Bob Gets Stuck Downtown

Yesterday, Anthony and I went to the Los Angeles Beer Festival in Downtown L.A. We were driving around looking for parking and spotted a garage that was fairly close and fairly cheap. Perfect! We took a ticket, drove my car (I call him Bob) in, and parked in a spot closest to the stairs. That was easy! We headed out onto the street, walked to the festival to meet his friend and went about our day tasting a bunch of different local beers. Overall, the festival was a blast and afterward we decided to head over to Plan Check for a burger since it was right next to the garage we parked in. When we were finished, we walked to the garage to get my car and head home. Anthony's friend was with us because we told him that we would give him a ride home since it was on the way. When we walked up to the parking garage, we noticed that the doors were shut. What the hell? There was a guy standing outside on the curb that told us the garage closed at 4:00 pm. WHAT!!?? Sure enough, we looked at the sign and it said, as clear as day, that it closed at 4:00 pm. We didn't even see that! Does anyone really even look at those signs when pulling into a garage in Downtown L.A? We assumed that garages stay open until at least 10:00 pm, right? It was only 7:00 pm right now but according to that sign, we were 3 hours late. Shit! What were we going to do? We called the number on the sign and luckily an operator picked up and told us that if we can get into the garage to get to the car, the doors would open and we would be able to get out. Okay, that sounded easy enough right? We just had to get into the building. Anthony and his friend tried every door imaginable (locked) and even tried to go down the ramp adjacent to the garage for the residences in the building. Fail. I noticed that there was a medical office attached to the garage and there was a lady sitting in the waiting room. I knocked on the door to see if she could open the glass door for us that was directly outside of the office door but she shook her head and told me through the glass that she was locked in the lobby of that medical office. What was happening? How was she locked in and we were locked out yet neither of us could help each other. This seemed a little Twilight Zone-ish.

The three of us were pacing and running around trying everything and calling every number on the building desperately. All we wanted to do was go home! Realistically, we could just Uber home and come back in the morning but what a headache. All of a sudden, this girl emerged out of a random door, did one of those running trips where she couldn't catch herself but was about to take a big digger, ate shit on the concrete, then picked herself up and disappeared. I looked at Anthony, then his friend, acknowledged that we all saw that mysterious girl fall, and then went right back to trying to find a way into that damn parking garage. I swear if I was the only one who saw that I would have thought I was dreaming and/or intoxicated. Thank goodness there were other witnesses. Finally, Anthony's friend had a genius idea and slipped a piece of paper into the crack of the sliding glass door leading to the building attached to the garage. It opened enough for him to slip his fingers in and pull the doors open....YES! We were saved! We ran into the building like we were escaping a police chase and made our way into the parking garage. And there he was, my poor Bob, waiting for us to come back like a sad puppy. Anthony jumped in and started the car. "We're here, Bob!" I said as I made my way up the ramp. Again, as if we were running from the authorities after a mad jewelry heist, we dove into car as the tires squealed and Anthony drove towards the exit. Praying that the gates would open like the man on the phone told us, they slowly opened as we crept up toward the exit and we beeped the horn in pure joy. We were finally out! And because there was no attendant on duty, it was free to boot! So I guess it worked out in our favor after all. We were all cheering as we turned onto the street, so happy that our adventure was finally over. "Hey guys?" I said. "Can we talk about that chick who took a digger on the curb next to us?" We all started laughing so hard we were crying. It felt so good to be free!

Chaos At The Gudino Household

Most of the time when you have a new baby, you figure that you aren't going to get a lot of sleep at night. But you don't think that it will be your house guests (aka your parents) that will be keeping you up. When my parents were visiting last month, we had one of those nights of complete chaos at the Gudino household. With a new baby, we get up every 3-4 hours to feed the little guy and our daughter Meyer's new habit of jumping out of her bed and crawling into ours seems to be a nightly occurrence, so we are no strangers to the wee hours of dawn. But we never expected a constipated dog to take over the night and turn our house into a serious case of the midnight crazies. My parents are from Maine, so they don't lock their doors or set any sort of alarms and when they come to our house they have to adjust to the chimes, the apps and the alarms that we use to run our household. So on this particular chaotic night, I wasn't really shocked to wake up to the alarm going off only to see my dad on the camera walking outside with Nelly, their dog. The best part though was that he didn't even notice that the alarm was blaring throughout the house at 1:00 am. Oye! When he came back several minutes later, I didn't even bother to set the alarm again because I figured he may do it again. And was I right. But this time it was almost 3:00 am and it was only him walking out the front door, without the dog and without his shirt. What the hell? At the same time, the baby woke up hungry so I was busy feeding him while Meyer waltzed on into our bedroom like she owned the place, carrying her Boppy, blankie and Belle doll. I woke up Anthony and asked him to go see what was happening downstairs. When he came back up, he said that my dad was wandering around the neighborhood (shirtless) looking for my mom who was walking Nelly, trying to get her to poop. Apparently she was constipated and wouldn't lay down. She kept whimpering and pacing back and forth in the bedroom. And when the dog can't sleep, neither can the parents, or the whole household in this case. What the heck was happening? I decided to go check on the situation myself. So there I was at 3:30 am, walking around my neighborhood, without a bra or shoes, calling for my parents and the dog. This was definitely going to appear on my Nextdoor neighborhood app the next morning. 'Shirtless man and braless girl walking around neighborhood at 3:00 am shouting 'Nelly! Rhoda!' Anyone know what was going on?' When I couldn't find anyone (seriously where did they go? Did they get abducted by aliens?), I figured I would go back inside and get some sleep. But while I was headed up the stairs, I heard a dog whimpering inside the house. Okay, what was going on? I went into the spare bedroom to find it empty. I then opened up the bathroom door to find my mom standing in her robe holding onto Nelly, who was on her leash. "Mom, what are you doing? Pop is canvasing the neighborhood looking for you guys!" I said. She looked puzzled. "He is? I thought I would come in here with Nelly to calm her down and keep her quiet." Well, that plan backfired. So now my mom and the dog headed out into the night looking for my wandering father. My head was spinning and I needed my bed. I woke up about a half an hour later to the front door chime and saw on the camera that my dad came back inside, alone. Then, I saw my mom and the dog sitting out on the front porch...at 4:00 am. I went out to see what they were doing and woke my mom up in the process. Immediately, when I said "Mom!" she snapped her head up like she was awake the whole time. Just like she does on the couch almost every night after 8:00 pm and like that one time we went to see Sherlock Holmes (she was asleep the whole time but tried to convince my sister and I that she saw the whole movie). Don't believe it! I asked her what she was doing outside and she said she was going to hang out with Nelly until she poops. What!?! So now I had two guards at my door instead of the alarm?? This was also going to end up on the Nextdoor neighborhood app, for sure! I shrugged and went back to bed. I was exhausted and needed at least 8 more hours after all that chaos!

Owl On Guard?

Lately, we have been having some bird issues in the backyard, which I guess aren't as bad as the possible issues we could be having, but annoying nonetheless. We have a ceiling fan in the gazebo that the robins made a nest in, which we can't touch since they already managed to lay their eggs and now they have moved on to the satellite dish. I don't mind the nest in the fan so much but the satellite dish?...REALLY!!?? Not only am I afraid they will somehow ruin it, but it is more visible than the ceiling fan and it is right above our patio furniture which is now being sprinkled with bird poop! Because this new location they have chosen is more visible, we can see their progress before it is too late, unlike the ceiling fan in the gazebo. Anytime I see a few twigs up there, we get the ladder out and remove them. Yet, the birds (who are watching us with laser eyes from the tree next door) just laugh and return with their twigs the next day. It was becoming a vicious cycle, especially when we went away for the weekend and came back to a half-built nest. Next, we decided to wrap the base of the dish in mesh, so they couldn't put anything in it. What did they do? They found a way to put the twigs on top of the mesh, brushing off our amateur efforts to get rid of them. I swear they were mocking us with their loud chirps in the morning asking, 'what have you got for us today Gudinos?' I read that they fear owls, which is why you always see those hideous plastic statues on the roofs of businesses, which gave me an idea. I asked Meyer if I could borrow her stuffed owl for a few days to help Mommy with the birds and after a bit of hesitation, she agreed. I had Anthony put the stuffed owl up on the satellite dish to ward off those little pests. Meyer just watched and commented, 'my owl is going to scare the birds, so they won't build a nest?' Let's just hope young one, let’s just hope....The next day we went out to look and those birds literally just went right around the owl (I swear they gave him a high five when they passed him) and placed a few twigs on the base again, ignoring his cute (yet intimidating?) face. I’m sure that if they were Cinderella's birds, they would have dressed the owl up in a cute pink dress and Incorporated him into their nest somehow while chirping/mocking us happily. Jerks! Then, this morning there were two ducks hanging out in the hot tub like the robins called them over and welcomed them to the bird party! Oh, hell no!!! I ran out there in my pajamas chasing them away and declared war. Bird war. 

Just Another Day At The Pool

Meyer takes swim lessons every week, which she normally loves, but this week we got in the pool and I could tell that she wasn’t having it. I couldn’t figure out what her deal was but she was just not as into it as she normally was. Even though she is 99% potty trained, she still wears a swim diaper under her bathing suit in the pool so I was pretty confident that it wasn’t an issue with her having to pee that was holding her back. I started to wonder if the chlorine was hurting her eyes or if her bathing suit was uncomfortable? Then she started to tell me that she did have to go pee. I told her that it was fine and she was wearing a swim diaper and that she could go pee in it if she wanted to. She was adamant that she wanted to get out of the pool to go on the potty and started to cry telling me over and over that she had to go pee. Then it happened. The inevitable poop face. ‘OH NO!’ Then I remembered that she often says she has to go pee even though she actually means poop (we are working on that). ‘Shit!!!’ Literally. I grabbed her and ran out of the pool to the bathroom (both of us barefoot mind you) and even though the bathroom floors at the pool have that shower matting, I still felt like Britney Spears at the gas station restroom. But at this point, I didn’t really care. And of course this week was Safety Week, so the instructors encouraged the kids to wear their street clothes over their bathing suits in the pool so they would know what it felt like if they fell in the pool fully clothed. Which actually worked in my benefit since she had that extra layer to keep the poop in when she let it go in the pool. But as I was in the stall trying to get her undressed so she could finish on the potty, it was working very much against me. You try taking a pair of wet pants, then a wet bathing suit and then a swim diaper off a squirmy toddler who is trying not to finish pooping in her pants. Nightmare! When I finally got her undressed, it was another struggle trying to empty out her swim diaper in the potty (and not on me or on the floor) but still trying to get her on the potty at the same time. I’m pretty sure I had poop somewhere on me (what mom hasn’t had poop on them?) by the time I got her on the potty just in time for her to finish. Thank God no one else was in the bathroom at that time! Once she was done, she proudly announced as sweet as can be in her little high pitched voice that she was 'all done' and gave me a proud smile. Oh sure kid, you are happy now but I am standing here barefoot in the bathroom stall with poop somewhere on my hand and/or arm and wet toilet paper stuck to my leg. And now for the cleanup. Again, thank goodness no one else was in that bathroom as I cleaned myself off and put my half naked toddler (still as happy as can be) on the counter while I rinsed out her swim diaper and got her bathing suit back on. We rushed back out to the pool (I felt like I was gone so long that the class was probably over, everyone had left and the employees had locked up for the night) and slid back in the pool inconspicuously. Nothing to see here, folks!

What's That Smell?

On Monday morning, I got into my car to go to work after it had been in the garage all weekend and I was almost knocked out by a pungent odor that oozed out like the green funk that followed Beetlejuice around. Immediately, I blamed my husband and/or daughter because I kept my car so tidy and never left anything inside overnight, let alone over the weekend. Anthony did take my car last weekend, maybe he left food in the backseat or something? (He once left an In-N-Out bag under my seat, which I found while on my way to Stagecoach). I checked all around…nothing! Maybe Meyer dropped something in the car seat that stinks? She can be messy, especially if you give her a baggie of popcorn on the ride home from Oceanside and it ends up all over the floor instead of in her mouth. I checked the car seat…nothing. Very strange. I rolled down both windows and headed to work figuring that I would buy an air freshener at CVS that afternoon and it would solve my problem…Well, an incredibly strong Yankee Candle air freshener later and my car still smells like someone left a dirty diaper in a wet cooler all day in the hot sun. What the hell was that? I checked the trunk to make sure that my pregnancy brain didn’t leave a bag of groceries in there. Negative. Then, I got my flashlight out and checked to make sure I didn’t drop any food down the side of my seat while I was driving. I admit, my pregnancy appetite is in full effect and I am constantly snacking, especially during my hour long commute home. Maybe I dropped an orange slice down there? Didn’t I eat some asparagus on the ride home the other day? Weird, I know…damn pregnancy! But from what I could see, there was nothing in the crack. Did I have a dead animal under my hood? Nope. What the hell was it and why was it not going away? Thanks to my new air freshener, my car now smells like a heavily-cologned Italian man who has been playing in a dumpster for hours. There was nothing I could do for the time being, so every night, I left my windows down to air it out, which is helping a little but I still couldn’t find the cause of the stench! I even checked under my spare tire to make sure the AAA guy didn’t leave his bologna sandwich under there when he changed my tire a few weeks ago...Well, it has been a week and the lingering odor has finally gone away. (Thankfully because I had to valet park my car at Pizzeria Mozza the other night). So, that orange slice/asparagus/dead animal/bologna sandwich must have finally disintegrated...Eww!