Why???

I just read the news: Grandaddy, one of my most favorite bands ever, is breaking up.

I am too sad to discuss this any further.

Just say it ain't so.

Hangman

Remember the game Hangman? Where you draw a new piece of a person being strangled as your friend incorrectly guess letters in your "mystery" word? Well, I still like to play that when I find myself at places that allow you the freedom to draw on paper-covered table tops with crayons.

My husband and I were playing last night, and I put down three spaces for my mystery word. Then I pointed to it, and said, "This is my middle name." I was giving him a hint even though 3-letter words aren't too hard to figure out.

"Mad?" he said.

"Nooooo!" I said and then penalized him for using M, A, and D.

"Sad?" he said.

"NOOOOOO!! What's wrong with you?" I penalized him some more for the letter "S" and then pointed out A and D aren't not in the word.

He sat staring at the table, completely baffled, and then began listing off letters randomly. When that didn't work, he started at B and went up.

The word was "fun."

So now you know what he thinks of me.

By the grace of Jack...

Last night my husband and I were walking to our car after getting off the BART train in Fremont. We were coming back from a "date" night in Hayward where we crashed Electric Jesus' CD release party (not really crashed, but that sounds better than we were there and then they were there, and then they played their CD and tried to feed people stinky wieners in BBQ sauce, and I had a great idea of saying I was a reporter for Rolling Stone doing a piece on the East Bay indie scene if the lead singer came over and tried to chat us up (he already tried to force his stinky food on us, but we politely declined), to which my husband immediately shot down and said he wouldn't believe me because I look too young).

As we walked through the front, side parking lot, we both spotted the plastic bag on the ground at the same time. We both lunged for the plastic bag at the same time, but I had more determination on my side than my husband, and I slightly pushed him out of the way while I screamed in glee while I grabbed the plastic bag.

Oh yes. Jack the antenna ball found me again, but this time he was wearing his top hat and carrot nose and a big, wide, dotted smile.

I screamed in glee again, scared a man who was getting on his motorcycle, and repeatedly said, "my nose is a carrot," in a deep voice.

This morning my husband put him on my antenna for me. I can't wait to see what happens to this one. I think I'll document his slow decline if the condo cats decide that he is a tasty treat too.

NOTE:

For those of you who missed the exciting posts about my old Jack reindeer antenna ball that was slowly being eaten by the condo cats, please clickety click away here.

33 1/3 book series

I just found the 33 1/3 book series while at Cody's Books today. I bought Meat is Murder by Joe Pernice from The Pernice Brothers and Chappaquiddick Skyline (I own the later, which I find weird for some reason since The Pernice Brothers are more well-known, and I only found out about them today).

I had to get this because if you were ever a Smiths fan when The Smiths were The Smiths (which means, you're not 20 pretending to have lived through the 80's at an age where you actually remember things), then you know the feeling their music gave you. 1985 was such a good year. Holy smokes, that was 20 years ago.

Do you remember Night Tracks? I lived for Night Tracks. Nothing like a Men Without Hats video at 10pm on a Saturday night. Hey, I didn't have MTV then, okay?

Human nature is so weird

And no matter how much you think you're beyond doing what others do and no matter how much you think you're original, you're really not.

Proof:

I'm reading Chuck Palahniuk's Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories. The middle section of the book is about other people -- actors, writers, artists, musicians -- and the "stories" are basically dissected interviews with these people. Except in the case of his story on Amy Hempel.

I've read Amy Hempel, and I honestly didn't realize she had such an affect on the minimalist writing, a form of writing I love and wish I could perfect some day. He wrote about her short story "The Harvest," which I have not read, so I searched the internet, found it published on an online magazine, and read it. It is, in fact, a superb representation of minimalist writing. It tells more in its shortness than a 500 page novel could ever convey. And in the end, it leaves you wondering. It makes you want to force someone else whose opinion you respect to read it so you can just talk about it. And believe me, this is a story I could talk about. Almost to the point of being really annoying.

When I was taking classes towards my creative writing minor at San Jose State, I took a class with a professor who was all about the minimalist fiction. He actually knew Denis Johnson during Denis Johnson's drug phase. Read or watch Jesus' Son (Mr. Johnson is in the movie, which I've always found amusing.) to be floored by wonderful minimalist fiction. Anyway, that's when I first realized there was this whole other genre of fiction out there that really spoke to me. I discovered Raymond Carver through this class. I lived and breathed the concept of telling a story without overloading the reader with too many details. This is not an easy thing to do. Admittedly, I only wrote one short story that was close to the minimalist style. Then I ruined it by listening to the same professor too much. I tried to change my story to please his style instead of leaving it as it was. I've never tried to write another minimalist story again.

Anyway, back to my first thoughts about human nature and never being truly unique. After I read "The Harvest," I went to Amazon.com to look up Amy Hempel to see which book I did read from her (I identify better with book covers than with names of books -- same thing with CDs).

Like the misspelling fool that I am, I typed in "Amy Hemple."

When you type in that, Amazon suggests "Amy Hempel" and "Chuck Palahniuk."

Which leads me to think that anyone who has read Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories, at least the part about Amy Hempel, has gone onto Amazon and searched for her and has also misspelled her name. And Amazon is sooooo smart, it's figured out the connection (It's called search inside feature or something -- unless they got rid of it. Now I think they're trying out tags.). So therefore, I am not original, and I probably did what millions of others have done.

Have you already tried this yourself halfway through reading this post?

Customer Service Nightmares Galore

It's only Tuesday, and I'm already having customer service nightmares. I've been working non-stop on a work project (yes, even on the weekend), and now I have to deal with all this stupid stuff -- What I'd really like to do is run away and hide for a couple of days so no one can bother me. Here's the scoop.

GMAC Mortgage

My mom was doing my taxes on Sunday night, and since I now get to include the $5k my husband and I are paying in property taxes as a deduction, we looked up my property taxes online and added it up. That was when I noticed we owe almost 100 bucks in penalty fees because apparently, we haven't paid our first installment of property tax.

Now, if it was up to me, it would have been paid. I've paid my first installment of supplemental property tax. This proves I'm responsible. But since my property tax money is being held in a GMAC escrow account, I have to wait for them to do something. Or so I was told by a customer service rep last fall, and so I've read over and over on their web site.

I have to have my money in an escrow account because otherwise my interest rate will go up. After consulting with my sister who has a calculator brain, I decided it wasn't worth me getting the tiny bit of extra interest added to my loan in order to control my own money.

So, needless to say, I was a bit miffed.

I called GMAC yesterday and spoke with Sonya (not pronounced Sewnya, but Saunya, mind you), who informed me that I have to fax my property tax bill to them in order for them to pay it.

Hold on, I said, and then I proceeded to read directly from their web site which states if I receive a bill, I can ignore it because GMAC will automatically pay my property tax. No where does it say that I have to fax anything into them. No where does it say if this is the first time you're paying your property tax because you just bought real property for the first time, you shouldn't trust us and call to make sure we're doing our jobs and using the money we're taking from you monthly to pay your property tax.

No where does it say anything like this.

So she listened to me ramble on and said again that I need to fax the property tax bill in. I questioned why GMAC doesn't make people aware of this. She says they have a tax inspector (or something) that figures this all out for them, and they must not have included our property. Again I asked why I wasn't contacted then, since I own real property, have an escrow account, and assumed they would actually pay my property tax. Doesn't anyone do checks and balances there? What do they think the escrow money is for??? The fun of it?

Then I broached the subject regarding the 100 buck penalty fee we now owed. I said that I'm not responsible for paying it, and that it better not get paid through my escrow money since they have control over it and I don't. She told me that GMAC would pay for it.

I'll believe that when I see that my property tax has been paid for, my escrow account has been depleted but without an extra 100 bucks taken out.

Kinkos

I guess Kinkos likes to hire idiots. Idiots who don't even know they're being laughed at right in front of them, and even go so far as to laugh with you while you're laughing at them.

Anyway, this is a short one. I had to take in stuff yesterday to get bound, and I was helped by the most lost guy in the world. The other guy working was the epitome of what a Kinkos employee should look like -- crazy hair, big glasses and a Napoleon complex. It was obvious that the guy in the back (aka Napoleon) who actually handles the copying and binding (thank goodness) had some silent hatred for counter guy. And yes, counter guy wasn't catching on, even though I was.

We'll see today if my documents were bound correctly and nothing was ruined. I had to sign a waiver stating that I was perfectly okay if they totally destroyed all my documents, even though the girl that came with me to Kinkos used her mind warping powers to get him to take back everything the waiver said and that Kinkos would "probably" pay for replacement. Of course in her world that means they will pay for it. In my world, the guy is an idiot and I signed the waiver -- nothing's getting replaced for free.

Oh, and since this guy doesn't know how to ring things up, we have to pay over the phone. He at first answered "yes" when we asked if the person dropping off the documents can accept credit card payments (I think at this point he was just scared and intimidated and wanted us out of there), then he said "no." So now I'm waiting for a phone call from them so I can pay over the phone.

And yes, we're paying them before seeing the finished product. Merely because it stinks walking a few blocks away with a box full of documents. My arms so really sore today. I blame this on Kinkos as well for not having a Kinkos on every corner like Starbucks does.

And the counter guy has been deemed a "stoner" by the girl I was with. He's more like an spacey indie guy in my book, but if you don't know what I'm talking about, you probably get the gist of what stoner is.

1-800-Flowers

To congratulate my husband on his new job, I decided I would have flowers sent to my parents house on Sunday since we were going there to do taxes. I was a bit irked that 1-800-Flowers doesn't allow you to pick a round about time for the deliver, but I figured they would come during the afternoon.

Wrong.

We left at 5 or 5:30, and since the flowers hadn't shown up, I just told my husband what I did. He said we could wait, but I was tired, so we left.

At approximately 6:45 pm, my mom calls us to tell us the flowers arrived. 1-800-Flowers gives a delivery window of 9 am to 7 pm. So this florist waited until the cut-off time to deliver the flowers. Nice. I told my mom I'd come the next day to get them.

Yesterday I arrived at my parent's house. I got out of my car and was walking towards the driveway. My mom was walking down the driveway. With the flowers in hand.

I know I was smiling as I was walking towards her, but my smile soon faded when I saw the pathetic flower arrangement in her hands. I can try to explain the differences between the picture online and what was delivered, but I figured I'd let photos do the talking.


This is from the web site. I picked this because it was all purples and sorta manly. I didn't want to insult my husband with some girly arrangement. I was also keen on the lovely purple, clear glass vase. Adds a nice touch without looking too cheesey.

Also note the fullness of this arrangement and that there are only purple-colored flowers plus the stems.

It's a nice arrangement.

Don't you agree?






This is what was sent. First, notice the ugly purple metallic-like vase. Very 80's and very ugly. And it was a bit dirty upon receipt.

Second, the arrangement itself looks like the florist went to the grocery store, bought a $8.99 bouquet of flowers with some purple in it, and put it in said ugly purple vase.

I bought a medium arrangement thinking small is too small and large would be too much. If this is a medium, then I think a small would be 2 scraggly flowers in a mason jar. At least coming from this florist. Oh, by the way, that's Sunshine Flowers on Fremont Boulevard in Fremont, CA.

Now, in the picture above, I don't see yellow flowers with purple tints on the edges. Nope, none. In the picture above, I don't see extra green filler foliage. In the picture above, immediately I see all purple. In the picture above, I see fullness and healthy flowers.

My first reaction was, "OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO," when I saw this arrangement. I was not going to let 1-800-Flowers or this pathetic florist take my 50 bucks to give me something I could have done myself for tops 10 bucks. Heck no. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

So I went home and called up 1-800-Flowers and told them I wanted my money back and that the arrangement was sub par. The guy ask me what was "sub par" about the arrangement. Okay, if you want details.... So I explained to him how it didn't look anything like the picture on the site, that it wasn't all purple, that it wasn't full, that the flowers look sickly, that there was way more green than purple, and that I could have easily done this myself if I was so inclined, and I didn't spend as much money as I did to get this result. I also mentioned that the florist's late arrival ruined the whole day, and that overall I was very unhappy.

I think he just gave up at that point cause he quickly said my money would be refunded. I said thank you. That was that.

So it was supposed to end there, right? I already called my husband and told him his arrangement was pathetic and I was sorry, so he wasn't expecting some fancy thing waiting for him when he got home.

When he got home, he opened the card. I had wrote something like, congratulations, and I was really happy for him, love your wifey -- something like that.

This is what the card said: Edgar

That's it.

OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Smoking the pot

It's always nice to step outside your door when you're walking a friend to their car after a small visit, and your friend says, "Someone's smoking pot out here!"

I said noooo......that can't be.

And then a wall of pot smoke hit me in the face.

Apparently our next door neighbor is a huge pot smoker. And what's even more lovely about this whole scenario is that we all have really heavy fire doors for our front doors. So for smoke to get in or out would be a hard thing to happen. I think. If not, then what's the point of fire doors?

Oh, maybe to keep fires out.

Anyway...I'm allowed a blond moment every so often.

Phone calls

We've been receiving some interesting phone calls lately. Some have no one on the other end (this happens when either one of us answers the phone, so I can't blame it on my hubby's latest girl friend (a joke)), some are this person who kinda squeals something in another language with sounds of kids in the background, and one just the other day was a man speaking in Spanish until he said my full name and then continued in Spanish.

Yes these calls are annoying, but at the same time it's fun. I've yet to pull the "Tracy's dead -- didn't you know?" trick on someone calling for Tracy, but when I feel up to it, I'll play along with telemarketers who cannot pronounce my name correctly or I'll just stay on the line while the person's fumbling with things in the background wondering why the person they called isn't saying anything.

We got one of the "no one's on the other line" phone calls the other night. I answered it with a loud, "HELLO?" I was trying to sound forthright. There was static on the other end. So I started whispering to whomever (could be a poltergeist -- wouldn't that be interesting?):

"Hello person who never says anything on the phone. Whhhhyyyyy must you call? Who are you?"

My husband looked at me like I was off my rocker and said, "Who is it?"

"Okay then. Goodbye to you too. Thanks for hanging up on meeeeee."

I looked at him and said it was no one.

The other night when the Spanish talking guy called, I did my normal routine of just staying on the line. There was a long pause before he started talking. When it was in Spanish, I was like, oh no. First all the mail in Spanish, now phone calls? I don't speak Spanish! I figured it was for my husband. He speaks Spanish. Then I heard my name. I told my mom about this and she said it was a recording. I'm not so sure. Maybe I got a Spanish speaking mob after me?

At least I'm a bit better with the phone. I used to just hang up on people if they paused for more than a few seconds before they started talking. I probably hung up on a lot of people we actually knew. If you were calling me, then I thought you should already be prepared to say what you had to say. And if I answered the phone and the call was for my husband, it shouldn't be much of a thought process to figure who the female was who was answering the phone. And vice versa.

My husband, on the other hand, is way too polite to telemarketers. We still manage to get some calls from people doing surveys and trying to sell the newspaper even though I thought they couldn't call us since we're on the "do not call" list. One time he actually participated in a survey. When he wants to end the call, instead of hanging up on them like I do, he politely tells them he's not interested. That just leads to the person trying to talk him into becoming interested, and he politely turns them down again. At some point someone's got to give up.

CONGRATS!!!

Congrats to my hubby who has a new job! Mark that off my new year's resolution list!

Customer Service Calls

I signed up to a children's book of the month club a few weeks ago (seems like a month ago, but I know that's not true) for my sis's kids. I'm an avid reader. I've always read, love to read, I always have a book with me, and don't get me started about books because I can keep talking for ages. I love children's books as well. I love my nephews and my niece. Seems like a good thing -- force books on them when they're 3 months old -- so I signed up.

When I signed up, I had to pick 8 books right away. So I did. I just had to pay for shipping on them, which added up, but realistically, it was a good deal. That was when the confusion occurred. Ideally, it makes more sense that the books were sent to my sis's house. So when I gave them my shipping address, I gave them mine thinking I could redirect the shipment to her house later. Then I wanted to pay for the books, but it never gave me the chance until recently. I had no idea when I was even getting the darn books because they don't tell you that. I was just glad they "billed" me instead of charged my credit card because of what happened this week.

I got an email a few days ago stating that my books were being shipped to our address, but to unit 10. There is no unit 10 in our condo complex. I checked my account online, and it said Unit 10. I don't know if that was me (probably) or their system messed it up (probably not), but it wasn't good.

I called yesterday to see if they could notify the shipper of the error. This was my conversation. Mind you, this is for a kids book club. You'd think they'd be nice or something.

Me: Hi, I received notice that my shipment was being shipped [I had to pause on this one cause it sounded stupid], but the unit number is incorrect. Can this be fixed?

Mean Customer Service Lady who shouldn't be working at a children's book club of the month company ("MCSL"): Let's see, yes, we fixed that yesterday.

Me: Oh, so you notified the shipper of the error, then?

MCSL: Uh, no. It was shipped out already.

Me: So I won't get my package then?

MCSL: You could go to your local post office and let them know of the mistake so that they'll hold it for you.

[Me thinking, you're kidding, right?]

Me: So you sent it via USPS?

MCSL: Yes. So you should go talk to them.

Me: That's if they'd do that!

MCSL: If they were nice, they would.

Me: Okaaay....well, I guess that's it, then.

We hung up. At this point I was thanking my stars and moons that they didn't charge my credit card because there was no way I was going to pay for those books until I had them in hand.

So after some thinking about it, I decided I would call the post office and see what they had to say. You never know.

I called the 1-800 number, full well knowing that meant I wasn't going to talk to someone in my local post office, but what the hey.

Customer Service ("CS") chick who thinks she was smarter than myself: How can I help you?

Me: A package is being sent to my condo but it has the incorrect unit number on the address label. I called the company who sent the package to me, and they said I should contact you to see if anything can be done about it.

Pregnant pause.

CS: Um......can.....you......say that again?

Sigh.

Me: blahblahblahalalalaghblallalalallala (same thing I wrote above).

CS in an annoyed voice like I'm some country bumpkin that fell out of the sky: Um, if your carrier knows you by name, you'll probably get it, but otherwise it'll be returned to shipper.

Me: So do you think if I actually went to my post office and asked them about it, that they could do something?

CS in a more annoyed voice like I must be "special" and why does she have to deal with me: Like I said, if you're carrier knows you by name...... (repeats her above statement).

Me: Okay, thanks. That's it then.

CS: ThankyouforcallingtheUSPS.

Now what do I do? I thought. My nephews were going to grow up illiterate and it's all my fault!!!!

I knew my sis was at my mom's that day, so I called and left a message saying that I know my mom's there and yet again she's not answering her phone and I wanted to talk to my sis anyway.

My sis called me back. I informed her that her boys would grow up illiterate and it's all my fault. That or I would get the stupid books in 3 months.

I'm now thinking I should have just gone to the bookstore and spent the same amount I'm being charged for shipping on some books.

So in a few years if you come across two really cute twins who can't read, you know whose fault that is.

I'm no dummy, I tell you.

It's got to take a pretty smart person to pull the wool over my eyes and trick me. I'm always suspicious of people. Rarely will you get my trust right off the bat. Especially when it comes to dealing with people on eBay.

I've been selling stuff on eBay for over 6 years. Currently I have something that everyone seems to want (you just never know with eBay), and it's now sold for over 30 bucks the last two auctions. At some point I'm going to over saturate the market by relisting this item one too many times (I have about 3 of them ready to sell). So last week when a bidder who didn't win the 2nd auction emailed me and complained about how they were so sad, and booo hooo, and would I be getting more, I told them maybe. Wasn't sure.

So I got more (I knew I was going to get more), put it up and even though it went against my normal selling rules, I emailed the bidder who didn't win and was so very sad to let her know I put another one up. She emailed me back saying if I put a "buy it now" for 20 bucks on the auction, she would buy it immediately.

Hmm....tough one. Not really. I wrote her back saying I'm letting the auction ride as-is and that I had an extra I would sell to her for 20 bucks, she just had to get back to me. Remember that last part there --- she had to get back to ME. No way was I going to send her an invoice for something without her permission first. That's just stupid and could very well put me in an awkward situation.

For instance, I send the invoice, don't hear from her, email her, don't hear from her, send a reminder, don't hear from her. Then 40 days pass and BAM! she pays it, and I've already sold the item because her lack of communication was doing nothing for me. Heck no, not going there.

So, as you probably guessed, I didn't hear a thing from her during the whole week. On the last day of the auction, she starts bidding on the item. The next morning I woke up to find she was out bid (again) and it sold for over thirty bucks. Many hours later I received an email for the loser (again) telling me she hasn't received the invoice WE AGREED ON yet, and when was I going to send it? Then she thanked me profusely for doing this for her, blah blah blah.

So you know what I did? Cause I'm no dummy? I ignored her. And later on when I get to it, I'm going to block her from bidding on my auctions. She can still email me through eBay, but she doesn't have my personal email address nor my paypal email address, and even if she did figure it out and sent me the 20 bucks, I'd just reject it.

Seems to be a case of should have taken the offer when presented to you. She could of had the stupid thing by now too. And now that I've gotten almost 100 bucks total for the three times I've listed this thing, I'm going to lay low for awhile, count my dollar bills and come up with the next money maker.

Reason #1

Why I hate my husband's job:

Reason #1 -- Getting that 3am wake-up call from the alarm company telling my husband that he needs to go meet the cops at his store because some idiots bb pelleted the windows.

Because of that, now he didn't get any sleep from 3am til after 5am (and maybe later), he couldn't go to the gym like he normal does, and he's going to be in a bad mood because his job requires way too much from him as a person.

At least I get to go back to sleep and then sleep some more on BART. He doesn't get that luxury. So when you think about complaining because someone took your stapler, think about my Reason #1 and realize that maybe you don't have it so tough.

xoe

Meet the newest zoesoph friend -- xoe.

She wants to love you.

zoesoph jewelry

Another shameless plug for my wonderful handmade items on etsy. I have a ton of jewelry items up and some other misc. stuff like Heart-o-Grams (remember: Valentine's Day is less than a month away...why go through the trouble of buying overly priced roses when you can send something from your heart!).

So don't sit around reading my blog any longer, go to zoesoph jewelry and friends and start looking and hopefully buying!

My husband is...

Rob Gordon too!

A match made in heaven.

My mom is Lloyd Dobler because she likes Cheetos. Not sure if there is a connection there, but that's the only thing I heard her say when I forced her to take the test by withholding information from her.

I am Rob Gordon

First, to give thanks where thanks are due: Thanks Tomeppy for putting this on your blog, I couldn't help but steal it.

I am:

Which is really funny because High Fidelity is one of my all-time Top 5 favorite movies staring Jon Cusack with Jack Black as the egomaniacal music store clerk. Oh, wait...I guess that's the only one. And if my husband died (no, no, no--- I do not want that to happen, no curses here!), I would have a really kickass record collection. Right now it's just "okay" with a lot of old Depeche Mode 12-inches, Brian Eno and Einsturzende Neubauten. And tons of Louis Prima from when I was listening to swing music. I guess I do sorta live in the past.

Which Jon Cusack are you?

Crazy man whose job it is the spray down the sidewalk on New Montgomery

I feel for him. He's got to spray the sidewalk on New Montgomery between Mission and some side street. He's also got to manage not getting anyone wet since this is a well-traveled pedestrian street. I don't know how he does it, but he does.

I'm just waiting for the day when he loses it and starts spraying us all down with water.

About the man on the roof -- I finally saw a rope hanging on part of the roof, and this made me feel much, much better about him. I really didn't seem like he was hooked up to anything. I'm going to submit that job for the TV show Dirty Jobs because I need to know how humans can do that job. I just don't get it.

Brad and Ed

I was chatting with my sis last night about celebs, celeb sighting and who we love. We both love Brad Pitt, as do most women (and men). I also love Ed Norton. And my favorite movie is Fight Club. Brad Pitt and Ed Norton are in Fight Club. I own the DVD. I am lucky.

My sis mentioned that I should put a picture of Brad Pitt on my blog. I asked why. She said because I should write about him.

Well, I don't have that much to say about Brad except that he's the most beautiful man ever in the more "traditional" sense of beauty. Now Ed Norton, on the other hand, he's the complete package -- the body (when he wants it), the personality (okay, I've never talked to him), the looks and a fake widow's peak in the movie 25th Hour. Give me a man with a fake widow's peak any day and I'm one happy gal.

Here's the Brad / Ed picture:

And here's an even better one (meow!)

Asset

I discovered today that the word 'asset' is not an appropriate word to describe a person. As in, "Bob is an asset to the company."

By writing of Bob in this manner, I am implying that Bob is slave of his company.

Did not know that. So when I suggested the word 'resource,' I was told this was much, much more acceptable.

I'm not really sure what the difference is except that the word 'asset' is often used in financial terms, but if you have a bit of an open mind or a dictionary around, you may discover that neither word is really a good word to use when describing a person. Maybe one sounds more fluffy than the other, but really, in the sense 'asset' was used above, they are the same.

I also realized today that I have nothing about me to use in the diversity struggle. Nothing. I'm a cheez-it.

Hmmm....

Okay, I'm all for everyone's rights and let's be nice and all the sugary happiness. But when I walk onto a BART train to find an overweight woman sitting on the handicap bench with her hunking go-cart parked in front of her, so that she's essentially taking up a whole bench, taking up the area in front of her so it's hard for people to walk by her, and blocking the bench perpendicular to her bench, I'm sorry, you should be chucked off the train for being inconsiderate to your able-bodied fellow passengers.

And this was a handicap car. Which means there is a wide-open space on the other side of the door where a handicap bench usually is, but is not, so the anyone who is handicapped and has to sit in an apparatus (such as a go-cart for fat people), can park themselves there and stay out of the way. Oops, I mean have their own space.

So there was this wide, empty space on the other side of her that she could have easily used, but chose not to. Now, if I wanted to just plop myself on the ground there for some reason, and a handicap person rolled themselves in, I would have to move. Because I'm not handicapped. So why is it okay for this lady, who may or may not have been truly handicapped to take up that much space??? (She wasn't that overweight -- in fact, a lady much larger than than the go-cart lady squeezed herself into the perpendicular bench next to the go-cart woman. The go-cart woman made her only effort to accommodate another passenger by moving her go-cart back 2-inches.)

Believe me, I was not the only one a bit perturbed. Every single person who was not handicapped (okay, there were none), walked onto that train, eyeballed this women, squeezed by, sat down and scowled.

I saw her move her legs. I admired her as she lounged with her legs propped up on the foot rest of her go-cart, reading. I watched her launch her fat body onto her go-cart when she was getting off the train. I'm not going to say she's lazy because maybe something was really wrong with her, but man, she had a lot of nerve, rights or no rights.

Crazy man whose job it is the clean the top of a roof

If I had to do this job, like if someone put a gun to my head and said, "you must get on top of the wonky-shaped building roof and clean it with a heavy sprayer," I would take death.

The man is in the circle (above).

The man, on the roof edge, after cleaning it. That's just wrong.

Fan

I got to do something I never thought I would do for any reason, at any time, anywhere. And just because I happened to be walking down Market Street at about 4:45pm on Wednesday evening in January, the 11th of 2006 to be exact. Oh, and I was with my husband. He's important in this story because I would have never done it otherwise.

We were heading toward the Four Seasons hotel, and there were crowds of people and a giant bus -- I can't remember what they're called, but the ones with the big, cushy seats and lots of room and really tall and are my nightmare because I feel like the bus will tip over since it's so tall and big -- and men bringing luggage to another truck because the bus was full. I thought it was some weird travel thing for tourists, and if that was the case, it was weird that they were staying at that Four Seasons since the rooms are so darn expensive.

We walked through the first line of people (yes, that's right, they were lined up), through the empty space in front of the doors to the hotel, and then stopped where the second group of people were standing. During this time, my husband realized all these people were waiting for something. Not the bus to leave, mind you, but a celebrity. Perhaps several celebrities. Oooo...if I only had a camera phone!!

I love celebrity sightings like anyone else, and I freely admit that I read the gossip columns and buy People and US on occasion. Why do I care? I don't know. It's fun, brainless, mindless, no-thought reading. I've grown up. I can admit these things. I don't need to stay in the closet all my life.

So we stood there, and then my husband (being the brilliant one out of us two because I would have been long gone if I was alone) realized it was for a sports team. His wheels started working, and he realized it was for a basketball sports team (his favorite sport). That's when I lost interest because basketball players are not celebrities in my book. His suspicions were confirmed when we spotted all the sports paraphernalia people had with them, including a half-deflated basketball. Some guy asked us who everyone was waiting for, and my husband told him, "We don't know, we're waiting to see ourselves."

Oh, the herd mentality. It only takes one person to start something like this.

That was when two of the tallest, lankiest, most odd-looking men I've ever seen walked out the hotel door and headed to the bus. My husband got a bit excited, said, "Oh! I know him! I can't remember his name, though!"

They both stopped and signed autographs while a big, muscley man stood behind them.

"Is he their 'muscle'," I asked.

"He's probably from the hotel, but yeah," my husband responded.

"So if I bum-rushed the players right now, he would knock me over?"

"Probably."

We stood for a minute or so more and then left.

When we got home, my husband looked up who was playing the Warriors tonight. It was the Miami Heat. Which made our basketball player spotting so much the better because Miami Heat has Shaque on the team! And some other guy that my husband says is really good too, but I don't remember his name. Too bad we didn't stick around because Shaque is the closest thing to a celebrity I'll ever see.

Except that two times I took pictures with Penn from Penn and Teller.

I really need to get a camera phone.

Tales from the post office

Some of this happened last Saturday, and because of that reason, I wasn't going to write an entry about it days later (old news in my head), but I had to go to the post office again yesterday, so I figured I'd lump together my post office thoughts for everyone to read today.

I recently was won over by online mailing (you pay for postage online, print out label, stick label on package, and then mail), but it only works if you're shipping within the US. So I had to go to the post office last Saturday to mail out some international packages. Since it was now after the holidays, it shouldn't be so bad, even on a Saturday, I thought.

Wrong.

I turned the corner, and low and behold, the post office parking lot was resembling a mall parking lot on Christmas Eve except way, way less parking spaces. I had to wait in a line of cars to get a parking spot. Actually, I was just waiting to either park or get out of the parking lot so I could park on the street and walk. I even had to wait for a lady using a walker to get across the parking lot, but instead of using the walker like a normal person would, she was walking while sorta shoving it ahead of her. Since I was stuck waiting for so long, I ended up getting a parking spot. I didn't let the full parking lot get me down. I've stood in long lines before.

As I walked up to the door, I saw that the line was really long. I had to get my game face on, which basically means, if you think I'm going to listen to you complain about the long lines, you're clearly mistaken and should just talk to the wall instead. The walker lady was in front of me, but she mumbled something to the lady in front of her and walkered herself out of line.

The lady turned to me and cautiously said, "Did you hear her? I'm holding her place in line." I guess my game face scared her.

"Oh, no worries. It's okay." What was I going to do? Walker her away when she came back?

The walker lady walkered herself as close as she could get to the side register, and said, "I'm handicapped! I want to be helped next!"

While she was saying that, a lady got behind me with her 3-year old kid. He was attacking anything and everything near him. Instead of making him stop, the mother just mumbled, "no, stop," and kept her place in line. The kid ran off and the next thing I heard was the emergency door alarm going off way on the other side of the post office.

I turned around and looked to see the kid standing there, kinda holding onto the door. The mom started quietly yelling at him, and so he ran to her. Then I heard a loud smack.

Since I turned to face the front again, I got to see the walker lady walkering herself back to the side register. I never got a good look at her face until this point, and I'll tell you, the walker lady was trying to make up for whatever physical ailment she had by plastering on inches of make-up on her face. Blush, lipstick, eye shadow, eye liner.... it was truly frightening. She got helped next at the side register, and when she turned to leave, all of us in line had to move out of the way so she could violently shove her walker through the lobby area.

I moved back in line, and that's when I got felt up by the 3-year old. The kid was banging into me (the mom had him standing in front of her so she could keep her hands on him). The first time I turned around and gave him and her a dirty, "you better keep your kid away from me" look, to which she responded with the "oh, you know kids, I have no control over him, and isn't he so cute?" smile. He banged into me again; I turned around and gave her another look; she ignored me. It happened again, same thing -- ignored. So when I felt a small hand going up my butt crack, well, I had to put an end to this nonsense.

I turned around and vomited, "Would you please keep your kid from touching me????!!!!"

She backed up 2 feet, knocked into the people behind her, had to apologize to them, and then stood off to the side, away from me. Now, she didn't back up 2 feet because I scared her or anything, I think it was more that she was trying to make a point that if I asked her to keep her kid's paws out of my butt crack, then, yes, she will back-up as far away from me as she could. But, being in her own "my kid is out of control, I'm really to blame, but I'm not going to do a thing about it" world, she forgot she was in a long line of people. So be it. I got my point across.

That was when I finally took some time to look around. I saw a poster advertising the new stamps at the new rate for 2006. Oh yes, I thought. That's right, the rate is going up. When is that, I wonder?

Duh. How about the next day? Which accounted for all the people making the local post office a miserable place to be. I just didn't know that it was rate changing time. I knew it was coming, but since I stopped worrying about things so much, these things that don't really require worrying don't stick in my head too much. Well, at least I can get some 39 cent stamps.

When I finally got to the register, the lady (who knows me and therefore doesn't make a big stink about the thickness of my packages when I want delivery confirmation, thank you very much and damn you Ken!) asked me how long I had to wait. Before I could answer, she asked me if it was the longest I ever had to wait at the post office. I told her I think it was, but I saw the parking lot and knew what I was getting myself into. She said she didn't want to see how long the line was.

I didn't blame her. All for stamps! Buy stamps in the mail, people!

Yesterday I had to go in to mail something to an APO address (which means you need a customs form -- just an FYI) and to pick up something that was sent to me registered mail. The line was sorta long, longer than I expected, but it was moving pretty quick. When I was up front, I got to hear the postal clerks repeatedly tell people (sometimes the same people about 10 times), that they were out of 1 cent and 2 cent stamps, and that they expected more after 2pm. There was a lovely sign posted on the counter saying as such.

When the man behind me (who was riding my butt like no body's business; I don't know what it is about about the post office, but all conceptions of personal space are left out the door) heard the clerks and/or read the sign, he started mumbling into my hair how he couldn't believe that they ran out of stamps already, and oh my god, and this is dumb, and they're dumb, and vomit, vomit, vomit.

I don't know if he expected to me commiserate with him, but he wasn't going to get any sympathy from me. Even though I didn't realize what was going on on Saturday, I got my stamps. And even if I didn't, I would have just ordered some. Plan ahead, people! And guess what? It's people like him that buy all the stamps which then makes the Post Office run out. It's not their fault. Long lines aren't their fault either. Long lines are a result of idiot people who don't come to the post office prepared or have stupid questions or cut the line to ask a question that they know will require more than 2 seconds to answer.

So, in other words, I ignored him. I was chatting with the clerk while the man behind me was being rung up at the adjacent counter, and he had to give a speech about how it wasn't worth his time to come back for the 1 or 2 cent stamps, and he'd just buy the 3 cent stamps and lose the money! So there! Like the clerk cares. Then he did the one thing I hate the most about people who are regulars at stores or restaurants, when they get someone helping them that they don't know, they have to ask about every single other clerk who works there to show that they are special. He proceeded to ask how blahblah was, and where blahblah was right now, and then to top it off, he told to the clerk helping him to tell one of the other ones something, which I didn't catch, but I can guaranty you it wasn't anything wonderful, and then he left with his regal horns blaring.

Now, I know the post office people. They know me. But I don't walk in there acting like I'm special. And since I do know them, I know it's not their fault that they ran out of stamps. So who did this man think he was?

So that ends my tales from the post office. On a good note, I left that day knowing the clerk thinks my husband is quiet and nice. Little does she know.....

Thanks, sis

My sis discovered Overheard in the Office. It's now a favorite of mine, but it needs to be updated more often, so start submitting your overheard conversations!

I've been duped!

Of course my mom never wants me to live in a happy fantasy world, so she sent me a link via e-mail regarding James Frey and his book A Million Little Pieces. I really like his book and reading about his struggles with addiction, so much so that I even wrote a little post about him looking like Dave Bazan.

Well, just like she did when she told me there was no Santa Claus (the reindeer bells I heard were our dogs' dog tags) and no Easter Bunny (the clumps of bunny hair I found when searching for my easter basket were clumps of dog hair), and no Tooth Fairy (which I have to admit I was glad to learn because I was so scared of the Tooth Fairy coming into my room to take my tooth from under my pillow that I sealed my tooth in an envelope and left it outside my closed door -- man, my parents lucked out with me), she broke the news to me that A Million Little Pieces is a work of nonfiction AND fiction.

You can read all about it on The Smoking Gun's web site.

This wouldn't all be so bad, but I recently received a gift certificate for Amazon for my bday (Happy Bday to me, I'm old) and I used some of my money to buy James Frey's newest book Conversations With Leonard. I almost got Haunted by Chuck Palaniuk, but for some reason, I decided to buy this since I hardly ever get to buy hardbacks of new books and at retail price. Darn that James Frey. Now when I'm reading his second book, I won't think, "Wow, he's been through so much and look at what fine guy he turned out to be," but, "liar! lies! cheat! you stole my gift certificate money!!!"

Being alone with my kitten

I've been left alone a lot lately with our kitten Zoe. Normally this is an okay thing. But Zoe has turned into a nightmare cat who purposely does things wrong in order to drive me crazy. At least that's my perception of the whole thing. She is often punished now by having to sit in my husband's room to think about her wrong-doings. Usually when I open the door to let her out, she's hunched up, staring at the door and ready to bolt.

I even went so far tonight to bungie cord two cat toy sticks with feathers and bells and other fun stuff to the cat condo. That was to distract her from trying to climb as high as she possibly could -- which in our place means to the ceiling. Thanks to the retro decor in our 80's condo we have this weird wooden display thing that really serves no purpose as far as I can see except for me to display my tile art. If it's not meant for that, then it's meant for putting mail behind the lovely wooden mini banister. Zoe has realized that if she's on the counter lip that hangs over from the kitchen area, she can jump up and grab hold of the first banister, and that just leads the way to the second banister, and that just means popcorn ceiling bits all over the floor. So I rigged up some cat funess, but all she did was stare at the feather things and meow.

Repeatedly.

So I changed the batteries in her battery mouse, hoping that would entertain her for a bit, but she soon decided the coffee table and the items on the coffee table were much, much more interesting. All the while she was knocking things off of it, she was meowing, meowing, meowing.

Then she made her way to the couches, which she thinks are scratching posts even though she has two scratching posts (one rug, one sisal), a rugged cat condo and a floor scratcher thing. She scratches, I yell "ZOE!!!!," she stares at me and meows.

Then she moves onto the next couch.

I love her to death, but she's going to put me in the looney bin if I have to be alone as often. Don't cats get old at some point??

Old Lady on BART vignette

I was sitting next to the window one night this week going home. A thin, old lady sat down next to me. She had a plastic bag in her right hand. As soon as she sat down, she leaned herself towards the aisle with her head resting on her hand. She quickly dozed off.

About 10 minutes into the BART trip, something happened that scared the crap out of the old lady. The first thing that happened was that she violently jerked her right arm up and out and all about (kinda like the hokey pokey). The bag almost fell on the floor. Maybe that was what scared her because she jerked herself up straight, shuddered and then looked at me, then all around. I pretended like I didn't see her, but in reality, you'd have to be asleep yourself not to miss her jerkiness (as in, body jerking -- not in the sense of being a jerk).

It's always good to play these things off like they never happened, which was what she did. She got off a few stations later, so I could stop pretending like nothing happened.

To explain

I was talking to my mom last night and asked me, "who are those people?"

Now, we were talking about my husband (all I can say is keep your fingers crossed for him), my sis's kids (my mom is babysitting next weekend so my sis and her hubby can go out to dinner and have some time alone, and I'm being recruited to help my mom although she said she didn't need my help but I don't believe her), why I haven't written anything in my blog lately (tired, no time, nothing much to say although I do have a vignette about some old lady sleeping on BART in the back of my head), and how she needs to get her phone fixed because it's driving me crazy (I call, it rings, it hangs up; I call, it rings, it hangs up; etc.).

Somewhere in the middle of our talk, she asked the question I quoted above. I tried my darnedest to figure out who she was talking about, but I just couldn't.

"What people?" I asked her.

"The people on your blog!" she said.

I was still trying to figure out what she was talking about. Then I remembered: The Spin Doctors!

"Oh, just a band from years ago," I said.

"Do you like them?" she asked me.

"Uh, noooooooo," I said. I probably said they suck or something negative like that, but I can't remember. If I didn't, that's what I was thinking.

Always a bit confused with the goings ons of them crazy kids (and me), my mom responded, "Oh."

So, I made a mental note to mention on my blog today that I do not like the Spin Doctors, I was being sarcastic in the posting, and while I didn't mention this in my posting, they were on some news channel buried in the 50's on Comcast, and I only found it because I was trying to find different coverages of New Years celebrations. Luckily our camera was on hand because I had to take a picture of the screen. It's like seeing big foot.

Now this was all good enough by itself. But then this morning I checked my e-mail, and low and behold, our friend posted a comment about the fabulous Spin Doctors on my blog. This truly made my day. The only thing I can remember about them from my personal life (besides finding them annoying) was that my ex-boyfriend (seems weird to even write that since I've been with my husband for over 12 years...) either really hated them or really liked them. I can't remember which, but I know he felt passionately about them one way or another.

Perhaps all this time spent on thinking about The Spin Doctors will give them another fantabulous hit!

Oh yes, it's true!

I was so pleased to discover that The Spin Doctors are still alive and kicking (okay, not really). And looking a bit old. Apparently they were playing at The Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas last night (new year's eve). I have a picture to prove it:

I think it was the gods of music that made it really difficult to have their name show up on the screen after taking the picture. What was that song? Pocket Full of Kryptonite? Save us all from the sadness known as The Spin Doctors!!