. She went with them in a beautiful red dress – silly but they loved it.

There have been lots of appeals online for people to adopt due to the overcrowding because of fires and dogs getting out with fences down etc. Happily, lots of dogs have been adopted and there is a quick turnaround for many dogs (especially the ‘normal’ breeds, but many Pitbulls are there long term, unfortunately. ❤️🐕

Ive been shadowing Stephy G (another long term volunteer) when she takes the First Day Training 2 ½ hour class on Wednesdays and have progressed into a double act with her, which is fun. Last week she was ill at the last minute and so I had to take the class. I loved it and realised how much Ive missed teaching. I also have been on a number of mobile adoptions, where we take dogs into a fete or other public event and walk them round meeting people in the hope of getting them adopted and at the very least promoting the charity. It’s a good way to chat to the public which is always fun and also it’s a good team spirit. There are some lovely people I’m friends with there, from MJ who is a girl who looks 18, but is actually 34, as well as Brian, Claudio, Marc and Heidi.

I’m starting to feel it’s a team, again which I’d missed. One Mobile adoption was at Chatsworth’s Turkey Trot, which is a traditional Thank Giving 5K run. Unfortunately I had to get up at 5.30am (which is a time I hadn’t seen for years, especially on a Sunday), get the dogs loaded into a van with the gazebo and set up at the start area. I had Missy this time, a beautiful white and liver Staffordshire pitbull mix who has yellow and blue eyes – so cute, definitely one of my favourites in the shelter. I was even considering to have her myself and thought about ways of hiding her from the landlord. She is usually a adorable, calm and very happy friendly dog with humans….. but unfortunately, when moving through crowds of people she showed her dislike of any other dog, showing her teeth and lunging at various times. I had to have eyes on her at all times, to move away, as everyone seemed to have brought their dogs with them. Anyway, it was fine by the end, but needless to say, whilst people loved her, she did show her true colours. I went to see the local radio stand and they put pictures of her on their website while I gave a mini description of her emphasising that she needed to be in a home where there were no other dogs. The next day she was rescued thank goodness. It wouldn’t have worked with Lulu!

We went to Nabu Wines again with our lovely neighbours, Marla and Alan and were determined not to drink too much wine this time. The Acoustic Saints were playing and they are great friends of Alan, so we got to meet them. They played all the rock greats, including my favourite Hotel California. There were at least 150 people packed into the small bar with a line of California blonde, bronzed ladies dancing in front of the band. It’s such a great atmosphere and well worth a visit if ever you’re this way. The strangest thing is when you don’t know the song but everyone else does and sings along with the lyrics. The best part of the evening was when the guitarist took out his violin and played Devil went down to Georgia!!! Its amazing played live.

Weightwatchers had a near chaotic meeting where the members had been confused by the new coloured food paths, which soon calmed down when people realised, they could stay on the same blue route or ‘rawte’ as they say wrongly here. Hang on though Route 66 was said correctly wasn’t it? On a Nutella advert the lady in a seductive voice pronounced it Nootella, but it’s got nuts in it!!!

We were told to talk about our strengths, which would never have worked in the UK, but the group were happy to share what they all felt they were good at, with people clapping each other – very American! We were talking about weighing up what clothes to wear before being weighed in and one lady said ‘I’d take my fillings out if I could.’ Char the group leader always comes up with good sayings. One of my favourites is, ‘If you always do what you always did then you’ll always get what you always got’. Thanksgiving is so huge here, more than I realised. It is very like our Christmas break. WW talked a lot about the foods dished up, one of which is green bean casserole. This dish has green beans in it obviously, but also has cream and mushroom soup – all I can say is yuck! A local restaurant advertised it’s Thanksgiving meal with cannabis infused gravy – YUM! Mark and I had a quiet Thanksgiving day and then went out in the evening to a hyped up restaurant in the Topanga Canyon which inline looked beautiful. Unfortunately, we had the first rain we’d had since February and people cannot drive in the rain here, so the journey in the canyon was somewhat hair-raising and added to that the restaurant was set in the hills and mainly open air, so we had an expensive lukewarm meal under tarpaulin.

Chorus has been great fun with lots of practice of Christmas songs. There is so much to learn – easy when you know the songs, but not great when you don’t. We are doing Light the Candles, which is a Jewish Hanukah song. This is great fun as we have dance moves; I had to stop myself from giggling.

We also spent a couple of sessions practicing our Fall competition songs and an 8 minute sketch, which involved learning lines and new songs. It’s certainly is keeping my brain active. This was my first time in a double quartet. I was somewhat worried when the other lead was ill for a couple of weeks, but luckily, she was well for the actual event.

We have been given our New costume for our March competition, which is a skin tight purple and silver dress with tassels from just below the knee to the ankles. It definitely needs certain ‘hold ‘em all in’ underwear!

On the week of the Fall competition weekend in Bakersfield, we had 2 more rehearsals and I made 65 labels to stick onto English Teabags as each group has to give small gifts to each other.

Elaine drove the 2 hours to Bakersfield through some amazing scenery, through Grapevine Pass, which was a wonderful glacial erosion series of hills, with lakes in between. Very beautiful. I somehow got set up to share a room with the choir leader Monica – very intimidating, but when we got back to the room each night around midnight, we’d talked for ages about her life on the road in a rock band in the 80’s. She was a saxophonist and would play long solos which is often the best part of 80s songs of course. 😊 It’s amazing the people you meet isn’t it? Needless to say, I was shattered when I got home Sunday night.

On the Friday night, we presented our sketch, along with the another 8 double quartets. We didn’t win, but it raised our profile for sure, with everyone we met for the rest of the weekend asking Elaine and I about England and Scotland (Elaine lived in Scotland for 30+ years), saying they loved watching Downton Abbey and Call the Midwife, neither of which I watch, but I nodded enthusiastically. It was a wonderful experience where we not only performed but sat in classes, learning all about how to improve singing, from posture, to breathing and expression. So much knowledge and so many gems of information – it was wonderful. I mustn’t forget to mention the evenings where after dinner we went to the presidential suite where there was a cocktail bar set up and after drinking a few margaritas we all sang so loud that hotel security were called….hic.

You can spend a year in the US with your British driving license (which always gets a weird look if you present it anywhere), then you have to take a driving test in 2 parts, the theory and the actual driving. The DMV is notoriously bad over here with massively long queues and very little opportunity to book ahead (a bit like our doctors surgeries in the UK), so much so that James Corden and Stephen Colbert (my favourite) the late night talk show hosts both said that they would rather be there, when Trump asked his Louisiana crowd at one of his ridiculous rallys, ‘where you rather be than here with me?’ You can’t do anything online here apart from vote as hilariously they don’t trust the system apparently, so the DMV offices have people queuing to give even a change of address….

Mark and I travelled to the Chatsworth DMV after a week of using the DMV app, firing questions at each other. There is a language barrier though, as one of the questions was what would you do if a pedestrian was walking on the pavement? Well, the pavement is the road here and the pavement is called the sidewalk if you see what I mean.

We waited over an hour in the old overcrowded building entrance, joining one long queue into 4 long queues, just to get to the desk and being told that the information on the website wasn’t clear and that you had to have other ID of your address. So rather fed up we retreated ready to go the following weekend. We were told that there was another new office in Granda Hills, which was 30 minutes away. We entered and were so happy to see no lines, but people were sitting waiting for their number to come up on the screens all around the large spacious room. Our numbers came up and Mark and I went to separate booths to get our documentation looked over. We were confident that this time we had everything. Unfortunately, I got the miserable cow who just kept repeating the document name, 194 which I didn’t have and had no idea what it was. I kept my calm asking her to explain what the 194 was, where could I find it, and do I really need it etc for about 5 minutes, then started to get agitated as she was making me feel very unwanted saying why was I here with no social security number and saying that my passport and ID weren’t enough – it was like I was an illegal – incredibly rude, so much so that the teller lady next to her tried to help me. She showed me where to find the document online which I did on my phone, but said I would need to print it. I looked at the printer next to her and said, could I pay for the paper and you print it for me, as I really didn’t want to have to go all the way home again and then come back. ‘No!’ she said. I responded with ever more Maggie Smith English. ‘Well, thank you very much for your help’, to which they both replied, ‘you’re welcome’ with a smile. They really don’t get sarcasm. Mark’s teller on the other hand was lovely and I arrived behind him, just as she was printing out his 194! She looked at my face and offered to do the same for me. I took the print out thankfully and had to get another number at the front desk, praying that I didn’t get the same cowbag when my number came up, which luckily I didn’t, but I could see them looking at me over their glass windows, with their hook like noses and boss-eyes. The test was easier that I thought and I passed with only 3 mistakes out of the 30 questions they asked onscreen. I asked Mark what he had answered on those difficult ones as he had only 1 mistake (typical). He said ‘didn’t you see the instructions on the intro video, they said you could skip 3 questions?’ I hadn’t seen this as at that point I’d dropped al my papers on the floor. Rookie mistake – always read the instructions! I had my photo taken ready for the actual ‘driving’ driving test bit in January. Ive chosen Thousand Oaks as a base to do it as they have wonderful wide streets and loads of traffic lights. I must be better than some of these 15 year olds driving round in their parents expensive BMWs – well I hope so.

Life here is strange in that people don’t always react to the latest shooting – I hope I never get blasé about it. It seems like it is every week. Santa Clarita is 40 mins north of us and we know a few people who live there. That shooting was in a school, by a student. It’s incredibly sad and frustrating, with the same old line’ we pray for the families and all hurt by this event’. Praying isn’t enough is it?

Another shooting in New Orleans injuring 10 people, but more news was given on the day to the London stabbings. I saw on facebook (fake news?) that an American had said it would have better if people had been carrying a gun in London. Wouldn’t it have been potentially worse?

So, after this event, it was reported on MSNBC that the Supreme Court was looking at gun restrictions for the first time in a decade. News reports show that Americans actually do want more restrictions and there have been some changes and laws within some states, but it’s not over the whole country, so people can buy a gun unregulated in certain states and take them to others.

The Santa Clarita school has just gone back to school after the shooting two weeks ago. I am so glad I don’t have children here, I would be home schooling I tell you.

I went for another mammogram and ultra sound in Tarzana because being overcautious, they thought that the last mammogram picture wasn’t clear enough. I do think that the US is filled with people who are so very over-anxious about anything to do with their health. People love the intricate medical language and quote the Latin names for all their illness, asking what medication names you may have been prescribed for this and that. I don’t know if its just me, but past and present, I can quite honestly say apart from the menopause, I’ve no idea what I’ve had or taken. - ignorance bliss is I say. So I had a 3D mammogram which was pretty cool and an ultra sound and it was all clear – so lucky I didn’t worry then!

We are having a rainy few days here is wonderful as the air clears and as I said it hasn’t rained one drop since February. People don’t go out though and massive coats are worn with sweaters (jumpers) and people complaining about how cold it is – they have no idea hat cold is!

We had a 1/2 inch of rain which was amazing, which made the main LA news. The next day was clear bright blue skies again.

Impeachment is all over the news, but people try not to talk about it publicly as even though we are in a democratic state, unbelievably 50% of Americans like Trump – nuts!!

In Iowa there was a 4% rise in Trump approval - what a country!!! Ive met Jade a few times on the field while I walk Lulu and we have great discussions about both American and British politics. I have a red Bondi Beach hat and I told Jade that I was reclaiming the red cap! Even Gyno Gary Ott said to me during an examination, ‘How is your UK general election going? I’m not political, but your prime minister seems like a mini Trump’. Enough said!!!

It seems like a forgone conclusion to me watching all the evidence and seems likely to go through the House(Democrates lead the house), but it wont go through the Republican Senate, who seem totally blinkered to the facts. I mean Trump’s family has just been investigated for misuse of the Trump charity funds- what does that tell you?

“The fundraiser was billed as an effort to “raise funds for veterans’ organizations,” but the Trump campaign commandeered nearly $2.8 million in donations and “dictated the manner in which the Foundation would disburse those proceeds, directing the timing, amounts and recipients of the grants.”

The president settled the lawsuit later paying the money to the charity.

Republican Jim Jordan appears to say that despite the phone call Trump didn’t mean Biden but corruption in general which is fine. Bizarre.

It’s addictive TV as each representative has 5 mins for questioning so it’s like a tennis match with one side speaking total sense and the other speaking complete b***s**t, as Trump likes to say.

Taylor was brilliant as was Vindman and Fiona Hill. Sondland, despite being a millionaire and donating a million to Trump’s campaign, appeared to be a bumbling idiot and despite not taking any notes on any meeting he had was clearly throwing others under the bus to protect himself. Although he did say Trump said to him ‘I don’t want a quid pro quo’. I don’t think Trump even knows what it means!

I love the late night chat shows as they are having a field day with the proceedings.

Mark had been in pain for a few days after a bit of a cold and slept the day and I did think it was man flu. I had told Marla and she suggested he go to urgent care as it could be flu. I thought she was overreacting as people here tend to go full on drugs- I was offered antibiotics by Gyno Ott when I said I had a slight sinus issue. Anyway, Mark had a pain in his side and it turns out it was his lung and he had early onset pneumonia! He had antibiotics and was all mended within a week or so, thank goodness. Note to self – be more sympathetic!

Bitter Root has been lovely, again with a feeling of knowing people better. I go Monday afternoons and the same crowd are there with loads of chat and kalua coffee. I feel Im developing skills as we all help each other with ideas and techniques. Jeff and Darla are my favourites. Jeff actually invited us to his gathering for Thanksgiving – maybe next year. I have been improving my skills on the wheel too, throwing and turning a number of pots, as well as making things for my grandson to be – I’m so excited!!!!!!!

Last weekend Mark and I travelled to Pasadena on the 101 and then the 10. Each highway has an adopted sign and this one to our delight had a large sign saying this Highway was adopted by Atheists united!

We went to the Rose Bowl vintage market and Mark was pleased as there were 3,500 stalls on a dry day and 1/2 that as it was overcast- he has a lot of patience as he generally hates shopping.

We had a lovely time for ½ hour, then it absolutely poured with rain, so lots of people packed up. Ill definitely go there again though. We then travelled to Santa Monica where there is a fantastic British pub called the Kings Head and a British food shop next to it. Its very weird seeing a pub you would see in London on a sidewalk in Santa Monica seaside. The shop was wonderful to look at too and you realise how much you miss seeing your favourite brands. I mean they don’t sell baked beans, Cadburys or mince pies here. I had to explain to the Dog Shelter lot what mince meat is – ‘No it does not contain meat and no I don’t know why it’s called mincemeat.’

I want to finish by telling you about a nightmare I had last night.

I had watched the SNL sketch with James Cordon playing Boris Johnston (it’s worth a watch) and then had a very long dream about meeting Boris, flirting with him and then going on several dates (no hanky panky)- I mean. What is that all about? I was horrified when I woke up!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣 Mark wasn’t impressed and nor was I!

It was this time last year I gave up my teaching post and came to Vegas first, then LA to find houses. It has gone by so fast and I am only just starting to feel settled.

Soooooooo looking forward to coming home over Christmas even if it is just for the week.