So, I'm at my "gig" at the Sprint store in Escondido with Santa and the Star 94.1 crew and who shows up but Linda, with a Laura Cain After Dark hoodie! She had them made for us. I feel so legit now. I posted the picture on Instagram and Charlie Cain says he wants one. Awww.
Wait! BREAKING NEWS (or maybe you heard it on my podcast) but, Charlie Cain IS coming home after all, but not until January 6th. He managed to get some time off after the holidays. That's fine with me. I will take what I can get! I haven't rented out his room yet, which is good, so he has his own place to stay. He can still come "home." I'm just leaving all the decorations (some lights and a tiny tree) up until he leaves.
I think I haven't fully renovated Charlie's room for rent because I don't want to see his walls bare. No more video game posters or band posters on the wall. No more books stacked on his desk. No more of his clothes in his dresser. That's going to suck. But, I gotta do what I gotta do. Hopefully, I can rent it out to a travelling nurse. That would be my ideal situation. I will post pictures once it looks like a real rentable room.
Evan asked me if we are putting up the stockings this year. I said "no", and here's why...they will go unfilled. How sad will it be to see a stocking hanging there empty on Christmas morning? Those darn stockings are too expensive to fill and not worth the effort. Gosh, I sound like Scrooge or The Grinch. I'm just spilling the truth. She seemed ok with that explanation.
Now, on to Antonio B. He completely renovated my front patio. I wish I had before pictures of it. I will try to paint a picture of what it was like. There were stacks of bins with Christmas decorations and sweaters pilled on top of each other next to the french doors. I had beach chairs collecting cob webs and deflated floaties on top of those. All my plants were dead. All my pots were dirty. It was embarrassing. I just didn't have the energy to clean it up.
Then along comes Antonio and LOOK!
I light a fire every single night whether or not I sit out there or not. It's just so pretty. I tell Evan or Antonio "gotta go get a log for tonight." haha.
Saturday night, Tori hosted a White Elephant Christmas Gift Exchange/Cal Walker Retirement Party. It was just perfect. Here are a bunch of pics. First one of of the Women of San Diego Traffic minus Deb and Jo.
Here's Cal and Kevin Dean.
This is me and Mark Zegan.
Group shot taken with a selfie stick!
Tori took this picture of me because she said I looked pretty by her fire. Awww.
Cal opened his retirement gift. Melissa made a collage with a bunch of Cal's old work pictures and some new ones. It was super cool and he loved it.
I think Cal will always be the best traffic reporter in San Diego. He's been doing it for 30 something years. I feel fortunate that he was the one who taught me how to do traffic properly. It's not as easy as I thought it was going to be. In fact, I didn't think I'd even be able to do it correctly. I was bad for awhile, like really bad. I'm still far from perfect, but at least I know what to do thanks to Cal. Good for him for dropping the mic and stepping into a life of leisure.
We (Erik, Linda and I) have two really good podcasts coming up this week, if I do say so myself. I included a link below so you can check out what we've talked about so far. The last one upset my mother because she doesn't like poop talk. Erik talks about it a lot...like a lot, a lot. I told Erik poop jokes in an effort to help him "adult." He was told not to laugh. He fails miserably. Oh, Antonio makes his debut on Thursday's podcast. The topic is crazy. I will end this Diary with a picture of us. He makes me happy.
See you next week, Diary.