Hello? HELLO?

I just spent four days taking care of Le Pooch at Crazy Girl and Golden Boy's house, while they were off doing fancy things in fancy places. Phone reception in their house isn't too great - you have to stand in certain spots in order for your cell phone to work. The entire time I was there, my cell phone only rang for collection companies, nobody else.

Yesterday afternoon I got a voicemail from my father, but my phone never rang when he called. Last night Crazy Girl told me she'd heard my aunt say that my parents said I never talk to them.

I called my father back this morning, and while we were on the phone I got call-waiting twice. Both times it was collection companies.

Talking Your Way Out

The other day I was in the Financial District, and went to Starbucks to talk with my brother. As Golden Boy and I talked, there was a mild commotion (does that phrase even make sense? can a commotion be mild?) and I looked out the window.

Outside, a tow truck was hooking up a car parked in a commercial loading zone, and the car owner had raced outside to try to talk his way out of the whole thing.

When the car owner came back in, as he walked by us, my brother told him he'd dropped some money on the sidewalk. The guy said thanks and kept walking. Then he went outside again, stooped to pick up his fallen cash, and then spoke with the tow truck people.

He successfully talked his way out of having his car towed. By now you should already know I'm a bitch, so you probably won't be surprised to hear that I don't think he should have been able to do that.

Now what will happen is that he will brag. He will update his Facebook status. Ken Farcomb just talked his way out of a ticket and having his car towed! People will click that they like this. They'll congratulate him. They'll ask where he got away with it.

Then other people will see a parking spot, realize it's for commercial loading only, and instead of circling the block once more, will instead think of their friend Ken, decide they can get away with it, and park there.

Whereas if Ken had gotten his car towed things would play out differently. Ken Farcomb just had his fucking car towed and is PISSED! Then his friends would ask where he got busted, express their condolences, tell about the time they parked where they weren't allowed and say how much it cost them, ask where it happened, how much it'll cost, etc. Then the next time people see a commercial loading zone and consider parking there, they'll think of their friend Ken, and circle around the block again in a continung effort to find a legal parking spot.

But Green! You don't have a car! You don't know how hard it is to find parking! Well. It's true that I no longer have a car. But I'm not blind. And I USED to have a car, and USED to have to drive around to find parking.

Maybe Ken was running late, you tell me. Well, sucks to be Ken, is what I am telling you. Ken should have planned his time better, and alloted extra time to find a parking spot. Or he should have taken mass transit. Or even a cab. Or, if he was meeting someone (I didn't see anyone with him, but maybe he was having a work meeting at Starbucks) and had to drive into the city for whatever reason, he should have arranged to meet somewhere he knew he'd be able to find parking.

Maybe it wasn't his fault he was running late. Maybe his last meeting ran late and that's why he was running late for this meeting. Look, are you sleeping with Ken or something? Then he should have called his second meeting and told them, "My last meeting ran late, so I'm about 20 minutes behind schedule. I'm so sorry, can you meet at 11:30 or do you want to reschedule for another day?"

I do not understand people who know they're running late and don't bother to call the person sitting and waiting for them to let them know. It's outrageously rude. Especially when everyone and their mother has a cell phone. It's not like you'd have to pull over and go find a pay phone after digging through your car for a spare quarter.

In closing, Ken? You're an asshole. You got away with it once, but I hope you learn to manage your time better, read signs in the future, and don't get away with it again. Also, it'd be nice if you put some money in a meter that's about to expire for someone else.

Maybe Next Year

This was written but not published a couple of months ago.

Dine About Town comes to a close at the end of this week, and I haven't gone to any of the restaurants to participate. When the Nutcracker was being performed last month, I didn't go to see it. Grease will be here in March, and I won't be seeing that either. I am upset and embarrassed that I haven't been able to buy people holiday and birthday presents.

I console myself with the phrase, "Maybe next year." I had to say that a lot throughout 2008, and I'm still saying it now. It's the kind of thing someone would say to a child. Can we go look in the Hello Kitty store? Can we get ice cream? Can we go to the playground? It's what you say to console yourself. Only thing is usually you're saying it for extras. Can I pay my PG&E bill? Maybe next month.

Back when I worked with Perky Paula and the Secretly Pregnant Secretary, it was through a temp agency that I hated. The recruiter lied consistently. I liked the firm though, so I continued temping in the hopes they would offer me a job. They didn't. Last week that temp agency sent out an e-mail saying W2s would be available for pickup starting this Monday. They called to confirm my address. I stopped by in jeans and sneakers on Tuesday to pick up that W2. Which they didn't have.

The receptionist couldn't bring herself to tell me, and directed me to the ditzy, lying recruiter I'd hated dealing with months ago. She asked if I was looking for work and I said I was. Pulling my file, she looked at a page and said, "What happened with Lake East? They offered you a job, right?"

Um, yeah. They offered me a terrible job that I would not have been able to do. It was at a desk that had been empty for several months (backlog of work), in a type of law I was not familiar with (complex tort), at a firm that does not do formal training, has no IT or WP departments on site (both crucial for me to succeed), that is headquartered in LA or on the East Coast (I forgot), where basically, they would toss me at the desk and expect me to be up and running. During the interview I remember thinking with certainty, "They would fire me within a month."

I explained this to the recruiter. She pushed me to take the job. At the time I was still temping at the place with Perky Paula, and felt comfortable saying no. Months later she asked again if I was interested. Just the fact alone that they hadn't been able to fill that desk reaffirmed my thought that it was not a good fit.

But two days ago what happened? That's right. The temp she has there now is out with a broken leg, and does she want me to see if she can get me in to temp for the temp? I have tort experience, right? Um, no.

At this point I'm not even thinking, "maybe next year." No, at this point I'm just trying to stay in San Francisco without being homeless for as long as possible. I am falling down a well and holding onto the edge by my fingertips. Next year isn't going to come for me.

A Special Snowflake Encounter

(tonight, on a very special Blossom...)

It was only a few months ago that I learned the term special snowflake. In the way I've heard it used, it basically is defined as a parent who thinks their child is more precious and delicate and unique than all the others. So even though the word "snowflake" is talking about the child, the term is actually an insult to the parent of that child.

Today I ran across such a parent. I was on the F-Market train. It was raining. A woman got on with her two kids. One toddler, one preschooler. She apparently wanted to give her children the full San Francisco experience, complete with letting the boy put his money into the machine. There were people behind her. She was blocking the entire entrance on to the train. Of course her son dropped the money she'd given him. Of course he was too short to see what he was doing and she had to lift him up.

I was sitting on the bench, iPod on, watching this happen. Looking at all the people standing in the rain, waiting for her. I wondered if she'd whip out a camera and say, "Parker, look at me and smile!" to the boy.

Finally the boy got his money inserted correctly. He did not seem at all excited about his experience. Everyone behind them quickly boarded, I heard the driver call out, "Hold on!" and a second later we lurched forward. The woman sat down right next to me (oh goody!) and pulled her daughter onto one leg. She was holding her son's sleeve and about to pull him over to sit on her other side when an older woman took that space (it's just a long bench).

The special snowflake mother glared at the woman and pulled her son onto her lap to sit on her other leg. "I'm sorry you don't get your own seat." He didn't care - he was busy inspecting the transfer ticket he'd gotten after putting in his money.

More people got on at the next stop. Now the train is starting to fill up. The nature of mass transit in a city is that people will brush up against you, step on your feet, and in general, invade your space. If you can't deal with that, get out and walk.

It's rush hour. People have bags and umbrellas and are standing and changing their positions to have better traction. A woman with a cane gets on the bus, stands in front of the mother. The mother acts (or is) flustered and gestures at nothing.

I say, "Here," and scoot down on the bench, putting three feet between us, so the woman with the cane can sit, and can do it quickly, before the train starts moving again. She has to take one step, then turn, then plant her ass. As she takes her one step forward, the mother takes her child and plops him on the seat next to her. In the space I just made for the handicapped woman.

The woman looks at me. She can have my seat. My arthritis woke me up at 4:15 a.m. but my legs are working. I stand up, turn, and reach my hand out for her. She is holding on to the pole and is scared to let go while the train is moving. I am so pissed off that I lean towards the mother.

"Hey, can you move down so she can sit?" The boy looks up at me, looks at the woman with the cane, the bench, and starts to move over so there will be space right in front of the woman. His mother stops him. "We were here first," she tells me.

Seriously? I mean, SERIOUSLY?! Even her four year old can see what the right thing to do is in this situation. The woman with the cane pats my hand. "It's alright, dear." No. Actually it's not alright. It's not alright at all.

I don't dispute that the special snowflake mother was there first. I have taken kids on trains before. I've even done it when there are no seats at all. You can hold the kid in one arm while holding on with the other, or you can have the kid stand between your legs and tell them to hug you tightly. Both work just fine.

I wasn't even asking this woman to try to stand on a moving train while keeping two kids from falling. There was space for her and her special snowflakes to continue sitting. I just wanted to let the handicapped woman sit.

Then the train stops and we are all told to get off - that there's some sort of problem up ahead and everyone must either go underground to take MUNI or wait for a regular bus that is coming up behind us.

So I get off the train, and stand on the little traffic island, waiting for the bus that I can clearly see coming up the street. Can ya guess who's last off the train? Special Snowflake and her kids finally exit the train and stand next to me. As I walk around her to get to the bus, I overhear her telling her kids, "We don't have to go on the bus."

Yes, because you're special. Hope you enjoyed waiting on Market Street in the rain during rush hour to get that taxi.

He's Not All Bad

Even though 9am wears more cologne than Joe Drakkar himself, he's not totally a bad guy. Even though 9am talks so loudly on the phone that when he's at one end of the apartment with the door closed and I'm at the other end with the door closed, I can still hear what he's saying, he's not a totally bad guy.

I don't remember this specifically, but sometime soon after 9am moved in, I must have told him how, when I was little, sudden noises scared me, and if my mother was going to turn on the blender she'd yell, "Green! Noise!" Mental preparation has apparently always been a big thing for me.

9am has this bullet thing that he uses to mix up special power smoothies so his muscles will tear the sleeves on his t-shirts he buys a size too small for just that reason. Every time he's about to turn it on, 9am booms out, "Blender!" Isn't that sweet?

By the way, the first time 9am came up to me talking about the bullet, I thought he was talking about a vibrator. Normally he's so conservative, and I couldn't figure out where this line of conversation was coming from.

By another way, in case you have seen the infomercial for the bullet and are wondering how it works, 9am has reported to me that the blades are getting dull and thus it takes longer and longer to mix up his muscle smoothie.

Shocker!

It seems Bristol Palin and her babydaddy have broken up! Whoa! Who on earth could have possibly seen that one coming? I mean, most 18 year old girls stay with their boyfriends for ever after, so why wouldn't she? Oh wait ....

You know what? Despite losing respect for Bristol when she named her child Tripp (oh, the jokes I have stored up...) I do respect her for two things. One is going on tv and giving an interview saying she disagreed with her mother's stance on sex education. The other is breaking up with a guy who seems to be, by all accounts, a prick. Yes, all the articles regarding the breakup are saying he's a good father, but you have can't just have one good quality and expect that will cancel out your prickishness.

I'm also pleased Bristol is back in school. Hadn't she dropped out for a while? Good luck to you, Bristol. Be careful your little sister doesn't drop your baby - she seems to like hauling them around.

I Cried

Normally when I hear awful news I just nod, and file it away. You know that phrase, "My heart goes out..."? Well, mine stays where it is. Locked deep inside my body, cold and dark. So when you call and tell me you accidentally had your arm fall off? I giggle and ask if you dialed with your toes or the hand that's still left. I care, but when the majority of feelings you've had for most of your life have been negative ones, eventually you just turn your feelings off as much as possible. It's a self-preservation tactic. I care, but don't feel.

I can't even remember how I started reading Dave's blog. He was this happy-go-lucky-in-the-face-of-difficulty guy. From Canada, no less. He didn't even write about bacon. But I kept reading. He wrote about his life with his son and wife and their dog. It's not like the dude's an astronaut or something exciting. But I kept reading. I came to like him, despite how happy and full of light and love he was. He's probably never kicked any babies or scowled in pictures. I liked him anyway.

We'd comment on each other's blogs now and then. He probably doesn't want to, but Dave should be famous. That way he could be an example to others on how to be a good person. Maybe even more importantly, how to be a good person without making others feel like they're not as good a person as he is, which is a tall order.

A couple of weeks ago Dave put a message on his blog that he was going to take time off from writing. His wife had leukemia and although she'd been fighting it for a long time, he needed to be with her, completely.

You never want bad things to happen to good people. It's much more cruel than when bad things happen to bad people, or even average people. Dave and his little family? They are very good people. Yes, I say that without ever having met any of them, and I know I'm right.

Dave's wife died over the weekend. My heart dropped, and so did tears. When I say now that my heart goes out to Dave and his son and their dog, I really truly mean it.

Has No Idea

9am told me he's going home for a week at the end of the month. I asked if this would be a vacation or if he'd be working. He said there'd be a bit of work.

Then, 9am proceeded to tell me that he and his boss have a very informal relationship, so it's not uncommon for his boss to call him in the evening or on a weekend sometimes. 9am was never given a Crackberry. I have to keep reminding myself this is 9am's first experience in any law firm ever. He never summered at a firm.

So I shouldn't roll my eyes too hard that 9am is injuring his body patting himself on the back for working "after" work ends. Because he doesn't fully realize that's how it normally is, practically how it's supposed to be. Somebody should clue him in.

Facebook Has All the Info

Andy is not dead of cancer after all.

It's Okay to Touch

I used to tell my mother I had to go to the bathroom when we were at temple services. On my way to the bathroom I'd stop inside the little coat room, and if nobody was around I'd pet the fur coats hanging there. They were so soft, sometimes still cold from the outside air.

Growing up Golden Boy and I were never allowed to touch things in department stores without asking. We could never touch anything breakable. To this day Golden Boy's instinct is to shove his hands in his pockets when he walks through the dish section of Bed, Bath & Beyond. Not me - I went in the opposite direction. I touch everything. Run my fingers over pretty designs, hold expensive vases, whatever strikes my fancy.

I have always been fascinated by other people. Sitting in the back seat of the car, I'd look into the windows of cars around us, and wonder where the other people were going. Were they excited to get there? Were they forced to wear their ugly navy blue buckle shoes that they hated too? Was their dad also angry because everyone wasn't ready on time and now they were stuck in the same traffic we were?

There was the blond pretty woman who was driving next to us, hysterically crying as she drove. I stared in horror and fascination. She was so beautiful that I couldn't imagine how anything could possibly be so bad that she'd cry like that, especially in public (clearly, I was quite young to think that way). The day I got fired from the men's clothing store at the mall, I drove home hysterically crying, and I thought of that blond woman I saw as a child.

My father always yelled at me when he caught me people-watching. "Pay attention to your own life!" What I took away from that was two things. One, that wanting to see what other people are doing is wrong. As if wondering about who other people were crossing the bridge to see was the same as hiding in bushes at night to peek into people's windows. Two, that my life was such a wreck it needed more attention than I was giving it. As if all I needed in order to be one of those kids who was able to do their homework and keep their bedroom clean was simply to pay more attention to my life. I didn't even know people-watching was a real term until I was an adult.

Normal people can have quirks, and they can still be a normal person even with them. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say people without quirks are weird. Just like there's something distinctly imperfect about perfect people.

In the interest of indulging quirks, Wide Lawns, here's the inside of my fridge, just for you. The right side is mine, left side is 9am's. In case the lighting isn't good enough, here's what you're looking at:

Top shelf: two yogurts, bottle of water, bottle of Vitamin water, some sort of weird healthy berry juice.

Middle shelf: shredded mozzarella cheese, rye bread, rice pudding, a banana, an opened box of spinach fettucine. There are two unopened vitamin waters behind the bread.

Bottom shelf: romaine hearts, cucumber, grilled (cooked) chicken.

You can't see what's on the door, but I've got milk, soy vey sauce, butter, sprinkle cheese, spaghetti sauce, and jelly.

Maybe for your birthday, I'll post a picture of what's in my kitchen cabinet for you.

Small and Inconsequential

This morning I was rushing to get out of the house to be on time for a meeting in the Financial District, and when I went to put on my earrings I dropped one in the garbage pail.

Once, when I lived in Florida, I dropped a ring down the garbage disposal. Since I was running out the door to work, I didn't have time to try to get the ring, so I just made a mental note not to turn on the garbage disposal until the ring was out. Yeah, umm ... I forgot about the ring.

Thinking of that ring this morning, I didn't want to forget my earring, so I took my garbage pail up off the floor and put it on top of my dresser. Visual reminders are much more useful than mental reminders. Or maybe it's that the visual reminder triggers the mental reminder?

Whichever. The important thing is that when I got home early this afternoon I spent about a minute and a half saying, "EWWW!" continuously as I picked through my garbage pail to find my earring.

Once I found it I plugged the bathroom sink, dropped the earring in, washed my hands, then took the earring out and thoroughly wiped it with alcohol. My bathroom counter is tiny, but hopefully when I go to take my earring back into my bedroom I won't accidentally knock the earring into the bathroom garbage, or worse, into the toilet.

As If I Don't Know

In my dream I had just finished dinner with family. Then I got told I owed $75 for it. Nobody had told me this before - of course I'd never have gone had I known it would cost that much. When I tried to leave, in order to get home and see what I could to do scrounge up the money I apparently (accidentally) owed, the door was locked and I couldn't get it.