Better late than never.

(May 13, 2007)

Here in Panorama City, CA it's pretty bad.

The price of gas here is inching dangerously close to $4.50 My friend happycube says it's worse up his way in Goleta, and it's hit $4.50 already.

There is talk at Woodbury University of ending Weekend College starting Fall 2007. I'm glad I'm almost finished there, and that I didn't have a "must take" class which was scheduled for Weekend College. They think that if they completely shut down most of the campus on weekends, they'll be able to pull through without cutting deep into "muscle and bone" in the curriculum. Bummer for the students in the dorms.

Power hasn't gotten flaky in DWP areas...yet. Same with those served by little municipal power companies like those run by Burbank and Glendale. However, out in areas served by SoCal Edison, things are a lot sketchier. People who opted to be "interruptable" customers of SCE are going several hours a day without power. Yeesh. We aren't going to be immune forever, though. The City Council has been making noises about the need for rolling blackouts at DWP if things continue like this.

Sketchier still is my husband's situation. He has to go for outpatient chemotherapy on Mondays and Thursdays, and it's gotten to the point to where we can't afford to keep the tank full in the van. So far the good people at the City of Hope have been arranging rides for him and the other patients within a reasonable radius of the facilities. However, if this continues, they are going to start putting patients up in temporary housing on the hospital campus, and in local hotels and motels. I'm going to have to make the choice between living in a trailer at the City of Hope with Richie or living here and holding down the fort.

My aunt got laid off from her travel agent job. She's now living out here in the Valley with her boyfriend because living on the Westside is so damn expensive. She hates it here. We're all going to hate it once the weather starts getting hot. We got a preview a couple of weeks ago with the hot spell but damn it's going to get bad when the heat waves begin.

My cousin is likely to be the one member of the family who's going to be raking it in. He's working for a company doing alternative energy projects, and the world is beating a path to his door. My uncle's going to be OK: no matter what, everyone's going to need someone to handle their books. Death, taxes and all that.

Anyway, I have been hearing more gunshots at night. Someone tried to pry open one of the locked garages at a neighboring apartment building, and people who have to park out in the open are having to deal with people ripping off their gas tank covers and siphoning gas. We've had a couple of carjackings in the neighborhood. Then again, there was a carjacking on Rodeo Drive a day ago. Nobody's immune from this.