Fudgesicle Popsicles and You

The other day my throat started hurting something awful, and I decided that before this turned into a Big Sickness I had better get to the store and stock up on everything I'd need to get through it.

One of the things on my mental list was icepops of some sort. Soup was also on my list, but holy shit there is like a week's worth of sodium in every can of every brand of chicken noodle soup at Safeway, so screw that.

Anyway, when looking at the icepops a few different things were going on:

1. I was running out of steam and needed to leave close to Now to get home
2. There was a guy with a huge dolly unloading food which left very little space for people with wagons to get by him
   
3. There was a guy there with his daughter and their wagon, and neither of them had any sense of how much space they and their wagon were taking up

These three things caused me to grab the first vaguely acceptable pop from the freezer and just get out of there. Upon arriving home though, I realized the pop I'd brought home was not the pop I thought it'd be. I thought I'd gotten the skinny fudgesicle popsicles. Those are great because they're the perfect size and you don't feel like since you're eating them you should go make a macaroni necklace while sitting at a wooden picnic table at camp. You're just a respectable adult having a popsicle.

Turns out, I'd gotten the camp size fudgesicles by accident. I'm not a huge fan of these. Firstly, I'm not a huge fan of chocolate. I mean, it's okay, but like, chocolate does not make me happy. You know those women who laugh when eating salad by themselves? Those same women are the ones who close their eyes in bliss when they bite into chocolate. I'm not one of those women.

I just want a little popsicle, not one big enough that it could easily utilize two sticks. Two sticks is one stick too many, and quite frankly I am not a huge fan of those wooden sticks to begin with. The splinter factor is just too great. Plus there's the whole melting issue to keep track of, and who wants to keep an eye on melting chocolate when they're not feeling well? You might say to just eat the popsicle over a bowl, but again, who wants to have to clean up a bowl when they're not feeling well?

On Twitter, I made some comment about having bought the wrong size of fudgesicle, and at least three people expressed surprise that there are different sizes at all. So this blog post is meant to share and educate. There are different sizes. The smaller size is better. Though, not having a sore throat at all would be best.

Dejected

This morning I applied for an awesome job. It's at a firm I've temped at before. The attorneys I worked with loved me; partners even requested me more than once. Normally I just apply for any job I'm qualified for, because I am not one of those people who believes in bliss, or following it. Work is for earning money, not for fulfilling my soul. A pollyanna may say "what if work could be for both?" and to that I answer that for me, it can't be. The things that fascinate me are not fields I can work in.

This job I applied for today though? It would tap into a couple of my strengths. It involves travel, and while I have no interest in strangers feeling me up in airports, legal secretaries never travel for work which is why that would be super exciting.

The reality is though, I won't get this job. Why? Simply because history - specifically the last three years of it - dictates that nobody will hire me. I am never going to get a job again. This month I have only been able to get two interviews.

It's like I am standing on the rooftop of one building, all the jobs are on the rooftop of the building next to mine, but jumping simply hasn't been invented yet. So I can only stand and look, but can't ever get there. I can see everyone else on the other rooftop, scurrying around, passing around important papers, going on trips to other rooftops, buying things other rooftops are selling. But none of that is for. Just for everyone else. I am surrounded by rooftops.

Reason 382 I Am a Terrible Person

There's been a little mystery going on at my apartment this month, and yesterday I realized a flaw in my logic each time I think about it. A big, racially stereotyped flaw. You see, I live in a very echo-y place. I live at one end of the hallway, and if someone coughs at the other end of the hallway, I can hear it. Between the echo-happy materials used in the construction, my super-sonic hearing, and the lack of insulation here, I know way more than I should. I know it's Wednesday sex time on Wednesday afternoons (changed from Sundays). I know when the Indian girls next door are home alone, because that's when they smoke in their bathroom. I know when the little Mexican girl next door is having a sleepover from hearing all their giggles through the wall (it's pretty cute). And I think I know that three little boys down the hall don't seem to have left this building since the new year.

I'm home most of the time. It costs $2 to get anywhere, so I mostly just walk to close places. I can do a loop of post office, bank, drugstore, library, supermarket and back home in an hour without lines. So when I'm not temping, I'm pretty much home all the time. It'd be hard to fathom that these boys happen to leave only when I do.

It was in the week of the New Year that I realized the sounds of three little boys had been constant for a few days. Figured they'd just moved in. Figured the sounds would die down when school started back up. Sure the baby would still be around, and maybe even the middle kid, but at least the oldest one would be out of the house for a good chunk of time each day. Not so.

No, these three boys do not go to school. They speak a mixture of Spanish and English (not that they speak Spanglish, but that they switch back and forth). There are only studios and one-bedroom apartments in this building, so there are at least four people living in these boys' home, but I think it's five. I've heard a male voice soothing the baby when he's crying late at night, and a female voice screaming at all the boys to knock it off when their playing turns to fighting.

From hearing these boys constantly, I've sussed out that youngest is around two, the middle is around four or five, and the oldest boy - the one who taunts and mimics the others when they cry which makes them cry harder - could be anywhere from about six to nine. Six is a stretch, judging from his style of talk, but it's possible.

Then yesterday I had an epiphany! Maybe the oldest one is home-schooled! That would explain why he's home all day. This is where I become (yet again) a terrible person: I immediately dismissed the idea, thinking "these people don't homeschool!"

Promptly I felt ashamed, and tried to dissect my thought. Why not? What about these people makes them not the type to homeschool? They're poor? Lots of poor people homeschool. They're not white? Basically, yes. I honestly can't think of any people I've seen on tv, met in person, or read about who homeschool but are not white. It appears to me that people who homeschool are white. I'll just go stone myself to death now.

Around Christmastime there were two boys playing ball in the hallway one day when I was leaving. As I locked my door the older boy was crouched on the floor, tying his shoe. When I came home they were still in the hallway and as I walked past the older boy I told him, "Your shoe came untied again." He knelt down to fix his laces as I walked to my door. A half hour later I left my house a second time and the boys were still playing ball. The shoelace of the older one was again dragging on the floor. He saw me and immediately told his brother to hold the ball, and as I locked my door, I saw him struggling with his shoelace.

It became clear to me as I locked my second lock that he did not really know how to tie his shoe. When I asked if he'd like some help, he nodded, and I knelt down. As I tied I explained, asking the boy how old he was once I'd finished. "Nine," he admitted quietly. It was clear he knew he should know this skill. I didn't want to make him feel bad. "You'll get it if you practice," I told him. I wonder if these are two of the boys I am hearing all the time. If so, whoever is homeschooling them may want to add shoe-tying to what they're teaching.

It's not because they're not white. That's not why I think these boys are not homeschooled. I could easily expand my vision of People Who Homeschool to include all races and nationalities. No, more than race, it's attitude. The people I've seen who homeschool are really, really into it. Whether or not they're misguided or unequipped to be doing it, they have a clear sense of what they aim to teach their kids.

That apartment with the three kids? The acoustics are such that I can hear the mother when she's quietly talking to her friend on the phone late at night. Her window may be open, but mine is closed. If mine were open I would know exactly what they talked about (if we were language-compatible, that is). My point is, I can hear really well what's going on there (reason 828 I really need a job), and I do NOT hear any adult talking to this boys in any sort of teaching style. It's just not happening.

So I will remain mystified and intrigued by these three boys who are always home, always playing and fighting. I will hope they are somehow getting an education. Lastly, I hope that nine year old who can't tie his shoes either learns soon, or has parents who will get him velcro sneakers so he doesn't get teased by his friends.

*Does it count as people watching if you can't actually see them?

Maybe I Need a Pair of Lucky Panties

This morning I had a job interview. I wasn't able to sleep at all last night, which means I'll be crashing within the next five hours or so. Around 8:30 this morning I wanted to go back to sleep, but there wasn't time. The idea of yawning in an interview didn't sound professional, so I thought about buying a hot chocolate on the way there. Envisioning myself balancing my bag, my coat, my portfolio with my resumes in it, all with a hot drink in hand didn't seem like a good idea. Next I considered being a toddler with a tiara and snorting pixie sticks, but realized that sugar highs make my filtering system worse than it already is (and I stick my foot in my mouth a LOT).

In the end, I just took a shower (which woke me up quite a bit) and resolved to swallow any yawns. While I was sitting on my bed futzing with my nails before leaving, I thought of how, in the olden days when I first started working, I'd always get tons of paper cuts at jobs that wound up working out well. It wound up becoming a sign for me, paper cuts equal good things coming. This made me think about how long, how ridiculously long, I've been looking for a job now. Something needs to change. I need a shove in the employed direction.

As I filed my nails, I thought about what people use for luck. Pennies, rabbit's foot, four-leaf clover. Then for some reason I thought of sports, and how if a guy was on a winning streak, there'd be a joke that he wouldn't change his underwear, that they somehow kept the streak going (yes, I see the potential for that joke, and yes, I am specifically not stepping in it). Maybe that's what I'm missing. Maybe I need some lucky panties. I think they should be my Gap ones with the tiny pocket on the left hip. You know, so I can stick a four-leaf clover in there. Just in case the panties aren't enough.

Let's All Sit in a Circle

I love that rush I get when discovering not only a new author I love, but one who's written tons of stuff. That rushing thrill of New! Reading! Material! Then you curl up inside all that reading, and when you emerge in a daze with the way you think about things changed for life, in the back of your head all that's going through your head is What the hell will I read now? Wow. I guess I just really, really love reading.

I just need to pause to say that my apartment hallway is very echo-y, and I can always hear everyone who walks by, talks, or makes any noise. Right now a very chipper older late is talking to a man with a heavy Spanish accent who is responding to her politely but you can hear in his voice he wants to get away. Anyway, the point is, this woman has the same squeaky voice as my old cousin Clara, who was old for my entire life. She always used to confuse me with my mom, and it really made me twitch when she'd tell me, thinking I was my mom, that she remembers when my mother was alive. My mother *IS* alive, it's *HER* mother who died! Get it right, woman! Of course I could never say that - I'd just listen to her tell me stories about "my" mom and commit them to memory so I could tell my mom later, and she could collect other people's memories about the mother she didn't get enough time with.

Moving on! Back to reading! Good blogs are a great thing to discover because bloggers have archives. Archives mean days of reading material. I'm always flattered when I, my blog, represents that to someone else. People I'd never meet in real life. People who, even if I met, would agree we had nothing in common. Except people will write more than they will say (if their family isn't reading), so you can find those commonalities after all.

Charlene from -lifedramatic- recently found my blog and not only is she reading the archives, but she's commenting on things I'd forgotten about writing. She responded to an old post where I solicited questions with hers, and here's her list, along with my answers.

1. Don't keep me in suspense. Did you ever get a camera? What kind? Where are the pictures?? :)
Yes, I was given a camera. I don't know how to say what kind of camera it is properly, so I've gone meta and taken a picture of it with Photoshop for you. It says it's a Panisonic Lumix, with 5.0 megapixels and um yeah. I really, really want to be one of those people who takes their camera everywhere they go and takes cool pictures of a sewer grate or a businessman fixing his sock that make people stop and think, but I haven't reached that level. Then, before I could keep trying to reach it, my camera used up all its battery juice and buying new batteries for a camera simply is not a priority when you're scraping together money for rent each month, you know? So that's where I'm at with my camera.

A couple of years ago I went to LA, and I did take some awesome pictures if I do say so myself. I crossed a foot bridge in Santa Monica and took a picture of a Coke cup discarded carefully on a step that I really liked (yet can't find now). It doesn't help that I don't understand Flickr - why are the pictures I've taken in Photoshop on Flickr, and how did they get there? Where is my precious Coke cup picture? Where are all the old pictures I took on my camera and (thought I) uploaded to Flickr?

2. You mentioned you were in therapy for a long time. I'm in therapy now. Have been since my first husband started cheating on me, and never left her. I see a lot of things through your posts that I should be doing but haven't been able to yet. For example, doing things to help me not feel depressed. I find that I kind of wallow in the depression, like I'm in a maze and I can't really find my way out. How do you do it?
Wow. Well. Two or three things.
1. I am sorry your first husband cheated on you. It seems more common these days for people to forgive that, and although this may fall into the "you can't know until you're in that situation" I don't think I'd be able to forgive that. I believe in the "if you aren't into me enough to not cheat on me, then just break up with me honestly" religion.
2. Let's be honest here, okay? I'm not always able to snap out of it. Being out of work is very, VERY difficult. A little while before moving out of Florida my messiness reached an overwhelming head, and another person had to come in to help dig me out. I swore to myself it would never get to that point again. It hasn't, but I have been known to send in my unemployment form a week or two late because I lost it in the pile of stuff on my ottoman and haven't had the wherewith all to dig it out. So, I'm not perfect.

At least a decade ago I read an article in Newsday about how people with learning disabilities function better if their outside world is neat and organized. It took me several years to get my life in line with that, and found it was true. My brain is so busy translating what people have said into words and concepts I understand (and then I have to race to listen and process while also listening to their next thought and saving that for translation while responding to the first thing) that it creates more work when things are physically a wreck. So I try to stay neat. When I don't, I have absolutely noticed a correlation between seeing a wreck and my heart sinking and becoming overwhelmed.
3. The way I do it when I'm doing it is, I have a set schedule. So when I'm working, I know what errands I'll run on my lunch hour on which day, and which days I'll go to the library after work. When I wake up I smooth out my blanket to make my bed look neat (tucking in the blanket takes too long). On weekends I buy five breakfasts (or one cardboard tin of Quaker's Instant Oatmeal) so I'll have quick breakfasts each morning I'm at work. I feel no difference (other than hunger) between eating breakfast and not in terms of being productive, but study after study, decade after decade swears eating breakfast is good for you, so I eat a healthy one.

I keep in mind when I'm depressed all the other times I've been depressed (yes, I realize that sounds depressing) and that if I can just force myself to shower and get dressed, then I'll be able to take out the garbage, which will mean I'll be ready to go through mail that's piled up, etc. Things can spin out of control. But they can also spin into the control if you just start the spin. You have to find what will start your spin.

3. What would you do if your neighbor got a pig and you had to hear it grunting and squealing when you were trying to relax? (Seriously, this just happened to me...)
Charlene, this does not sound pleasant ... wait. Is it a baby pig? Because those things are cute! Did you see the movie with that Dawson's Creek kid who played Knox and his friend had a pig named Bacon?

To answer your question, I would ask the city/town if this was legal, and if it was not, because I'm somewhat passive-aggressive I'd consider reporting them. In the meantime though, I might ask the neighbors if they could move their pigpen to the center of their yard so the noise was traveling so well into my space, and I'd look into what kind of white noise I could employ to drown out the pig noise. Wind chimes probably wouldn't cut it, huh?

4. I've always wanted to visit California and SF in general! I love seafood. Do you like any seafood? (I know you said you are a picky eater).
Yes, I love seafood too. Every time I am at Whole Foods I check to see if the scallops are on sale. I'm not sure I've found any stellar seafood restaurants here, but I haven't specifically looked, and don't dine out much these days.

5. Have you ever been to whereever it is you can go to see the seals there? Seals are smelly, but they're cute too.
I think you're talking about Pier 39, where there are sea lions. Yes, I've been there. More than once. Maybe it does for other people, but for me, it never gets old to see the sea lions sunning themselves and pushing each other into the water, and flopping back up to dry off from a swim.

6. What's your favorite thing about SF?
People ask this a lot. I don't have a good answer. This is the first major city I've ever lived in, so I really have nothing to compare it to. I love that the weather makes it easy to spend time outdoors. I love that there's tons of free stuff to do and watch. You can make a full day out of watching the Gay Pride Parade, a full morning out of watching Bay to Breakers take off and then going to the Ferry Building for the farmer's market. You can surround yourself with tourists or escape them by going to the places tourists never know about. You can learn (if you're me) how to become comfortable being the only white person on the bus. Hell, you can learn how to use city buses, something that was foreign and scary to me at first.

This is the place where I learned how to make friends. Where I learned to cut myself a little slack. Where I got to hone the art of agreeing to disagree, of stretching my mind to see other people's viewpoints. I don't know that these things happened because I am in SF, just that they happened while I was here. But when I have entertained thoughts of leaving here and moving elsewhere, I have worried "what if I can't make friends?"

7. I grew up in North Miami, FL. It sounds like when you were in FL you were in the Pompano area. Why did you move there?
You nailed it. I moved to Florida because I wanted to move out of my parent's house. When I looked at apartments on Long Island, they were all depressing illegal basement apartments in the back of people's homes. I distinctly remember looking at one with my dad, and then quietly telling him, "This is the kind of place that's great for committing suicide." My grandpa lived in FL - he had an apartment in an old-people community, and mostly lived at his girlfriend's apartment (in the same community). When I considered the idea of moving to Florida, he allowed me to stay at his place for a few months while I got myself established. I knew of one girl around my age when I moved to Florida, and she was a real estate agent. She showed me four apartment complexes, all places she'd show her sister, and I picked the one with the most natural sunlight. The master closet was big enough for a controlled cartwheel. There was a laundry pantry in the kitchen. There was so much space in that apartment that I had multiple empty cabinets. So that's why I moved to Florida, the specific city within Florida, and the specific apartment complex.

8. Will you please post a comment or two on my blog? :)
Already done!

Bubbles and Bookstores

This morning I woke up to someone else's alarm clock. On a Sunday. It's a repetitive tone, not a radio. It's been going for about 40 minutes so far. I wonder about the person who owns this alarm clock. It didn't go off yesterday, which means they specifically set it for today. What kind of job does this person have that involves being woken up at around 8 am on a Sunday? What was this person doing last night that they don't wake up naturally by around 8 am on Sunday? Whatever it was, it wasn't something they were doing at home, otherwise I would have heard it. All noises are amplified here.

My nerves are getting rubbed raw by this alarm clock. When I used to wake up to my alarm clock radio, I'd leave the radio on while I got dressed, only turning it off on my way out. But I'm a light sleeper and never turned the volume up especially high. Can't help but wonder if this neighbor of mine rushed out without doing all their neighbors the courtesy of turning off their alarm clock, or they are still blissfully asleep.

Since I was awake, I decided to scrub out my little shower stall floor. For about two months my shower had a persistent drip. Eventually the Naked Handyman came to fix the drip, but then I realized the shower stall floor was kind of slippery. Perhaps it was sludge from water dripping consistently for two months? Gross. So this morning I sprayed Scrubbing Bubbles, let it sit, and then used my scrubby brush on the shower stall floor. The Scrubbing Bubbles directions say to just wipe with a wet cloth, but I decided that was for a surface that's routinely cleaned, not for one like mine, that needed a deep cleaning.

At first I just wet my scrub brush in the sink, but realized the suds in the shower weren't going away. So I turned on the water in the shower. It's a really tiny shower stall, so that's how I wound up with the top of my head wet. Despite having opened the bathroom window when I sprayed the Bubbles, my bathroom still reeks of chemicals. Yes, I know there are more natural alternatives, but I don't have those, I have the Bubbles, and will continue to use them until they're used up.

I scrubbed over and over, with water dripping down the top of my head, inhaling the fumes. It's been over 20 minutes since I finished, the bathroom window is still open, and at this point I'm high off the fumes.

There used to be a Borders bookstore about two blocks from my apartment. It was utopia - a free place to go in walking distance , that was air-conditioned, where I could read books all day long? Come on - that's what heaven looks like! It closed a few months ago, and I still think of that Borders wistfully sometimes. Times like now, when I'd really like somewhere to go that's free and out of the rain.

It's now three minutes shy of an hour and the alarm is still going. I feel certain the owner of the alarm must rush out of their apartment without turning it off. How could anyone stand this loud and repetitive noise for an hour straight?