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| Jan 18, I think... |
| 01.18.06 (3:06 pm) [edit] |
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Ever have one of those mornings when you wake up and have no idea what has just been happening to you? Yeah, presumably, sleep was just ‘happening’ but who can be sure? Last night I went to sleep/passed out at about 3:30 am. No drunken idiocy to report, I’m just not particfularly adept at recognizing when I need to go to sleep. So I went into la la land and neglected to turn the television off because I love waking up to the opening credits of ‘Coupling’ at 5 am. I lie occasionally. I woke up and poured myself a big glass of water, slammed it and refilled my glass. I was feeling quite awake but stuck myself back in bed for some more snoozing.
8:30 hits (really close to it) and I snap to in my bed feeling a bit short of breath and really confused. Frequently, while I’m sleeping, my arms go completely numb. Bolt upright in bed with completey numb arms is a bit of a confuser as far as ways to awaken are concerned. Call my old fashioned but I generally sleep lying down. I had the strangest feeling that I’d just come back to my apartment from somewhere else. Toledo, OH, maybe the moon, I have no idea. I stared at the clock for a long time trying to figure out what the numbers and pointy things were trying to tell me. I got the time figured out and then had to begin trying to ascertain the date. I had a strange feeling that I’d just slept through Wednesday. Foggy and still waiting for use of my arms I developed a plan. In three steps I would know what day of the week it was.
Put on glasses.
Find mobile phone and see what date it says.
Look at calendar in checkbook to learn whether or not it’s Wednesday.
I have good news for everyone. It is, in fact Wednesday. I don’t have to go to work for another day yet. Had I not been traveling through the holes in the ozone layer of my soul I would have simply opened my precious little computer and had displayed for me just what I needed to know. The world around me seems as confused as I am today. San Francisco is bright and sunny with drenching downpours every few hours. My favorite internet cafe is off-line so all of us are sitting here working (or in my case, playing) accordingly. A woman just ordered a soy mocha with extra whipped cream. A man wearing a giant, purple patchwork print hat just put it on a wet outdoor chair and thereupon was seated. There is a pigeon walking on the floor indoors in front of me and the owner of this cafe is quietly smiling at it.
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| Zing! |
| 01.17.06 (6:28 pm) [edit] |
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I rather absentmindedly drank a LOT of caffeine today. I was feeling a bit sleepy earlier today thought a soda sounded tasty. I discovered I was rather thirsty and guzzled half of a two liter before I figured out I was going spazzy. Sometimes, Verlaine is a bit of an airhead.
My phone has been irritating me today. It doesn't ring very often during the day here in SF. Today, everyone called me in the same 5 minute period. I'm going out to dinner with a guy who is really bad about promptness. He has called me every 15 minutes for a couple of hours to tell me he's running late. I'm thinking maybe he wouldn't be running so late if he could get his ass off of the phone. He's treating me for dinner so I guess I can put up with it. What's weird is that he hardly ever calls me and today decided to call me up and ask me out without doing his laundry. I only know this because he called and told me he didn't have any clean underwear and so HAD to do laundry. (Nice of him to want clean knickers....) He also called to tell me what train he was planning on taking to the Castro....the wash takes a half hour, the dryer 45 minutes.....wait, it just started to rain, shall we just take a cab. Each of these tidbits was its own phone call. I'm way more organized than most so I need to just shut up, besides,..
I rather absentmindedly drank a LOT of caffeine today.
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| Eggs |
| 01.16.06 (3:26 pm) [edit] |
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I read a book last year called "The Dim Sum of Everything". It was a really good read and shed light on a topic I find confusing. What the hell is the fascination with things and people of Asian heritage?
I thought about asking this question yesterday while having a chat with my manager at work. She's a very professional, extremely well educated woman who is Asian. C was recently hosting an old friend of hers who plays hard into a stereotype that Asian women are giggling, wide eyed idiots. She described how this friend of hers has a way of bugging her eyes all big and blinking ridiculously while giggling when she is trying to attract the attention of a man. Not being attracted to women, I had to stop and think about whether or not I've seen this behavior and I can't believe it passed my awareness. It takes all kinds so I can kind of see that maybe C's friend does this act out of nervousness or is being coy but I can't get past one critical point. Why the hell would a man look at a woman who is acting completely cerebrally embalmed and think, "hey, she's hot!"
Further, then to become obsessed with all Asian women because one thinks stupidity is attractove is just weird. Since C is very rarely laughing unless something is actually funny, she doesn't date very much. In defense of men not hanging onto C she can be intimidating because she's a bit standoff-ish and frighteningly smart. So is the giggle thing about pretending to be stupid so as not to make the man feel insecure?
I know everyone has a type they find ideally attractive, but do people really deny themselves possible romantic situations because of how someone looks or acts. I'm really into men who are taller than I but find myself dating a man a foot shorter and a hundred pounds lighter than me. Oh well!
In "Dim Sum" the author states that there are people who are eggs, white on the outside but yellow inside but that still doesn't explain for me the attraction to ditziness. I can't remember what she called the opposite which are Asians who deny their Asian-ness.
Ok, so I wrote a lot of generalizations based on two people and personality types, I'm aware. I couldn't think of any reason to include more people for examples.
Now I'm thinking about that old song, "I like 'em Big and Stupid"....
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| Home again |
| 01.14.06 (6:11 pm) [edit] |
I tried several times to write something here while I was away. There's only a computer in every room of my parents house but I still couldn't manage to sit still at one long enough to make any sense. I was completely exhausted most of the time I was away. Here's why;
On Friday last I went out with my pal Pedro to celebrate his 40th. We met at a restaurant near my home and I planned on having a drink and a snack. My friend bartends at this restaurant and the price is always right and we can catch up. I think I had three drinks there and somehow I was roped into stopping at another bar on my way up the hill to my apartment. I only had a half a plate of appetizer to eat and was feeling every ounce of the fire water. I'd been sick for a few weeks and haven't really had drinks since Thanksgiving. At 9:50 pm, I walked into my apartment and got my suitcase down and packed. To my drunken credit, I didn't forget anything. I did pack twice as many shirts as I needed, however. I got on my plane at 11:30 and we took off for Chicago. I landed there at 5 am after an all too short 3 hour nap. In my stupor, I walked out of the security checkpoint while looking for a ticketing agent for Southwest so I could acquire my boarding pass. I walked right back through the security checkpoint without bothering to remove my wallet, my shoes, my belt, my 8 oz. of stainless steel earrings, my phone or my keys. Um, OOOPS! While I was being searched, the very handsome wand waver asked if I have any areas of my body that are particularly sensitive to touch. I smirked and made eye contact and we both laughed while I answered, "nothing I can't control". While he waved the wand over me I told him I was basically sleepwalking and mistakenly walked through the checkpoint without emptying my pockets.
I was on the caffeine comet for the next two days. Saturday was dinner with family and Chicaloo and Lynne. I was falling asleep while everyone was talking all around me. I have to say, I found it was oddly comforting snoozing out. I knew I didn't have to be anywhere, I was surrounded by family and friends who were laughing and joking. I slept eight hours that night but needed 10. The next day was shopping with a friend in Ypsilanti and eating yam fries at Sidetrack. Dinner with the family again that night and I stuffed myself to the gills thereby inducing a food coma. We played Bingo after dinner.
The house of Verlaine is a bustling place. My mother and aunts are very quick-witted and conversation is a bit of a verbal wrestling match. Who can say what fast enough and loud enough to make at least two of the other "players" laugh hard enough so as to gain the floor all to themselves for a few seconds. I can't believe how crazy my aunts and mother are. My grandmother was doing this weird cough that made me laugh so hard whenever she did it. She also kept belching very loudly. Since I'm a six year old at heart, body noises make me laugh. I made a couple of emergency trips to the kitchen to chuckle without getting yelled at or kicked for being rude. I snapped out of food coma and went visiting in Ann Arbor that night. I stayed up too late and woke up too early. Monday was my Ann Arbor day which lasted until nearly 4 am. I was up and on the road to Muskegon by 12:15 on Tuesday. I spent the evening with my friend there and we ate greasy yummy coneys with cheese and onions. Still Tuesday, I drove south to Kalamazoo and spent the night with Kandis and my heartburn. We went out to get a drink and stayed up until about dawn. I woke up with a cold and drove home to Detroit stopping only to get tamales for lunch. I spent a lazy day with my parents and Thelma. We had dinner with everyone at home, I think we played Bingo that night too. I won Kleenex which goes very nicely with my cold.
Chicaloo took the afternoon off of work on Thursday and we had lunch and went shopping. I found Earth shoes in my size and bought two pair of them. I LOVE EARTH SHOES! C-Kate and I can just sit around and talk about whatever is in front of us and that made for a wonderful afternoon. I went out that night with my cousin and her girlfriend. We went for a guacamole fix and margaritas. Guac in CA is like a sauce that is mostly poured on food. In Detroit, it's made like a dip with the consistency of chunky sour cream. I can't get enough of it!
I went back for one last night of sitting around the Christmas tree with my parents. It's the simple things for me, family and friends just being ourselves, which made this trip so much fun. There's always a bit of a shock the first couple of days after leaving my hometown. In a city the size of San Francisco, I can be relatively anonymous. In my family circle, I am known. Shopping in Ann Arbor, I run into people I've not seen in two years or more and they give me a discounted price for my shoes or whatever. I recognize people while at the bar and feel compelled by politeness to acknowledge them and strike up some conversation. Frequently, I'm completely at a loss as to what that person's name is and I struggle to think of it before I need to introduce them to someone. Balancing such a hugely social life like that was one of the reasons I wanted to move in the first place. Here, I flirt if I want to, otherwise, I don't really know that many people. I did realize this trip back that I need to plan nine day trips to MI. It is just too tiring to do it in any less time. Two days for travel, 7 with family and friends.
And next time, I'll try to start with good night's sleep. Probably not.
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| Fly |
| 01.06.06 (3:47 pm) [edit] |
Tonight I will try to sleep on an airplane. Weather today was predicted to be rainy and windy. It's bright and sunny with not a cloud in the sky. Yeah, that's close.
At work yesterday a couple of women who are both sharing a room and major PMS came down to the bar for a glass of wine, some nuts and 'the most chocolate you can pile on one plate without committing mortal sin'. Something about them stroked me all the right ways. We told stories about everything and I had one of them spitting wine out of her mouth with laughter. I thought about how lucky they are to be good friends and also co-workers. They have a kind of language which is unique to their friendship.
I ahve a friend like that here in SF and she and I have quite a history. Like many of my closest girlfriends, we once shared a boyfriend. I don't know why that was a continuing trend of my twenty-something years but it was. Since Kristin and I both work in hospitality we celebrated our Christmas together a little late. Last Tuesday, acutally. Kristin bought me a couple of really snazzy shirts and I got her a spa day. I fared better on this exchange because it is highly unlikely that I'll use the shirts in any way that might rip off large patches of hair from my body. So K cooked us sweet potato soup and made homemade mac and cheese. YUM to the 9th power, yo. we watched a couple of movies and told stories while lounging on her bed with the cats. And that's where the problem starts.
Kristing rather recently moved to an apartment with hardwood floors. Her bed in on wheels. Everytime we leaned against the wall, the bed moved away from it. I joked she had better not engage in any strenous activity on that bed or she'll find herself rolling down Potrero Hill and into traffic on Highway101. At some point I was animatedly telling a story, (me? Never!) and I set my arm on a pillow and let my weight go in it. I sank and ended up with my entire upper body disappearing under the double pillow top bed. When my decent had stopped, only my legs were visible and I was laughing so hard I couldn't pull myself up. Now for my favorite part.
My Aunt Connie has a way of laughing where she gets so carried away that not a sound comes from her except for an occasional wheeze and the quiet rolling of tears down her cheeks. Sometimes a minute passes when her face is totally frozen in delight and the only indication that she's laughing is the heaving of her chest. These laughing fits always start with a 'take off' sound that is frighteningly like a jet engine warming up only much, much quieter. The silence is broken by a loud and random noise, whether it be gas, or an huge guffaw. I have inherited this laugh.
Silently I surveyed the underside of Kristin's bed while snorting quietly to myself but I couldn't tell you anything of what I saw there. I could hear Kristin laughing just feet away from me. For me, that is Christmas. Friends and family laughing so hard they can do or think of nothing else. My life is full of these kind of memories and the moments in between them while I patiently wait for more.
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| Dreams |
| 01.03.06 (1:00 pm) [edit] |
I've had some super odd dreams lately. Just before Thanksgiving, I snagged a cold and was blown out sick for about ten days. That went away and was immediately followed by a flu that lasted the better part of a month. As that was winding down, (I thought anyway) I went home from work feeling like hell and found myself to have a temp of 104. And thus started the wacko dreams. The only good thing about the urgent care doctor not treating my fever was that I had weeks of hallucination-like dreams. (eventually, I grew tired of being exhausted and sweating everywhere so I went to another doctor who yelled at me for walking around with a sinus infection. Like I knew? seriously, I had no symptoms except for fever. enter anitbiotics)
One night I was particularly hungry, I think. I dreamt of big juicy cuts of meat being served by my friend, Marc. I thought that was odd because in my dream, the meat would magically separate into bite-sized pieces but I couldn't move my arms to eat them. I looked at Marc with a puzzled expression and he shrugged his shoulder. I blinked and seamlessly I was on an abandoned farm. It was sunny and there was the kind of wind that comes just as a front is passing through and a major thunderstorm is about to happen. I went and sat in the doorway of a barn and looked out over a field of grass that was blowing in soft waves. I could hear and smell everything I looked at. If I looked at a bird, I would hear its song over the rest of the sounds. Same if I looked at the blowing grass, its rustle would come to the center speaker. I woke up as the storm hit and there was in fact a storm here. We even had thunder and lightening. A boyfriend was next to me and when I looked at him, I could see he was awake. He said he'd just had a dream about playing a really discordant symphony and a timpani fell over.
Another night, I was walking on the beach on a cloudy day. I ran into my friend Kristin's sister Chelle. Chelle, in real life is always throwing out unsolicited health care advice. Her biggest gripe with me is my inability to wear sunscreen which she interprets as an unwillingness. Sunscreen burns my skin wherever I shave, especially. Since I shave my head, hmmm, sunscreen isn't much fun for me. Hats, hats, and hats are the way to go. So in the dream, Chelle was carrying a package that I thought at first might be her daughter. Instead it was an inflatable raft and she gave it to me saying that I needed to leave here but I should go under the boat to avoid the ultraviolet light that would burn me even through the clouds. I blew up the raft with super-human lung power (love dreams for that!) and with it walked out into the ocean. The water felt cold and smelled strongly of seaweed. I turned the raft upside down and found a sort of harness in which I could suspend myself. I was not able to see anything except what was below me in the water. The boat began to move against the waves and I relaxed and watched fish, sharks, plant life and bubbles all pass below me. After what seemed like a long time, I questioned to myself where I was going. Almost instantly, I was on land a few blocks from my apartment. The hill I live on was surrounded by water. It was raining, I felt cold and there was a window floating in front of me. I woke up already sitting up in bed and my eyes were open. I was looking at the open window in my apartment. I closed it and jotted down this dream before falling back asleep.
Now I'm not feverish anymore and my dreams are very plain again and I suppose that's ok by me.
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| Forever is a long time |
| 01.02.06 (8:30 pm) [edit] |
i've been away from here for quite a while. Sorry all, but I grew bored of the whole blog thing for a bit. Now that the weather is crappier I'm a bit more motivated to hang out indoors reading all this.
Just a quick note, I'm goin' a visitin' this week to Detroit. It's time to have some belated holiday cheer. Unlike most people, I look forward to a fun holiday party without any alcohol or drunk people. My family is not much for the sauce, I can take it or leave it, but I can always leave drunk talk alone. I had some odd idea that working in a five star this NYE would be kinda fun. It's just the same stuff but the guests are wearing more expensive clothing.
A lovely lady, (read, some bimbo) was strutting around wearing a very short and small dress. Wardrobe malfunction is a ridiculous statement in this instance because her 'wardrobe' had not a chance of functioning properly. Whether Bimbo-rella was huffing oxygen at the oxygen bar, ordering champagne, or trying to pick up any single-ish looking guy in the hotel, at least one of her breasts was hanging out and a good portion of her ass. At a certain point in the evening, we noticed that she was having a bit of a snag in disguising her feminine hygiene product. It was as though she was a walking dental floss dispenser.
A man from Hawaii was talking about all the drugs he did before he got married and how happy he is that that part of his life is over. He offered me a bottle of champagne to share with him when I was done with work adding that, after all, his wife was already sleeping. I told him I was going to an AA meeting after work and he disappeared to his room. Maybe he jumped out a window.
A couple of young guys were play wrestling on the concrete in front of the main entrance to the hotel when one of them decided to lift and then slam the other into the ground. An ambulance came and took away both 'victims' not before a very large pool of blood had covered the sidewalk and was tracked into the hotel.
A large family of rather rustic looking folks came to the bar at about 7 and started drinking margaritas. One of the women from the group came up to the bar to tell me she was tired of drinking margs but didn't know what to drink. She ordered a Long Island Iced Tea and a Blow Job shot (really tasty, but vulgarly named, with Bailey's, Amaretto, and Kahlua and not a good mix with citrusy drinks) Her family stayed until 11:30 and then went to the fireworks nearby. They returned and snuggled into one of our corner tables just in time for Sister Margarita to barf her Blow Job all over Long Island. I hated them all instantly. I wanted them to asphyxiate on the daughter's barf when they insulted me because I wouldn't serve anyone from that party any more.
Anyway, when I get back from MI, I need to find a new larger apartment. I hate the trials of moving. I love the hills in this city but why the fuck did I buy an entertainment center with wheels!?? I almost lost that thing down Nob Hill when I moved into this apartment. OY!
Happy New Year!
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| Observations |
| 09.23.05 (11:09 am) [edit] |
I was riding BART the other day on my way to Berkeley. I was surrounded by blind people with their dogs lying at their feet. These men and women were discussing what movies they'd just 'seen'.
I met the founder of the AIDS quilt a couple of days ago. Very nice man. Very humble.
Women wearing short skirts on windy days stress me out nearly as much as a plumber about to bend over. Nearly.
People will cheer the landing of a distressed airplane more loudly than the winning touchdown of their football game. Especially when these people are going to catch a flight after dinner.
The spin cycle has ended. Clean undies for me!
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| Mr. Nelson |
| 09.13.05 (5:10 pm) [edit] |
There are times when we all commit an act of hatred on our fellow humans. It just can't be helped, we are weak creatures. Just the other day I threatened the health and well being of my fellow Californians by knowingly consuming products known to create chemicals that are known to this state to be hazardous to a human's health. I drank soy milk, a substance that when injested by me allows me to double as paint remover. Adding volume to my noxious fume production was the generous amount of hummus I ate. And it would only be fair to mention the tofu I put on my salad.
Generally, I can get away with producing only a limited amout of the most stinky gas by not drinking soy milk. Its the one food I can't digest gracefully. But oh no! I had to have that soy shake because I was starving. Why the hell didn't I just eat a damn Pringle? Or some 17 year old beef jerky being vended in the same store a mere feet away from the stink maker would have given me heartburn and garlic breath but saved millions of brain cells from being melted by the soy milk seepers. To top it off, I had to go to work and hang out behind the bar all by myself. You know every time I let some slip a sassy looking lady dressed in thousands dollars worth of very delicate fabric would appear only to have her frock melted onto her flesh by my woeful wind. So I quickly developed a plan to avoid manslaughter charges. I would leave the bar and stank up the library adjacent to the lobby.
My plan was almost working but the toots were trailing me with an annoying persistence. Desperate for fresh air, I stopped by the concierge desk to flirt with Billy. Never before have I ever met anyone who can switch from professional and helpful to crude and vulgar so quickly. A conversation with him is like doing the Tango with Jeckyll and Hyde. "Good morning, Mr. Oliver! How was dinner at the Fleur de Lys yesterday?" turns into a story related under his breath about the porn he watched the night before featuring a man and a horse and a can of Crisco. (OK, I'm exagerrating, but you get the idea) Just as I'm about to take my leave from him so I could go recreate "Farenheit 451" in the library, our co-worker walked out of the business center located behind the concierge desk. "I just left Mr. Nelson in there. He's in a foul mood and asked to not be disturbed", says Lori as she takes her perch next to Billy. My puzzled facial expression turned into uncontrollable laughter as Billy explained, "Mr. Nelson is our code word for passing gas in the business center and shutting the door on it." I laughed and told the two of them about how I'd been sneaking into the library all day.
A half hour later, Billy comes to the bar with one of the guests of the hotel and introduces me to him and asks if I'd take care of his lunch needs. I said, "It would be my pleasure", becuase I'm supposed to talk like that to our guests and suggested he'd could make himself comfortable anywhere in the room or the library and I would follow with a menu. Billy interjected, "The tables in the library were just refinished this morning. The vapors are still a bit strong in there, I'm told. How about this lovely table by the window, sir?" Not able to control myself, I started to giggle quietly and hurried into the back bar area where Billy followed me. "It's always nice to protect Mr. Nelson's sanctuary, isn't it?"
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| the Purse Chucker |
| 09.08.05 (8:06 pm) [edit] |
Several years ago while employed at Arbor Brew I got my hands on three really great seats for Samson and Delilah at Detroit Opera House. Lynne, Mrs. Verlaine, (my mother) and I went downtown on a hot, humid night and watched this very steamy show with jaws agape. We were close enough to the stage to see the toenails of the dancers and the Bacchanale left us all breathless. Opera is such a sensory overload for me. The visual aspect of costumes and movement, the music, the lighting, the tension in the room. I can never get enough of it. Oddly, I don't go very often because I work weekends. Dang.
The last time I saw a show was in Detroit just before I moved to SF. The Magic Flute was showing and I snagged matinee seats for Mom, Kate, Kandis and Carrie. Little did I know that the seats that were in our budget were at the top of the theatre. Opera houses are incredibly steep so that everyone can see the stage and the voices can carry to the furthest reaches of the house. I was also unaware, until that day, that my mother and Kandis have very nearly the same phobias.
"Oh Dear Jesus Lord! I forgot my Xanax!" exclaimed Kan as we got off of an exit ramp in Detoilet only to have to slam on the brakes to avoid ramming a police car that stopped in the middle of a blind curve. (ya gotta be dumb to be a DeeTroyt copper, but do ya have to be an idiot?) We made it without too much incident to the show and took the elevator to our seats on the fourth floor.
The major difference between my mother and Kan when faced with their phobia, in this case heights and the feeling of falling, is that my mother suffers silently. Kandis does nothing silently. "Oh shitballs, I can't believe I'm so high up I have to sit before I fall over the railing and impale myself on some old lady's fucking hair ornament!" compared to, "whoo! we sure are at the top, huh?". Guess who said what. I'm unable to report more about that which came from Kandis' mouth because we weren't able to be seated together. We had seats all arranged in a row just inches from heaven but upon coming up the short stairway and being presented with the altitude of her new home for the next few hours, Kandis put her ass in the first seat she could find and refused to be moved. Luckily no one had purchased the seat in which Kan was squatting and she and Carrie plopped there for the duration of the show. The rest of us climbed up the few remaining rows and found our seats directly over the staiway. My poor mother didn't find this perch very pleasant and when intermission came and I suggested we get up she said, "I'm not going anywhere. I just got used to being here!" Kate and I walked down to visit with Kandis, who was also unable and unwilling to get up from her seat and there it was reported to us, "Jesus fuck, I have to piss so bad there's about to be a waterfall to the main floor but, if I get up, I ain't coming back!" Kate and I peed for all of us.
When the show was over we clapped until we were sweaty with sore palms and waited for the majority of people to move from their seats. When the coast was clear, Kate followed by me, followed by my mother made our way down the stairs to the walkway that would lead us to solid ground. When I was nearing the brightly lit foyer, I heard the unmistakeable sound of my mother's voice, (Kandis was nowhere to be found or heard), "Oh MY GOODNESS! I'm so TERRIBLY sorry! APPARENTLY I had the UNCONTROLABLE URGE to throw my PURSE!!!" It seems that in a moment of vertigo, dear mumsie had a bit of a spasm and threw her purse several seats away from where she was walking, striking a man in the chest. He offered her purse back to her and asked if she was ok. Dear mom has her style. Leave it to her to chuck her purse at a perfect gentleman. "Did you see what happened? Apparently, I had to throw my purse! What if it would have opened and it emptied onto the floor?" I assured my mother that, in that unfortunate instance, the kind man would have picked up all of the contents of the purse and probably asked for her phone number. We found Kandis on the ground floor with Carrie and made our way to the car and then off to a restaurant downtown where we were seated, of all places, on the balcony.
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| Without focus |
| 09.07.05 (1:34 pm) [edit] |
I can attest to the deliciousness of the Sharffen Berger chocolate that Lynne mentions in her blog. Yes, we did look stupid with hair nets on our heads but when all you can smell and see is chocolate, who the hell cares? It was fun making fancy-pants drinks for Lynne and company. I made Lynne a drink with star anise, fresh lime, mint, essense of elderflower and vodka. She had a really bright blue vodka spiked lemonade. It was a slow Sunday so I had lots of time to chat. Fun!
That goofy cellist I talked about forever ago is now employed by the Jacksonville Symphony. I guess he won't be asking me to check and see if he left his door open anymore... I'm a bit sad to see him go but so relieved he finally has a job other than freelance teaching. He's flying me to Florida for my birthday and I'll get to see him in concert. Fun!
My roommate and I joined the gym around the corner from us. It's a nice facility and there's never a wait for my favorite machine. It's an eliptical with a huge fan right behind it. I sweat like a mamachoo when I'm on that thing and I need all the evaporational help I can gets. I'm not the type who would take a bus to the gym so it being around the corner is very helpful.
A friend is completing an extended course in reflexology, vibrational massage and some odd cranial techniques. Say hello to guinea pig. He worked on me for over an hour yesterday causing hallucinations for me. How is it that some tissue in your foot can be manipulated and you hear and see things that aren't there? Genius! Had I known about this I never would have had to deal with those messy drug dealers when I was young and stupid.
Dinner time! Who's cooking
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| Invisible post |
| 08.26.05 (1:11 pm) [edit] |
I had a lovely tale for you to read today but when I posted it, it disappeared.
Wah! Now I'm out of time
What's a Verlaine to do?
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| Books |
| 08.23.05 (5:18 pm) [edit] |
I read the way most people watch television or movies or even breathe air, for that matter. About two months ago I broke my glasses with the most up to date prescription and have been just a little blind. I decided to cash in my newly found optical benefits and go fetch myself a new pair of glasses or two after tearing through "Memoirs of a Geisha" (wow!) and "Saul and Patsy" (jury is still out on that one). I also read my issue of The Sun. Coupled with not very much sleep in the last couple of days, I'm ready to take my eyes out of my head and put them on ice.
I have bad eyes and shouldn't be so unkind to them. My right eye is lazy and crosses when it's tired resulting in me looking like someone has just bopped me on the back of my head with a Cadillac. Just having the eye exam was very tiring. When we finally got to the point of the exam when I was looking through that big thing and the lenses were being adjusted, (clearer or smaller? is one better or two? two or four?) I was so relieved to find that my old prescription is out of whack in the astigmatism department and I need to have a stronger bifocal when the room snapped into focus for the first time in months! Isn't it weird how you don't notice how wrong something is until you get it right? I can't wait for my new lenses. I chose some rimless frames with clear plastic hardware. Since I can't wear contacts, these little invisible glasses are the closest thing I'll get to having nothing on my face.
A little unsettling was finding out that I have pigmentation on my right cornea. This, I was told, can be the result of trauma to the eye from injury or surgery, for example. I've had eye surgery to correct my sight before so I'm not too worried that the other cause of corneal pigmentation is glaucoma. However, no optometrist or opthalmologist has every mentioned this to me before. All the same, I have to have a glaucoma check 4 times this year because my eye pressure was a little high. The aging body does beat the alternative, however, I hate to think about my eyes getting worse than they already are. I've worn bifocal lenses since I was a toddler and don't really have much depth perception. I better learn to play the piano so I can make a living in case I go blind.
Also unsettling was that someone or something put a rock through my window yesterday. It happened while I was out of the house so I'll never know. I just covered the hole with clear contact paper for now. When I told Kristin about my window she heard me say "bra" instead of "rock" (cell service sucks in the Mission, where she lives) and started cracking up that a female undergarment had managed to come in my window. I'm sure! I corrected her and we both agreed it was a fluke accident, most likely, and it's good I wasn't robbed. City living is like this.
Kristin and I went to Trattoria Contadina for dinner last night. North Beach is not my favorite neighborhood to go out in on the weekend because you have to have a reservation to eat a Big Mac but on a Monday night, we were seated immediately. We split roasted stuffed peppers with ricotta, parmesan and asiago cheese in a roasted red pepper and spicy tomato cream sauce. I ordered ravioli stuffed with veal ricotta and porcini in a porcini cream sauce. Kristin had gnocchi in spicy tomato sauce with ricotta and shaved asiago. Of course, we had tiramisu. Damn Good! all of it.
I missed several of the eight hours of sleep I prefer to have last night because my phone kept ringing all morning. You'd think I'd turn the damn thing off! Today was a lazy day, spent walking of the beach and browsing a few books that will become my next focus. For now, I think a trip to the video store is right up my alley
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| Friday |
| 08.19.05 (11:21 am) [edit] |
Me again. Two days in a row seems like old times, huh?
I decided against the new job becuase it is too significant of a pay cut for me to manage right now. In another six months maybe I'll gamble on it. I was offered the position without even formally applying just by mentioning some interest. Very flattering.
Yesterday was my day to be incredibly clumsy. I broke four glasses, dropped bowls of nuts, and banged my head on the cooler door. *twinkly stars everywhere!* Why does that happen sometimes? Our friend Chicaloo has periods of time when she throws herself at the ground with alarming frequency and then other times when she's rather aptly ambulant. I have witnessed Lynne walking easily on train tracks going TO the bar only to fall on a prefectly smooth sidewalk. I can usually work for weeks without breaking anything and then 'ole spastiic' fires up and perfectly good crystal is thrown on the marble floor. It's not that I get in trouble for breaking things, it's just embarrassing. Nevermind that no one wants you to serve them drinks after you've just shattered half of the glassware before their very eyes.
The good of all that is I reacted well to my clumsiness and one of the guests decided I'm adorable and is taking me to dinner next week. He asked in a funny way, too. After drinking and eating for several hours the surprisingly sober man left with his friend and left me with $75. (Cha-Cha-Cha-Ching) Half an hour later he called and told me he'd forgotten his credit card. (he hadn't) We flirted and laughed on the phone until he finally admitted he couldn't think of any other excuse to call. (not to bad for the old ego considering I have to dress like an old couch at work) I hope he doesn't expect me to break any glassware wherever we go.
Lynne just called and she is here in San Francisco and we're going to go have lunch. I'm so excited I could shatter
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| Oh crap |
| 08.17.05 (10:57 am) [edit] |
Oops! I meant to exit my browser yesterday and not post a headline saying "oh crap" Oh crap, I goofed. As electronically challenged as I am, it's a good thing I don't have to operate a hair dryer because I'd certainly be electrocuted. Anyway, with the "oh crap" header, I was planning on typing out a story about a friend who came to visit me, watched "Drop Dead Gorgeous" and spent the rest of her vacation saying things like, "oh crap, I can't see the road anymore" or, "aw crap! that homeless guy smells like CRAP!" all with a heavy Minnesota accent. I changed my mind because the cafe I was in had a weird motor running in it and it sounded like someone was banging out morse code messages from the land of the dead. I went to Lafayette park instead.
At the park I was mauled by a ferociously licking English Bull Dog. I was laying in the grass next to a friend who was checking email and I glanced up just in time to see a stocky jowly dog charging at us. He pounced on the computer, stomped all over my book and licked my glasses right off of my face all the while snorting. It was wonderful. The owner of this dog was ignoring its antics and just walked away. Weird, right?
So that's all the crap, 'n crap except that I'm applying for a managerial position in the gigantic hotel in which I work and the thought of being responsible for all the crap there makes me want to crap. But sometimes you just gotta say, "Oh Crap!!!" and take a.....shot.
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| How much is that potting soil? |
| 08.02.05 (2:45 pm) [edit] |
K-mart at the now extinct Wonderland mall in Livonia, MI is big sloppy puddle of memories for me.
The first time I was ever lost without my mommy happened there when I became mesmerized by the goldfish in the tanks in the way back of the store. As a child I didn't deal with stress very well and I coped with what was to me a natural reaction. I cried hysterically while running around the aisles between the home and garden section and the soon to be belly-up fish department. I understand now that if I had stayed still while crying hysterically, someone would have found me and helped me. Or I would have been whisked away by a big chunk of white trash in an El Camino never to be heard from again. Hey, it could happen.
The first time I was completely shocked was in that same store when my mother gave me some money and told me to go buy two small frozen Coke's, one for each of us. The secret is out, my mother never fed me. (just kidding) In the mid-seventies times were tough and my very sensible mother had raised my brother and I to eat food, not sugar.
We understood that asking for one of the candybars sold at the cash register of every grocery was futile, the answer would be no. So when my little five year old self was handed a couple of bucks to go get a treat I was both dumbfounded and delighted. It was probably one of those ridiculous "Africa-hot" summer days and the thought of walking out of the air-conditioned store to trudge across the miles long, scorching hot black top parking lot to further our torture by climbing into the oven that was our green "chiggida-baggada" Nova. Those frozen Cokes probably saved our lives.
K-mart cashiers wore awful blue smocks and had hair to match. The median age of 75 at the local store was my perception but it was the seventies and the styles then made everyone look so old. Big, hard hair, polyester enought to provide shelter from a speeding bullet and the bad lighting at K-mart flattered no one. The gnarled old lady fingers would whap away at the old fashioned cash registers. "tick-tick-tick, KACHUNKA" repeatedly until all of our goods had been tallied and the subtotal and total keys were hit, causing an earthquake of noise to errupt from the register and a tiny little piece of receipt paper to jut out of the top of the machine. My mother would write a check and hand it and her drivers license to the cashier who would then write all over the check with a pen she took from a necklace that matched the chain hanging from the sides of her enormous glasses.
As I got older, the old lady cashiers were replaced by boisterous black women who carried on conversations with one another as though the customers didn't exist. tick-tick-tick, KACHUNK, "Hey Marvette! did you see LaVonne's man come pick her up yesterday?!" tick-tick-tick,KACHUNK, "Nuh-uh, I hads to go pick up my chile from he gramma house", tick-tick-tick ad infinitum. I don't know who I loved more, the blue hairs or the black skins. I was amazed by anyone carrying on a conversation so loudly in a public place without concern for anyone overhearing and so learned to do the same thing my self. (this is now a device I use to rid myself of annoying people or unwanted advances.) I became obsessed with eavesdropping on the conversations around us as we had our goods tallied and bagged for transport home.
K-mart, with its antiquated manual checkout system was not with out its flaws. Sometimes a price sticker would fall off and the cashier would have to get a price check. A price check always meant most of the afternoon would be spent standing in line as various humans in blue smocks looked at the stickerless item, consult a clip-board with random papers hanging on it, finally shrugging their shoulders and calling another blue smock on the store's speaker system "Marphaday siso prishcex oLINE ONE PLEASE siso prishcexlineone" In order to prevent this torture my job was to find whatever item it was we were to buy and make sure it had a price tag on it. And it was exactly this that I couldn't do one day when we tried to buy a bag of potting soil. The soil was on sale that week and the slippery plastic bags cocooning it were impossible to stick price tags on. While ringing up our items the cashier came across the "priceless" soil and screamed to another cashier several lines away, "LaNeisha, how much da pahtnsole?" To this query came the answer, "HUNH?" And again, "how much da PAHtnsole?" followed by (i know the suspense is killing you) a still louder "HUNH!!?" "How much is da PahtinSOLE, the DIRT! HOW MUCH IS THE DIRT!" " oh that, it's a dollah twennynine"
And so it was and my mother's African Violets thrived in that dirt.
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| Mayonnaise |
| 08.01.05 (1:09 pm) [edit] |
Okay, so I kinda fell into a black hole there. Actually, I quit hauling my computer around with me everywhere in an attempt to be more social. It worked and I'm feeling a bit more balanced. Too much time blogging and reading everyone's blogs left me feeling a bit isolated. Wierd, huh?
Without further ado, I have a recipe for a very disgusting drink.
While working at Arbor Brewing Co. I was frequently asked to make "the most disgusting shot I can" for some kid's 21st birthday. Cement Mixers, (Bailey's and lime juice) Bloody Brains or Alien Embryos, (same as Cement, but with grenadine to make it look bloody) Prairie Fires, (tequila and hot sauce) are some of the stuff I would throw out of the bottles at my disposal. Not being overly fond of serving the drink that makes the new drinker yak like a bukemic after a trip to the all you can eat buffet, I generally made tame drinks and called them something gross.
One day near the end of my 8 1/2 years at Arbor, I had the great idea to make the most disgusting drink anyone has ever heard of the next time I was asked to gross out the barely legal. And so was born "the smoker's cough" Simply pour some Jaegermeister into a small rocks glass and add a half teaspoon of mayonnaise and serve.
In other news, I saw my neighbor's cat jump out the second floor window to pounce on something on the ground. Both the pouncer and the pouncee, what I later saw was a pigeon, didn't fare so well. The cat survived with broken leg.
A man eating a sandwich accidentally spit a HUGE chunk of it at me while he was ordering another White Russian and when I responded that I wasn't hungry he laugh more of his food out of his mouth. My co-worker was stunned into silence for the rest of the evening.
What I presumed was a transexual prostitute turned her head and blew it's nose a la a jogger, that is to say, without a tissue. This was seen while I was walking to meet a friend for a game of pool. Completely ruined my game, it did.
Enough gross out stuff...I'm traveling to MI this weekend to see my family, Chicaloo, and Lynne too! I'm terrifed of the humidity making my hair all frizzy so I'm going to leave my hair at home. I went shopping to buy some summer clothes so I wouldn't die of heat only to buy some nice SF duds. I guess I'll have to shop while I'm in MI. Darn! (I love shopping, in case you couldn't guess.)
My cousin's brother-in-law, whom I've never met, has just moved to SF. I'm going off to meet him and his parents for dinner tonight. I'm leaving early so I have some time to read, "Memoirs of a Geisha" by the ocean. Oh! what torture.....
I finished another "carburetor" story and will stick part of that on here in the next day or two. I promise not to be away so long again.
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| Flashback |
| 06.22.05 (3:21 pm) [edit] |
I've been reflecting on much of what has taken place in the last year. A few big anniversaries passed in the last couple of weeks. Some of them are: the day I quit my job in Ann Arbor, MI. The day I started to drive a U-haul across country with my father. The day we both lied to my mother on the telephone and told her we were still in Utah when we had already made it halfway through Nevada in just over two day's time. The day I arrived in San Francisco and said, "now what?"
I had padded my nest thoroughly with the expectation that I would have the summer off to be a bike-dork and learn my new home. It was fun for a few weeks and then I got a little antsy. I was dropping resumes in person and online like it was my job and wasn't really getting anywhere. I spent a lot of time on craigslist and in addition to looking for jobs, I searched around in the platonic section and met a couple of really cool people with whom I remain friends.
I also met a man who had for a pet a dead cat.
An east coast native, I honestly can't remember his name now, so we'll say....George, had a ridiculous accent. That sort of Boston "open wide and say AAAH! at every possible opportunity" kind of accents. He live(d) on Buena Vista Park which he called, "Boner Vister Pahk". We talked on the phone a lot and decided it would be fun to meet in the Haight for dinner one night. We didn't.
The day I was to meet him, he called and informed me that he'd just had his halo removed as part of a rehabilitation process from recent neck surgery. He went on to say that he didn't feel comfortable being jostled around in the streets and would I mind if we ordered in and watched a movie at his place. I understood he was incredibly bored from being shut in for a few weeks and went along with the change in plans.
Upon arriving at his apartment on my bicycle, I was a bit nervous at how posh his place seemed. He had me in, we had some "soder" and I kind of gawked a bit too much at the beautiful view from his livingroom. San Francisco "visters" take a bit of time to get used to, and even though I'd traveled here several times, I wasn't prepared to see from the skyscrapers of downtown to the Golden Gate Bridge by looking out one window. While I was staring he was talking which, admittedly, was starting to grate on my nerves and I'd kind tuned him out a bit. Then he talked about his landlady and how she doesn't mind much except for her tenants having animals in her properties. "But she doesn't seem to mind this little baby", he said. I shifted my gaze from the view to the couch in front of the window and saw what appeard to be a hairy pillow with glass eyes and then my mouth started talking as suddenly as a lightswitch is flicked.
"Oh!" I said, "isn't she... it's a she right?... just lovely! How long have you had her....like this...I mean...was she your cat....er...was there an accident?" With the exception of the time I challenged Chicalookate to 'pretend to have a domestic dispute' with me at a gas station in Michigan City, Indiana prompting her to bolt from the car screaming, "You bastard! I'm going back to my Momma's and I'm taking the babies!!!", I'm rarely left speechless or flustered. A dead cat as a throw pillow is just not something one is ever expecting to be introduced to. Out of a sense that it would be impolite not to, I touched the feline furniture and said she was beautiful adding, "should we start the movie now?"
We watched "The Butterfly Effect" and I thought was alright. During most of the movie, I was trying to think of what I would say to get the hell out of there as soon as it was over. I think I said that I'd done a lot of cycling that day and had to go and sleep. I've not spoken to him since.
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| Relieved |
| 06.14.05 (4:22 pm) [edit] |
There has been a family in the hotel for the last couple of weeks. Mom, Dad and toddler daughter named Toasty.
I had never heard this poor kid called anything but and had to come to terms with the probability that this woman, who is a little odd, named her child and adjective. Sometimes she refers to her child as a noun by calling her "toast".
Yesterday I found out toasty was a nickname. Of course I'm making a big deal out of it because I can, but I'm so disturbed by that moniker. I was so relieved to know that the child has another name, even if I don't know what it is. The concierge was able to confirm that another name exists for this toddler, but couldn't remember it.
I've been called 'Suds' because of a weird dream one of my co-workers had. (in the dream we ran a laundromat/bar together and she was called Flo. Flo-n-Suds). 'Mother' because I used to speak of my self in third person as in, "Mother doesn't think you should be swinging from the chandelier". 'Verlaine' because of someone named Verlaine who's a little bratty and the name cracks me up to this day (surprise?) 'Beav' short for Beaver because I once asked Monkey, (not his real name) "How's your beaver?" for who knows what reason and the other Beav overheard me and laughed so hard she had to sit down. 'Mr. Whatclock' because I get mail with my named spelled wrong often.
So those nicknames make sense to me in a way because they started somewhere. Where could Toasty have possibly started?
What's the weirdest nickname you've ever heard or had?
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| Dog Days |
| 06.10.05 (9:45 pm) [edit] |
Currently, I'm babytsitting a house in which lives a very large and dumb dog. Grover is a Yellow Lab and he is one of thte slowest moving, most easily confused pups I've ever met. Yeah, yeah, Labs are easy to train, but that's because they're incredibly loyal to the pack. This guy has smoke coming out of his ears if you give him more than one command per hour. He reminds me of Lou.
Lou was a mutt who came to me one night at about 11 pm. My friend called me and told me that while she was at the park walking her dogs she saw an SUV drive by and a dog was thrown from its window. She said that since she already had two kids two dogs and an epileptic unemployed husband, she would be relieved if I took the pooch off her hands, at least to find a permanent home for him. The next day I took him to my vet.
He was pronounced healthy and I named him Lou because I already had a Thelma and I was very much the "Louise" of the group. He wieghed eleven pounds and had a birthmark on his head from being smashed against the uterine wall of his mother. It looked like he had had botched highlights that came up orange, otherwise, he was black. His hair was silky fine and wavy. This hair/fur, in reality it was really fur, because he shed like no other, was about 5 inches long and very thick. Lou was a chow mostly and mixed with who knows what.
I love Chow-Chow dogs because of how independant they are. They are loyal but tend to smoke the hair out of their ears when they think about simple commands such as, "come". "Sit" was never a problem for Lou, in fact, I used it as a base for the rest of his training. When Lou was confused he would sit. I would command, "sit", he would and then I'd reward him. In the same tone of voice I would command, "potty" while he was peeing and he'd look at me like I was being disolved by a laser and I'd give him a treat. After a few weeks that command stuck. I potty trained him in one afternoon when I busted him shitting behind my couch when I happened to have a plastic bag in my hand. I was taking him out every twenty minutes when I was home and he wasn't in the crate. At minute 19 he was pooping behind my couch and I caught all 12 pounds of him in my left hand all the shit in my right hand and screamed, "NO POTTY INSIDE! POTTY OUTSIDE! POTTY OUTSIDE!", and throwing him on the ground outiside next to where I had thrown his shit, I said, "good boy, potty outside, potty outside." For Lou, potty meant shitting and "do it" meant peeing. I've trained all of my dogs to go potty on command this way. He never pooped in the house again.
Then he grew to be a 65 pound dog with a very slow metabolism. I engaged him in many conversations about how unfair it is to be big and not be able to eat anything for fear of gaining weight. He would look at me and tilt his head, waiting for a word he understood. His IQ didn't gain with his weight.
Thelma weighing a whopping 38 pounds ate two cups of food each day and made the biggest poops I've ever seen come out of a short legged creature. (Thelma is half Basset Hound-half Labrador) Lou was mostly Chow, but ate a cup and a half of food each day and was overweight at 65 pounds. I couldn't feed him less because I was worried he would lack nutrition so I exercised him. His square, compact, and solid frame let him go for walks for hours with me. Thelma would run and sniff, pause, sniff some more, and then run away. Lou would keep pace with me for a one and a half hour hike five days a week. He stayed stocky even as I lost weight. Thelma ate more trash to subsidise her starving body. She liked to vomit on my couch.
Thelma now lives with my parents and doesn't vomit very often. They have a fenced yard. Lou lives with the doggy angels because he was a dumb beast. This is the sad part of the tale, but I have to warn you; some might think it's funny. I have learned to love the humor of this sadness because I can't do anything else. Like the show M*A*S*H* made light of war, Lou's life made light of his death. I enjoyed some great times in the 2 1/2 years of dumb Chow.
Lou had incredibly long fur and an undercoat that needed to be raked out bi-monthly with a grooming rake. The force needed to pull out the dead hair was enough to break the rake after one year's use. Three days before the rake broke, I had guests for dinner and made one of my signature dishes and had Tostitos with a Hint of Lime available for dipping in the mushrooms sauteed in wine and broiled with Chihuahua cheese. This particular type of chips has MSG in it and I didn't eat any of the leftover chips. I carefully stored the chips on my fridge because I knew that Lou would eat the garbage when I left. When, on grooming day, I had put the chips in the trash, I was intending to take the bag of trash out when I took Lou out for his 'post groom spin' in the parking lot behind my apartment. Because the rake broke in the middle of the grooming session, I forgot about the chip bag and left for a 20 minute errand to get another rake. When I came home, Lou was dead.
He had snaked the bag out of the trash can, fended off Thelma, (Lou was a big food guarder) and got his static-y head stuffed into a bag of chips and was munching away like mad when he suffocated. I found him with the bag up past his neck and his body splayed like he had collapsed. He died in a good state of mind.
I have never understood death in such severity before. Most of my losses have been the result of HIV related death or Parkinson's or cancers that allow a bit of "pre-grieving" to take place. Lou was my favorite idiot and he was dead as soon as I learned to love him unconditionally. My body went completely out of my control and my arms and head thrashed in a way I could never duplicate without such loss. I had to run to my neighbor's to ask for help because I didn't know what to do with a dead body in my house. This neighbor is one of my oldest friends and he grew up on a farm. He calmed me down and we got a blanket out and lifted Lou to my car and I called the vet and told them I needed to bring her in. Thankfully, my friend can drive a stick and drove me there so I could say my last good-bye.
Dead dogs pee and poop for an hour after they die and Lou made a mess of my hatchback. "Bad dog, potty outside! potty outside!" didn't seem so relevant anymore. I'd give anything to clean up after that beast again....except for the hair. Thelma now lives in the Detroit area with my parents and is having a wonderful time in her retirement.
I never understood what my mother was saying when she talked about how awful it would be to outlive your children. Now I know. As Thelma lives with my parents and they are so attached to her, I don't wan't to imagine what it would be like for them to have to deal with losing her. I want to go back and prevent them from falling in love with her even as I know this is impossible. I have already done my pre-grieve with Thelma. It's likely she'll live for another five years, but I won't be there in the end as I was with Lou. Chances are it won't be a freak accident that causes Thelma's death, either.
As selfish as it seems, I hope I outlive both of my parents. I never want to see either of them grieve over me.
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| Been Absent |
| 06.05.05 (1:07 pm) [edit] |
Erkay,
so everything got all weird in the last couple of weeks. One of the co-workers nearly chopped his thumb off with a broken glass so I've been covering his shifts as I can.
On my day off last week I took off out of the city in a convertible and turned the most unusual shade of Crayola due to high winds, strong sun and lots of sand blasting at my skin. I had one of the greatest days in months, however. Shannon and I walked in the Redwoods near Guerneville and caught up. It was like Africa hot up there and the woods were nice and cool. I watched the sunset with Zac at Goat Rock and nearly froze to death. One of my favorite things about the evening here is that it almost always gets cool as the sun goes down.
I'm getting killed by working turn-around shifts where I close the bar and the come right back in and open it the next morning. Three a week. The good part is that I have lots of half days off, this way.
I'm babysitting a dog named Grover at my friend's house in the East Bay. The house is huge (so is the dog) and I can see a Trader Joe's from the kitchen window. I'm in heaven! I get a car for the next 10 days, too. The only down side is not being able to walk to work. I'm really spoiled by my twenty minute walk to work.
Grover needs to go for a little walk and it's time for me to go to work again. (I think)
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| 25 Don'ts for restaurant/bar goers |
| 05.30.05 (3:07 pm) [edit] |
1. Don't walk up to a bartender, announce how drunk you are and then order a double shot of anything.
2. Don't let your toddler run loose and eat off of other people's plates.
3. Don't try to order alcohol when you have the hiccups and slurred speach
4. Don't ask the server if they love serving you.
5. Don't tell the server you love them, unless you well acquainted with them.
6. Don't be the loudest voice in the room.
7. Don't talk about your medical history with the person sitting next to you.
8. Don't assume that the server is powerless to refuse you anything.
9. Don't buy a round for the entire bar and then leave a bad tip.
10.Don't whistle to get anyone's attention.
11.Don't let your child throw food.
12.Don't put your chewed gum on the table.
13.Don't leave without paying your tab.
14.Don't beg for another drink after last call has been given. (especially if you failed to tip above 2% for your last bill )
15.Don't neglect your child by allowing them to wander behind the bar and then suggest that the bartender is a great babysitter. He's only being polite and trying to work. Bars are not day care centers.
16.Don't get angry about everything because you didn't feed yourself all day long and are cranky. This is not your servers' fault.
17.Don't order food and then say that you didn't, proceed to eat it and then demand that it be removed from the tab.
18.Don't flash your breast at an obviously gay man in hopes of getting served after the bar is closed.
19.Don't beg for anything.
20.Don't say, "What's good today?" to someone you've never met and then make the "grossed out face" at every suggestion given and then order a $75 scotch with a splash of ginger.
21.Don't ignore your server when they are at your table and then walk up to the bar and say you've been neglected.
22.Don't stuff food in your mouth and then start a conversation with the bartender and talk with your mouth full.
23.Don't assume that the bartender is stupid.
24.Don't have a fight with your spouse/boyfriend/girlfrie nd at the bar, or in a restaurant. It embarrasses everyone around you.
25.Don't set things on fire on your table.
All of the above happened in the last three days I worked. I know most people don't behave so badly, but I had to vent before I go in for another day of it.
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| And then I got sick |
| 05.28.05 (1:25 pm) [edit] |
Perhaps it was because I was sleeping 5 hours a night and running myself ragged with work or play for the last week and a half, but my "little bit scratchy throat/probably just allergies" turned into a fever on Tuesday and flattened me.
I thought I was just tired ignored my symptoms andwent out for lunch by myself and read something. (have no clue what, really) After eating I walked for an hour and watched the fog come onto the bay. Then, I started shivering.
I know that a certain friend of mine, (*ahem,lynne*) once was so sick with a high fever that she forgot to take any aspirin so I'm not feeling too alone in my idiocy. Instead of walking to the bus stop, I walked over two of the city's steepest hills and went to the video store and rented "Tales". Once home, I sat on my bed and covered up in two blankets but could not shake the chill. Two hours of shivering later I touched my neck and realized that my glands were HUGE!.
In the land of the medicine cabinet, I found my thermometer, (101) my acetominophen, and a spare course of antibiotics. (I was a boy scout, Be Prepared!....or in this case, cover your ass because 'I Be Stupid' and sat in the cold all day with a fever. Duh!)
I had to call off work, which is terribly embarrassing to me. I always show up and fake it when I'm ill, but I was still fevery and trembling too much to go shaking any martinis with any accuracy.
A half gallon of juice, four gallons of water, 36 aceto's, 1500 mg of azithro 36 of 48 hours spent sleeping and I feel like my rockstar self again. Good thing, too. One of my co-bartenders was seriously injured yesterday and I have to work a lot of extra shifts in the next couple of weeks. Sparing gorey details, one should always remember to polish a glass with the outside of their hand, not the inside.
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| Sloth |
| 05.24.05 (3:12 pm) [edit] |
It's a good thing I don't believe in sin because I was at it to scorch a man right off a cross the last couple of days. I woke up in North Beach yesterday morning after having spent the night at a friend's place. The view was incredible and I decided to hang out in that part of town and be by the water all day. Fun choice.
I got coffee at a fave cafe and ate one of their fantastic breakfast burritos (at 1 pm....) I walked down to the grassy area by aquatic park slept in the sun. (Warning! If you fall asleep in the sun, do not put your arms over your head. Sunburned armpits are a cruel torture I would wish on my worst enemy only, or the Dubleya.) I did a lot of people watching for the rest of the afternoon and had a fantastic time bouncing around from place to place. I was in a flirtatious mood and kept getting myself into conversations with so many fun people. One of the things I love about living here is that people plan on visiting SF as a vacation and they're in VayCay mode when I find them sitting in a pub slurping down a bit of the Irish.
A very arguementative couple of men from Spain had me laughing my ass off both at their bad use of Spanglish and by their mannerisms and imitation of me. It's flattering to be mocked if you know it's for fun, as in a roast, I suppose.
An English couple was celebrating their 37th anniversary and was off to visit family in Ontario, Canada very near to where my Grandmother had a cottage. The woman of that couple had a big smile and a huge laugh that reminded me of waves crashing on the beach. We talked for an hour or so and just enjoyed being silly. There was no point to any of what we had to say other than just enjoying each other's humor. I love wry, dry wit especially when it's mixed with a refined London accent.
I met up with K in the Mission and we did our usual Monday night 500 Club trip. It was a late night and I had to share a cab home with the bartender because I'd missed the last train back to my neighborhood. He is so nice and even paid for the trip. Score! Kinda funny, however, because my friend has a big crush on him and I felt selfish to send her off in a cab and then get in another one with the object of her lust. One of these days those two will get together.
Just a babble here,
Anybody read, "A Confederacy of Dunces" recently? Laugh out loud funny, that book is. I've got about an hour left to finish it so I'm dumping you in tblog world for the grand finale.
I have to swing by the car rental place again. Zac and I are going to head up north of the bay tomorrow, I'm having a hard time finding a convertible available anywhere. It's 75 degrees and stiill with no fog for the next week or so. Me and my three toes are gonna make the most of it while I can. A hard top will not due. What else are days off for?
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| Rain or shine |
| 05.19.05 (3:17 pm) [edit] |
Again with the damn rain around here! I have a dry day today, but I spent all of yesterday wet and on an adventure.
I drove Kimberly and Zac to Bodega Bay where we pigged out on fish and chips and then I made them car sick by driving on HWY 1. I tried really hard to make it a smooth trip, but switchbacks are switchbacks, ya know. Kim was laying down in the back seat with her head in a bag. (just in case!)
The storm that brought another couple of inches of rain to the area made the waves spectacular at the beach. I decided to ignore the rain and went for a walk on the beach with Zac. In a way, I think it was more beautiful than if it had just been sunny and windy. It was relatively still and once you're soaked, it doesn't matter anymore.
I bought some new running shoes that are silver and blue. I think they make my feet look like Christmas ornaments, but they feel soooooo good!
I decided to return the car last night and not fight with trying to find a parking place again. Good choice on so many levels. Getting on the elevator to go up to find my rental contract, a man and a woman got out and he was on crutches. Not so strange. Getting on the same elevator to go out of the building, four transexuals, one of whom was leg-less and in a wheelchair, greeted Zac and I with, "Come on in honey, we don't bite." I know that Zac and I did a very obvious double take and looked at each other, looked at Queen Stumpy, back at each other again and boarded. It was an elevator full of big shoes, big boobs, and a couple of speechless dorks. After we got out I had to hold on to Zac so we could get far enough away so I could laugh without being heard. Amazing.
It's a good thing I didn't have to use that elevator again, who knows what I would have encountered.
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