I’m going to take this month off from blogging. No particular reason why, except that I feel like having a break. I’ll still be reading blogs, just not putting anything new up here for a bit.
It’s One Day. Half a Day, Really. I Mean, You Subtract Showers and Meals, It’s Like Twenty Minutes.
Because the weather where I live is fascinating to one and all, I can report that it is currently 5:00 PM on Thursday and 95°. This is exactly 17° hotter than I ever want it to be, but compared to yesterday, it is cake. Yesterday, we officially topped out at 103°. It was the hottest day ever recorded for Seattle, which I guess is an achievement. I would get excited about that, but my blood volume is too low. We also had our first ever heat-related death, of an older man with a heart condition, but that is decidedly not an achievement. I have been trying to check on my elderly neighbor across the alley, the one who gives me too much fruit every Christmas and whose name I don’t know, but it’s been difficult because he never answers his door. I think he’s okay because I see the lights go on and off at night, and I also took a surreptitious look in his mailbox and he seems to be picking up his mail every day, but I hope I see him out in his yard sometime soon, so I can stop lurking around his house like a crazed admirer of the geriatric set.
Worse than the outside temperature yesterday was the fact that it was pretty much the same inside, even overnight. Once the heat builds up inside, there’s nowhere for it to go. Even with some of the windows open last night, the indoor temperature was still in the 90s when I got up this morning. It’s really bizarre when you can touch your walls or the porcelain sinks and find that they’re hot to the touch. Even still, I don’t plan to get air conditioning since in most years it would get used maybe two or three days at the most. It was reported that only 13% of homes in this area have A/C, although I don’t remember anyone ever asking me that question specifically, so who knows?
Since no situation is complete without people being ridiculous, my favorite piece of advice, courtesy of our local news, was this: eat spicy food as it will encourage sweating and the sweating will cool you off. I don’t know about anyone else, but when it’s over 100° my sweat glands don’t really need any encouragement. If they did, I would make an appointment with an endocrinologist.
The second bit of wankery was on one of the news site’s message boards where some pedantic fool posted the following:
- “they said 103 is the highest temperature ever. NOT TRUE. it’s the highest RECORDED. they’ve only been recording since 1891. typical news hyperbole.”
As you can imagine, many people had opinions on this.
- Some said that “highest temperature ever” and “highest temperature recorded” mean the same thing since they both mean “highest temperature in our lifetimes.” This brought out the the cries of “oh please how do you know theres noone in seattle who was born in 1891 where is your proof???!!!???”
- Others said, “highest temperature ever” means “highest temperature ever,” the response to that being, “not to be picky BUT … when the earth was forming from a giant ball of gas millions of years ago, i am pretty sure it was hotter then :)” (At this point, some people who got lost on their way to the FOX news website chimed in with, “MORE LIES FROM THE LIEBERAL MEDIA! THE EARTH IS ONLY 6000 YEARS OLD!!!”)
- Every once in a while, a normal person would say, “It just means that since they started keeping records in 1891, 103° is the highest temperature recorded at a particular spot designated as the official temperature for the city, which is currently at Sea-Tac Airport.” These people were ignored.
It really just reinforces my contention that not everyone should be allowed to use the internet.
In other news, Cat is taking her pills and is much better. Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions about how to get the pills inside her. She will sometimes take them and sometimes try to argue about it, but when the latter happens, I found that the suggestion from 3carnations that I crush the pills works the best, so long as I put it in a food stinky enough to mask the taste of the powdered pill. Fortunately, stinky cat food is her favorite cat food of all. In addition, her blood tests all came back normal considering her age, but, just as Abby predicted, her vet would like her to begin eating prescription cat food because it will be good for her kidneys and because it has an enormous profit margin. I think we will pass. Cat has tried prescription cat food before and finds it bland and insipid. Prescription cat food is the green jello of the cat food world.
Damn, it’s hot.
I strongly advise you not to piss me off this week. Particularly on Wednesday. In fact, just don’t even try to interact with me on Wednesday. I will cut anyone who tries to interact with me on Wednesday.
If you think I’m cranky now, you should have been around a couple of hours ago. Compared to a couple of hours ago, I am positively blissful. Sweating like an extra in Cool Hand Luke, but blissful nonetheless.
These are the things contributing to my bad mood. (The following applies to the current week only. Please check back next week for a revised list.)
- I opened the large container holding my cat’s dry food on Friday morning only to discover that it had become colonized by grain moths. They were making tunnels and putting up webbing and holding little town meetings and everything. So I quickly closed the container, put the container in a bag, put the bag in the trash, took the trash outside, came back inside and shuddered for an hour.
- Although the new, non-moth-infested brand of cat food has proven to be quite relevant to Cat’s interests, the change in diet has upset her stomach and may have contributed to:
- The urinary tract infection she seems to have developed, as evidenced by the twenty times she has urinated since 7:00 AM Sunday morning, the blood in her urine, and her pitiful cries every time she has to use the litter box.
- The stress of the urinary tract infection has also caused her to have diarrhea. Eleven times.
- I was up to my elbows in Friskies Sea Captain’s Choice this afternoon trying to hide the antibiotic that Cat’s new vet prescribed to her today. Cat would take a bite of food with its super secret surprise filling of amoxicillin tryhydrate clavulanate potassium, swallow the food, and then in a very delicate and lady-like way open her mouth and let the pill drop out. It took about twenty minutes before I finally wore her out and she swallowed the damn thing.
- She is required to take 27 more of these pills.
- She also has to take anti-anxiety pills this week because
- she’s sick,
- the construction company to which our fuckwit city government awarded the park expansion project that is occurring across the street from my house is using earth movers that were last lubed and oiled by Henry Ford himself in the year Nineteen Ought Eight, which means that all day long everyone within a one-mile radius has to listen to a noise that sounds roughly like, “Eeeeeeeeeeee! EEEEEEEEEEEEEE! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
- on Thursday and Friday, the Blue Angels will be taking their practice runs for this weekend’s air show in their usual practice area, which is approximately ten feet above my roof. If you have not experienced the Blue Angels up close, here is what you need to know: they are loud. They are louder than an earth mover. When the end of the world comes, they will be louder than that.
- I recently learned that as part of the new park expansion, an amphitheater is being built on the part of the park that is closest to the residential area that borders one side of the park. Not on one of the many non-residential-adjacent parts of the park. Not next to the golf course. Not next to the tennis courts. Not next to the basketball courts. Not next to the Community Center. Not next to the big empty expanse of green and trees. NEXT TO MY HOUSE.
- I have the news on right now, and they just revised the five-day forecast. It’s not going to be 98° on Wednesday. It’s going to be 99°.
- I forgot to buy more popsicles today.
- Did I mention how freaking hot it is?
- I just now said, “freaking.” Fuck, that’s annoying.
On a more positive note, Cat has a new vet, and the new vet seems to be quite competent. In addition, her office does not smell like an animal graveyard as did a veterinary practice I recently inadvertantly burglarized. Although I suppose if Cat were making her own list of annoyances it would say:
- lxiedjllskua;l. 1
- klduzueua. 2
- klauz;ln kl sliuf nflisula;ll ;8i34ka;n hoddozs;lllllllle jekilaieurlas;;;;;;;;;;; 3
- sssssssssssssssssssssssssss 4
So, see? It’s not just me.
_______________________________________________________________
1 I have a new vet.
2 I am hot.
3 That woman who lives in my house put something in my food.
4 I have to pee again.
Forty years ago today, I was sitting in my living room with my parents, my sister, and my brother, in front the black and white Motorola console TV, intently watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon. Actually, my mom, brother, and sister were intently watching, I was jabbering about something or other, and my dad was trying to watch while repeatedly telling me to shut up. I was five. What did I care about men walking on the moon?
Nevertheless, July 20, 1969, is one of the few dates that affixes me to a time and place with so much certainty that I can remember who I was with and what was said. That doesn’t happen very often. January 28, 1986. September 11, 2001. November 4, 2008. Some good days, some bad days, as it should be.
On the other hand, if, forty years from today, someone were to ask me what I was doing on July 20, 2009, I will have no idea, even assuming I haven’t already made the long graceful slide into complete senility by that time. I will probably just ask for more Jello, having forgotten that it is a disturbing food item. If my mind is relatively intact, I still won’t know because today is shaping up to be a big bore.
I can’t figure out how it got to be July, much less July 20th. Wasn’t I just complaining about the snow? It’s the middle of summer and I have nothing to show for it except an uneven tan. (Fun fact about me: I’m immune to the effects of sunscreen, except on my face. I dutifully apply SPF 50 every single morning, yet I end every day looking like some kind of mutant kabuki farmer.) The summer is progressing without me at a rapid pace, and in only a few days, I will be complaining about Thanksgiving again.
Summers used to be a lot longer. The summer I turned 15 was approximately 937 days long. This is partly because there was a teacher’s strike at the end of the summer that pushed back the start of school to the middle of October and partly because my two best friends were away at camp. Kathleen was working as a counselor, teaching the world’s weirdest arts and crafts class. She had an odd sense of humor, so in addition to the typical lanyards and macaroni portraits, she also had the kids make jewelry by gluing dead bugs onto small pieces of driftwood and then attaching them to braided leather cords. Without warning, she sent me a whole set in the mail, and I still haven’t forgiven her. Jenna’s camp, now that I think about it, was some kind of wayward youth program. She wasn’t particularly wayward, but her mother liked to be proactive about these things to the point where all her children would eventually stomp out of the house saying, “I’M GOING TO LIVE WITH DAD!” I don’t know what else Jenna did at camp, but I do know that that was the summer that she lost her virginity to some guy named Craig, who several months later showed up at her house wearing white socks with brown shoes, acting as if her basement was the setting for Dance Party USA. On the up side, his dancing gave Jenna and me something to imitate and mock for years to follow. As for me, I spent that summer the way I spent all summers before I was old enough to get a job, watching All My Children, going to the pool, reading magazines, getting yelled at for not mowing the lawn, and being bored out of my mind.
This summer is similar except that instead of watching All My Children, I watch General Hospital. Instead of going to the pool, I go to work. Instead of reading magazines, I read my health insurance policy. And instead of getting yelled at for not mowing the lawn, I look at the heat-crisped grass and sigh. The boredom is roughly the same.
I finished updating my Goodreads list and realized I have terrible taste in books. I went to the Nordstrom anniversary sale and purchased one sweater. I organized my kitchen cabinets and am now wondering who snuck in during the night and gave me three cans of Vienna sausage. These are the days.
I hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend. I celebrated as I normally do, commemorating the original colonies by eating 13 pounds of potato salad. I made smitten kitchen’s Rosanne Cash’s Americana Potato Salad Adapted from Bon Appetit. I altered the recipe slightly by omitting the fresh dill, thus I am eligible to add my own name to the recipe title, but I won’t because recipe cards are only so big. I have nothing against fresh dill; I just didn’t have any. There were packets marked “fresh dill” at the grocery store, but the dill appeared to have been harvested during the Eisenhower administration; thus, I did what I usually do when I need fresh herbs, which is that I ignore that part of the recipe. My verdict on the salad: eh. I mean, I still ate it like I was going to the chair, but it was just okay.
My neighbors down the block closed down the street and set off fireworks, and since my house didn’t burn down as a result, I am prepared to declare those okay as well. Fireworks used to be legal within the city limits, which means people would buy boxes of those sparkly but relatively safe and quiet fireworks from temporary stands manned by guys with names like Stub or Pegleg, and set them off on the sidewalk. That was always kind of nice. Then one year, someone got the bright idea of making firecrackers legal as well, which mainly resulted in everyone losing an eye. The following year firecrackers were outlawed, and at some point soon thereafter all fireworks were outlawed for use within the city. Consequently, now instead of buying a few sparklers and the occasional Whistling Pete from a neighborhood stand, people figure that if they’re going to break the law they might as well go all out, so they stock up on Roman candles and M-80s from a nearby reservation and scare the crap out of all dogs, cats, and cranky middle-aged stunningly beautiful spinsters.
For about a week before the Fourth, local news outlets reminded everyone that fireworks are illegal and gave a number to call to report anyone who was using them. Uh, yeah. I’m sure calling that number would be super effective. I once tried to report gunfire across the street and couldn’t get anyone to show up. For fireworks, they probably don’t even answer the phone. Besides, even if anyone were prepared to enforce that ban, reporting fireworks on the Fourth of July tends to fall into the category of “this is too pissy even for me.” So instead I just hosed down the roof, made sure my cat could get to all of her standard hiding places, and ate potato salad.
Aside from bloating, the other thing I did this weekend was I had coffee with a friend I haven’t seen in six or seven years. You know how fireworks are really exciting and cool for about three minutes and then you get sort of bored and wonder when it will be over? Well, this was like that. She and her husband are thinking of buying a house in my neighborhood, so she called me up on Friday afternoon and said, “I’m driving around your block, and I remembered your phone number! Isn’t that funny?” Well, no, but I already answered the phone, so YES! Then she said, “What’s new?” I haven’t seen her since probably 2002 and she asks me what’s new. Already, this bodes ill. At any rate, we ended up at Starbucks, where we got completely caught up in about eight and half minutes, and then she started fooling around with her iPhone and I tried to drink the rest of my Coffee Frappuccino as quickly as I could without inducing brain freeze. Then she said, “that guy has a nice ass,” at a volume slightly louder than conversational, causing said dude to turn and smile in our direction, and I decided the hell with my synapses and drank the remaining six ounces of frozen coffee in 0.2 seconds. That was three days ago, and my ears are still ringing a little. We will probably get together again in 2016, unless I’m busy.
Before parting, she told me to look her up on Facebook. I’m not on Facebook, but I told her I would, so I had to at least make an attempt at it. If you’re not a member, Facebook will let you see the person’s picture and a partial friends list. I just saw her earlier that day, so her picture was not all that interesting to me, but her friends list was another story. I saw a couple of people I used to know, which led me to their photos and their friend lists and I ended up finding a lot of people used to know many years ago, and I have come to the following conclusion: everyone I used to know is old.
WHY IS EVERYONE SO OLD? My god. I must have counted 27 jowls. I haven’t been this depressed since my high school reunion. Sunscreen and Nicoderm, people, SUNSCREEN AND NICODERM!
1. By all means, wear the tie. If you don’t wear the tie, you might look silly.
2. I have this apple. Now what do I do?
3. Wouldn’t it be easier just to stab him?
(I linked to this once before in the comments, but then I couldn’t stop thinking about it. If only there were a term for such things.)
4. There used to be a local hamburger franchise here called Dag’s. Its logo was a bull wearing a striped t-shirt and carrying a tray full of food. I was trying to find the logo recently, so I did a Google image search for “Dag’s Hamburgers.” Why, Google image search, why?
5. At long last, the vast potential of the internet has been fulfilled.
I don’t have much to say about the passing of Michael Jackson, but I wanted to make some note of it. I grew up with his music, and even after it became apparent that his mind was doing terrible things to him, no one could deny his enormous talent. Scandal and strangeness aside, he’s always been a presence.
Rest in peace, Michael.
Today’s lament is that of the world’s best kitty cat, who would be mine. If you have a cat, you might think yours is the world’s best, and I would agree with you if you were correct, but sadly for you, you are not. This is a story she might tell you, if she could type. Or drive. Okay, she would never tell you this story. She would leave the room as soon as she became aware of your presence. In any case, the world’s best kitty cat, who I’ll just call Cat because you don’t need to know her real name, is fifteen years old, which is roughly equivalent to 75 human years. For the first 13 years of her life, she had an excellent veterinarian, whom she hated with a deep abiding passion. I will call him Dr. Young. That’s not his name, but it rhymes with his name. (His name is not “dung.”) (Or “bung.”) (Or “hung.”) (Actually, just forget about the rhyming business; it’s distracting.) Although Cat hated him, I was very fond of him because every time he saw her for her annual exam, he was gentle with her but thorough, he kept her in excellent health, he didn’t try to upsell us on products or procedures or tests, and on the two occasions when she needed to see him for illness, he and his staff took the time to talk with me on the phone before and after the visit, following up on how she was doing. You would think this is standard in veterinary care — and it should be; unfortunately, it isn’t.
(After reading over the first few paragraphs of this post again, I feel I should say that Cat does not die at the end of this story. It kind of sounds like that’s where I’m going with this, but she’s fine. At this very moment, she’s in the kitchen eating turkey.)
For the last few years, the area around Dr. Young’s office has been undergoing a lot of commercial development. Although he presumably could have sold the building that housed his practice at a hefty profit, he didn’t. He continued to see his patients in the same spot he always had, as newer, taller buildings crowded in around him. Two years ago, he retired, and instead of doing the expected thing and selling the building separately and then the practice itself to a younger vet just starting out, he sold everything to someone he’d gone to vet school with. In the 1960s. Hrm. My immediate thought was, “if this dude went to vet school 40 years ago, shouldn’t he have a job already?” I don’t know what Dr. Young’s reasoning was; perhaps he wanted to help out an old friend or maybe he just wanted the practice to continue on as it had, but in any case surely he would not have entrusted his patients to someone who was No Good. After all, the couple of times when Cat had seen someone filling in for Dr. Young over vacation, they were also wonderful; thus, when it was time for Cat’s annual exam in 2007, I took her to see Dr. Young’s successor, who I will call Dr. Old. No reason. I wasn’t thrilled with Dr. Old’s exam. There were little things that seemed off to me, but the main thing was that he didn’t show Cat any affection. I don’t expect vets to gush over their patients, but he seemed completely indifferent. I mean, Cat hates all strangers and especially all vets on general principle so it made no difference to her, but if someone who has presumably centered his life around animal welfare can’t even muster up a single head skritch for the world’s best kitty cat? That is not right.
Still, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I am aware that I always expect more out of people than … I was going to say I expect more than I should, but that’s not true. I expect exactly as much out of people as is appropriate AND IT’S NOT MY FAULT IF PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS SO DAMNED DISAPPOINTING.
But I am getting ahead of myself. I tried to rationalize the ooky feeling I was getting from Dr. Old by telling myself that (a) no one was going to seem as good as Dr. Young, and (b) Dr. Young is the one responsible for Dr. Old being there in the first place, so Dr. Old must be a good vet. If I had also told myself that (c) no good ever comes of giving someone the benefit of the doubt, then further unpleasantness could have been avoided.
I took her in to see Dr. Old again for her 2008 exam. There were no other animals in the waiting room. There were no sounds of animals coming from the examining rooms. There was one assistant at the desk instead of the normal two or three. During Cat’s exam, I had to prompt Dr. Old to look at certain things. “How are her ears?” I would ask, or “Do her teeth look okay?” Dr. Young always used to palpate her abdomen looking for growths, but I didn’t know how to ask about that. “How are her internal organs? Tumor-free today?” The thing about her teeth was that although she has had them cleaned every three years, the last time I saw Dr. Young, when she was 12 years old, he said she was getting a little too old to undergo the necessary anesthesia, so he recommended against doing it again unless she developed gum disease. But Dr. Old, noting a bit of tartar, leapt upon the idea. “She should have a cleaning! Right away! Let’s schedule it! Receptionist! Bring the book!” I asked him about potential complications from the anesthesia, which he brushed off with a “well, I haven’t lost one yet, knock on wood.” At that point, I just wanted to wrestle Cat back into her carrier and get her home as quickly as possible so she could begin the 36-hour post-veterinary period of being Put Out With Me For Taking Her To The Barking Dog Place When I Know She Does Not Care For That. The path of least resistance was to make the appointment and cancel it later, which is exactly what I did.
For a month after her checkup, Cat spent several hours every morning hiding under the bed. Normally after a vet visit, she’ll hide for a day or two until she’s sure I’m not going to be taking her anywhere, but never has it gone on for a month. I have to assume that when they took her in the other room for a blood draw, they hurt her in some way, and whether it was on purpose or due to general ineptitude makes little difference to me. She would not be going back there again. Later, I was talking to a neighbor who told me she used to take her dog to the same clinic. Like me, she loved Dr. Young and had a bad yet non-specific feeling after one visit with Dr. Old, and thus took her dog to a new place, which she liked a lot and where I plan to take Cat for her next checkup in August.
Then a couple of weeks ago, I got a call from a vet clinic I was unfamiliar with. The receptionist told me that Dr. Old had closed his practice and had sent all of the patient files to their office. Well, this is certainly a professional way of informing me of the fact. She furthermore wanted me to know that Cat’s first checkup with them would be free. Uh huh. As you all know, I am frugal to a purse-clutching fault, but there are certain things I do not skimp on and one of them is how much I will pay to a person who might stick a thermometer up my cat’s butt. That is not a time to bargain-hunt.
I know that when I take Cat to the new vet that my neighbor recommended, they can get her file from the Discount Vet, but I started to worry about what would happen in the meantime if there were an emergency, so yesterday I went to Discount Vet’s office to get the file. It was seriously a disturbing experience. In the first place, it was in one of the most rundown parts of town, surrounded by tire stores, payday loan outlets, and boarded-up buildings. Second, when I got out of my car outside the clinic, it smelled like unwashed dog. And that was just outside; inside, the smell was so bad I could barely breathe. It was dark and everything looked old and grimy. I could hear a cat in the examining room not just yowling, but also hissing. Someone who works there had brought a little girl in and parked her next to the reception desk so she could stare at all the clients like some creepy child of the corn. I asked the receptionist for the file, she said, “no problem!” and got up to get it. I could see her in the hallway talking to one of the vets (I assume), and they kept turning and peering at me in an unsettling way, as if attempting to determine if I would fit in the trunk of a car. She brought back the file, took the contents out and started to copy it on a desktop copier. I asked if I couldn’t just have the file since my cat had never been seen there, and she said they were “required by law” to keep it and could only turn it over to another vet. That sounded like it might be true, and I had no information to refute it, so I didn’t argue the point. I watched her making the copies on the cluttered little section of desk. She kept setting the originals and the copies down on other piles of paper and I couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t getting it mixed up with other files. Finally, she handed me a random stack of paper and asked if I wanted it stapled. I said no, but would she mind if I put the original file back together just be sure I had everything? Again, “no problem!” and she handed everything over.
I took a seat in the waiting area and found that she had mixed up the copies and the originals and had also given me warranty information for a coffee maker. I spent about twenty minutes making an honest attempt to make sense of the mess she had made but having little success, then there was a sudden glut of people and the most pathetic parade of animals you would ever want to see coming in. Sad-faced pit bulls, scrawny cats, and then a tiny puppy wrapped in a blanket, eyes not open yet, obviously taken from its mother far too soon. Between the complete clusterfuck she had made of my cat’s medical records, the fetid smell, and the pitiful dogs and cats, I kind of lost it. As soon as the receptionist got up and went to the back, I did something completely ridiculous. I made a break for it.
I threw all the papers into the file folder, pushed my way between Mullet Woman and Gold Tooth Man and made my way briskly out the door, fishing around in my purse for my car keys at the same time. Had I not been alone, I would have been just like that women in the IKEA commercial, run-walking to the parking lot, screaming, “START THE CAR! START THE CAR!” In my case, there was no screaming, although there was one second of contemplation regarding how I had NO TIME to put on my seatbelt, followed by squealing tires on pavement.
About three blocks later, I said to myself, “um … Nitwit? Are you done being, you know, so stupid?”
I turned the car around, reparked outside the clinic, walked back in to find everyone staring at me, said to the receptionist, “yes, I am going to need to borrow your two-hole punch, if you don’t mind.” She gave me the two-hole punch and some tape, I retook my seat, and spent the next hour sorting out the mess she had made of 15 years of medical records. As it turns out, a few of the pages were still sitting on the copier, so it’s probably a good thing I went back, and not just because my name and address were on those pages.
Before leaving, I asked her if she knew why Dr. Old had closed his practice, and she told me it had gone bankrupt. She said she had heard he was now breeding animals for sale, and I could tell she thought that was as bad an idea as I thought it was. She quietly said that if I needed anything else just to call and she would be happy to assist. She seemed like a nice woman. I feel bad about almost robbing her. Driving home, I could only think about Dr. Young and all of his great assistants and techs who had been so kind to me and Cat and, many years before, to my parents and their cat, who I’ll also call Cat because you don’t need to know. It makes me sad and a little angry that they did a lot of good work for 40 years, building up trust and goodwill with their clients, and in less than two years, it all got shot to hell. On the way home, I went past the building where the practice used to be. A For Sale sign is nailed up over the door.
I just realized that today is the one-year anniversary of the day I first posted on this blog. Okay, that’s not true. There were a couple of earlier posts that I deleted for reasons I can no longer recall. But then I started over, so officially, this is the one-year anniversary. If I had noticed my anniversary date was coming up, I would have planned to have a contest. I would not have held the contest because I would be afraid that no one would enter and then I would feel sad and alienated, but I would have planned it for sure.
In lieu of a well-thought out, interactive, and potentially-lucrative-for-you post, instead, I present: a meme. Try to contain your excitement. I saw this first at Monkey’s, then at Marius’s, and then Stefanie did half of it before succumbing to the salad dressing.
I will begin doing the meme in a moment.
Wait.
OKAY NOW.
What is your current obsession?
Locating my khaki shorts. They’re not in the closet next to my other shorts. They’re not in a drawer. They’re not in the pile of clothing in the spare bedroom. They’re not under the basement stairs where I sometimes drop things on their way to and from the washing machine only to find them months later, covered with dust. They are not in places where they couldn’t possibly be, like in a file cabinet, and I know this because I’ve looked. My shorts are missing. I miss my shorts.
What is your weirdest obsession?
Weirder than the thing about the shorts?
What are you wearing today?
Well, I can tell you one thing I’m not wearing today.
What’s for dinner?
For tonight, I don’t know yet. But last night, two slices of pizza and some cabbage. Yesterday was a strange day all the way around.
What would you eat for your last meal?
I’m thinking it would probably be something like applesauce or chocolate pudding or whatever they give you in the hospital when you’re on your deathbed. Incidentally, if I am ever in the hospital on my deathbed and you are sitting next to me, holding my hand, and saying things like, “is that the only copy of your will?” then please tell the nurse not to bring me Jello for my last meal. Jello is upsetting to me.
What’s the last thing you bought?
Milk. It’s this kind of information that makes the internet worthwhile, isn’t it?
What are you listening to right now?
Um. A Vagisil commercial. Wait. Okay, it’s over now. Whew. Awkward.
What do you think of the person who tagged you?
No one tagged me, but as to the three people I mentioned, I think Marius is a very decent guy, and the world would benefit from having more people like him in it. Also, now that I’m thinking about it, in addition to his blog, I want to direct you all over to Starbase 66, a podcast that he does with a couple of friends of his regarding all things Star Trek and science fiction. Well, okay, not all of you, just those of you who are interested in Star Trek and science fiction. Personally, I am not so interested in science fiction, although I did see E.T. in 1982. Thus, I don’t regularly listen to Starbase 66, but I have listened in to a couple of episodes, and the three of them have a nice style, they’re funny and conversational, and I’m sure I would really enjoy it, if they were talking about something I was familiar with, like phoning home, or Elliot, or … phoning home. (Hey, E.T. was 27 years ago; I can’t remember everything forever.)
Monkey and Stefanie are also two very decent guys, even though they are technically girls. Monkey’s was one of the first blogs I read and nearly three years later, I remain a fan of her cranky, smart girl charm. Although I would be upset if an injury were to befall her, the days when she tells a story involving tripping over something or her pants falling down are very good days indeed. I’ve been reading Stefanie’s blog for almost as long and stand in admiration of the fact that even though she’s been blogging for something like four years, she still comes up with interesting things to write about. If I am still blogging in four years, my posts will consist entirely of YouTube videos of cats flushing the toilet. If Stefanie offers you grammar advice, take it. (But if she invites you to Thanksgiving dinner, bring your own turkey.) You know, both Monkey and Stefanie, each in her own way are somewhat responsible for me even having a blog, since without them, I wouldn’t have had any readers early on and would have quit. Thus, all irate emails should be directed to them.
If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
Kailua, on the windward side of Oahu. I would also accept it unfurnished. (In case that’s the deal-breaker.)
If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
Just for an hour? Yeah, I’m good right here then.
Which language do you want to learn?
American Sign Language, so I can eavesdrop on deaf people.
What is your favorite colour?
Greeun.
What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe?
I used to have these really nice khaki shorts. I … I don’t want to talk about it.
What is your dream job?
This question threw me because I realized that I don’t know. I should know. I’m 45, so I don’t have that much time to figure out what my dream is and then be bitter about not achieving it. For some reason, I’m thinking about elephants now. I have a vague idea that my dream job would have something to do with wildlife conservation. Or being a barber.
What’s your favourite magazine?
I don’t have a favorite. The only magazine I regularly read is Newsweek, but if it were to go under, what the hell, I’d just read Time.
If you had £100 now, what would you spend it on?
That is $163.00, so I do have it now. I will probably just spend it on something frivolous, like food or insurance.
Describe your personal style.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. These questions are funny.
What are you going to do after this?
Something equally exciting, I’m sure.
What are your favourite films?
I feel like I talked about this recently, but I could be wrong. After a year, it all seems to run together. American Graffiti, A Scene at the Sea, Unforgiven, Rocky, the 1978 remake of Heaven Can Wait, The Shawshank Redemption, and because I just saw it and could see it two or three more times, Bolt.
What’s your favourite fruit?
NOBODY CARES. (But it’s papaya, in case you are nobody.)
What inspires you?
To rage? Cruelty to the weak. To greatness? N/A.
Do you collect anything?
Books and dust.
Your favourite animal?
My favorite individual animal is my own cat, but as to type of animal, I can’t pick one because I love them all. However, I love monkeys and apes slightly less because they’re so closely related to humans, who I mostly don’t like at all.
What are you currently reading?
Just today, I finished reading Red Meat Cures Cancer, a send-up of the fast food industry that has some funny moments, but mostly fails to hit the mark. It might have helped if there were at least one character who wasn’t either amoral or moronic. Stupid character names like Frank Fanoflincoln and Traylor Hitch don’t help matters either, although the author’s name is Starbuck O’Dwyer, so maybe he didn’t know any better. One of the customer reviews on Amazon notes that the book was originally vanity published before being picked up by Vintage, and that seems about right.
Go to your book shelf, take down the first book with a red spine you see, turn to page 26 and type out the first line:
- “A few weeks later, Nelle wrote rapturously to a friend about the Browns’ offer: ‘The one stern string attached is that I will be subjected to a sort of 19th Century regimen of discipline: they don’t care whether anything I write makes a nickel.’”
Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, by Charles J. Shields
And who wouldn’t be rapturous? A 19th century disciplinary regimen? Why, that sounds swell! I guess I might as well read this book now seeing as how I already took it down from the shelf.
By what criteria do you judge a person?
I won’t if you won’t.
What skill would you like to acquire immediately?
Super quick digestion. I ate one too many Fig Newtons about ten minutes ago. Happy then, sad now.
I had to buy a new trash can the other day. The city provides trash cans to each home, but in our municipal leaders’ ongoing efforts to make garbage, recycling, and yard waste collection as onerous and expensive as possible, on March 30 of this year collection rates increased by 35%, and we changed over to a system so complicated that each household needs three separate bins, a six-page flyer with photographs of which items can go into which bins, instructions on how to prepare your items for collection (my personal favorite being that we should keep food scraps such as chicken bones and banana peels in the refrigerator until collection day), a color-coded calendar so that you know which day to put out which bins, and a warning that if you get any of the foregoing incorrect, your pickups will be suspended. The justification for the change was that our city officials are trying to reduce the amount of material going into our landfills and save our planet, but their newfound-and-not-at-all-superficial-or-politically-expedient concern for the environment is somewhat undercut by the fact that they they now have twice as many trucks on the roads making three times the collection runs that they used to make. The city is also now using new trucks, having trashed the old fleet. The average person might think this sounds a tad wasteful, but HEY, let’s not let common sense get in the way of being kind to Mother Nature and by “being kind to Mother Nature,” I of course mean, “increasing revenue.” In addition, all collection services have been contracted out to a different company than the one that had been working efficiently and competently for as long as I can remember. Instead, the city has gone with a cheaper company, the only appreciable difference between the former company and the new company being that the former company used to actually show up and take the trash away. With the new company, they might show up or they might not. It makes trash day suspenseful and exciting!
In any event, garbage rates went up, so I opted to get the smaller can at a non-proportionally-reduced rate that’s still more than what I was paying for the larger can before the rate increase. City Utility workers came and took away my perfectly functional round 32-gallon can with wheels on it, which I never filled up anyway, and replaced it with what was supposed to be a 20-gallon can but is about half the size of my next door neighbor’s 20-gallon can provided to them by the city last year. Presumably, my old can is now sitting somewhere in a landfill, discarded and despondent, yet not decomposing. The new can has no wheels, no handles, a lid that doesn’t fit, and it’s also a weird shape. It’s a rectangle but narrower at the bottom than at the top. Also, I think they laid it on its side and had Jumbo the Elephant sit on it for a week before delivering it to me because the top and bottom are diamond-shaped, which is why the rectangular top doesn’t fit. Geometrically, it’s a trapezoidal rhombus. Or a rhombic trapezoid. Mathematically interesting, but not all that great for conveying my fingernail clippings, used Kleenex, and clumps of cat litter to the alley. After I’ve deposited into it the seven half-filled bags of daily garbage that only fit if I arrange then rearrange them in a puzzle-like formation as though it’s a smelly version of Tetris, it’s nearly impossible to take the can to the alley because there’s nowhere to grab onto the damn thing. There is a small lip around the edge that I can jam my fingernails into, but as a borderline germophobe I can’t say I enjoy that, particularly considering that that’s the same area of the can that they use to hook it onto the garbage truck’s lift. Its awkward shape also requires that I hug the thing close to my body as I’m carrying it. Why, this isn’t a hideous bacteria-laden nightmare at all!
After putting up with it for a month, I called the city and asked if I could please have the 20-gallon can that they used to give out because it is both larger and has less potential for infectious disease transmission. I had a rather lengthy conversation with the city employee that consisted mostly of me listening to him tap on his computer, at the end of which he said: “um. No.” At that point, I went to Home Depot to buy my own trash can.
Upon entering the store, I spotted an employee, which, if you’ve ever been to Home Depot, is a rare and wonderful occurence. I made a beeline toward Orange Apron and said, “hello! Can you tell me where the trash cans are?”
Orange Apron smiled at me. “I could tell you …”
Oh, hell no. Don’t even think about saying what you’re about to say.
“… but then I’d have to kill you.”
Christ.
This is exactly the kind of thing that saps my strength on a daily basis.
And really kind of gutsy of the guy, considering we were standing right next to the power drills. One day, Orange Apron, one day. Fortunately for him, and also for me because I don’t want to go to prison, that was not the day. Instead, I played along, saying, “yes, but if you don’t tell me, then I’ll have to kill you,” which elicited a sound from Orange Apron that would be most accurately phonetically rendered as “HAR HAR HAR HOO!” So glad I could amuse you, Orange Apron. Now tell me where the cans are, or I will hit you with my purse. The cans were in the garden section, so I bought not only a can, but also a small, very prickly cactus that seemed to suit my mood that afternoon.
In addition to screwing up garbage collection for residential customers, our halfwit mayor and the slobbering goons known as our City Council have also removed all dumpsters from downtown and, based on the mountains of garbage I saw in the alleys in Chinatown a few days ago, I’m going to guess Chinatown as well. The reason for this, according to a Public Utilities spokesperson, is that dumpsters provide, “a cover for crime.” Well, possibly. But they also provide a cover for garbage, which is preferable to what’s going on now, which is that bags of trash are just left out in downtown alleys, ostensibly to be collected three times a day instead of two or three times a week, but in actuality to provide an all-you-can-eat-or-strew-around buffet for the crow and rat population. In response to the criticism that having so many more garbage pickups and therefore so many more garbage trucks on the road is not exactly eco-conscious, the city has responded that it’s okay because the new trucks are powered by natural gas, and as everyone knows using natural gas has zero environmental impact. Wait, no. I’m thinking of unicorn tears. Using unicorn tears has zero environmental impact. Using natural gas does have an environmental impact, particularly when you are using it to power a bunch of trucks that are driving around the already congested streets, screwing up the traffic patterns, and forcing all of the other fossil fuel burning cars to idle in the resultant traffic jams all day long.
Then a couple of weeks ago, it was announced that all trash cans will be removed from parks and city-owned public areas. Citizens are advised that if they are in a park or walking along along a public street and find themselves in possession of something they would like to discard, they should take it home, consult their six-page flyer, place it in the appropriate bin (or, if it’s half a sandwich from their lunch that wasn’t eaten because it fell on the ground, into the refrigerator until trash day), put the bin out in the alley, and hope that someone actually comes to pick it up. I’m sure that everyone will be extremely cooperative regarding this plan.
Our mayor is up for reelection this fall and one of his more sycophantic city council members has announced that she will be running against him. When asked how she will differentiate herself from him since they have an almost identical voting record she stated, “[i]t’s hard for me to conceive of running a campaign based on process and personality if you have a good record. I think that’s the dilemma.” That’s an interesting statement, in the sense that is contains no content whatsoever, yet it answers any lingering questions anyone might have about the woman. So not only will I not be voting for Mayor Jughead, I think I will also have to take a pass on Councilwoman Big Ethel. Instead, I am throwing my support behind this guy:
If we’re going to turn the whole city into a dump, we might as well get someone who knows the terrain.
You’ll have to forgive me if I seem a bit distracted. Today is Best Friend’s Day, so I am waiting by the phone and refreshing my email every five minutes in case someone invites me to dinner or to have a drink after work. I didn’t receive any lunch invitations, so instead I ate some noodles at my desk and don’t think I’m not bitter about that. If one of my so-called friends doesn’t contact me by 3:00 PM, I’m going to call each and every one of them and yell angrily. When they ask why I’m mad, I’ll drop my voice to a whisper and say, “you know what you did” then slam the phone down. I plan on using the corded phone on the land line. It’s the best way to hang up on someone.
I was trying to find an official link to Best Friend’s Day, but all I could find were links to sites I’ve never heard of and MySpace, and I can’t go to MySpace because I had a falling out over there with Tom, who acts like he’s your friend but he’s really not. He probably friends everyone and then ignores them. Creep.
The concept of “best friend” is probably not all that useful much past college-age or so. In fact, it just seems like it would create problems where none existed before. Say you’re having a conversation with a friend, during the course of which you refer to someone else as your “best friend.” This is just going to cause the friend you’re talking with to feel hurt and angry. She may even say, “and just exactly where do I fall in your hierarchy of friendship? Well? WELL?” Or maybe I’m the only one who says that. Sometimes I like to mess with people.
Not that I don’t divide friends up into different categories. I have Work Friends. I have Lunch Friends, which is a subcategory of Work Friends, although since I hardly ever go into the office, those two categories have more or less merged. I have Friends From When I Was a Kid. College Friends. Law School Friends (also known as “People I Don’t Like Very Much”). Blog Friends. Why Am I Friends With This Person Friends. No Best Friends though. I sort of miss that, but at the same time, it’s nice not to have to be there for someone all the time. Sometimes I just want to go out for Mexican food and talk about The Amazing Race, but best friends tend to expect that you care about their stupid problems. I’ve got my hands full with my own stupid problems.
Recently, I’ve been thinking about Carol, who used to be both a Lunch Friend and a Why Am I Friends With This Person Friend. When I moved to California for a few years, we morphed initially into being Email Friends and eventually into Complete Strangers. However, I saw her a few weeks ago because I was at the university where she still works, and for no real reason I stopped by her office. Talking to her reminded me of why we’re strangers now. She’s horrible! I hate her! Oh my god! I think I might call her later, yell at her, and then slam down the phone. Just because.
To put it into context, I hadn’t talked to Carol in seven or eight years. The last time we talked was after I had moved back to Seattle and was in the process of remodeling my house. I mentioned to her that I was kind of sick of having all these contractors around every day, working at a glacial pace, and using up all the toilet paper. She replied, “I think you love it. I think you love having your house full of men. That’s why you’re remodeling your kitchen in the first place.” Did I mention that was the last time we talked? I’m not sure what prompted me to go see her when I was on campus recently, but the good news is that I’m not the least bit sad that we’re not friends anymore. She’s horrible! I hate her! I know I already said that, but oh my god! She’s the worst!
She was pretty nice to me, but she spent a good twenty minutes badmouthing John, a friend of hers (ahem) and her husband’s. I met John at lunch many years ago — actually I think Carol and her husband might have been trying to fix us up — and he’s a very nice man whose picture is in the dictionary next to the word “nerd.” He was very smart but very shy, and as I understand it, he spent every Saturday night at Carol’s house eating dinner, watching videos, and then having work conversations with her husband in which they spoke exclusively in “1″s and “0″s. For years, this is what they did every Saturday night. But now, according to Carol, they no longer have movie night because John has done the unforgivable thing of having a girlfriend for the first time in … well, ever, probably. Carol said (and you have to imagine her saying this in a nasal, bitter way), “John doesn’t even come to the house anymore. He spends all his time with her. He thinks he’s in love, but she’s so trashy. She’s divorced and has kids and is only with him because she wants someone to support her. I told him that, but he didn’t want to hear it. He’s like an emotional virgin.” Emotional virgin? Hell, I’m pretty sure he’s an actual virgin. In any event, I tried to explain to Carol that people don’t generally like it when you refer to the person they love as gold-digging trash, but she seemed to think we were all unreasonable on this point. She’s so horrible. I hate her.
The other reason I’ve been thinking about her, aside from my renewed hatred, is that she once also disparaged another friend of hers who had shortly before that published a novel. According to Carol, it was a terrible novel, from an “unknown” publishing house, the author photo was really ugly and included a stupid looking hat, and her friend would never ever get published again because she had no writing talent. After a couple of questions, I determined that Carol had not actually read her friend’s novel nor did she have any intention of doing so. But then, she never was one to let reality get in the way of a good belittling.
I’ve been thinking about that because a couple of weeks ago, I was browsing the books at Target and, in the children’s section, saw a book written by someone whose name I recognized as being a friend from grade school. At first I assumed it had to be someone else because how could a fifth-grader write a book? Then I remembered she probably got older as well. Upon reading the acknowledgments section, I saw that she mentioned another name I recognized, so I knew it was her. And the author’s page indicated that it was her third book. I bought it and, initially, just felt so pleased for her. She’s a published author! How cool is that? I also looked her up online, and found her profile page on the Random House website. She won some type of Rising Star award and her photo was beautiful. I read the book that I bought, and it was very cute and funny, and I think she’s going to continue to have a lot of success.
But then I shifted into feeling envious. She was someone I didn’t remember very well until I saw her book, but after I started thinking about it, I remembered that she a few other girls Mean-Girled me in the fourth grade. I remembered that she used to have a big mole on her face. I remembered that her brother was kind of slow. (To be fair, I remember everyone’s brother as being kind of slow. I’m sure her brother is perfectly standard.) I read the customer reviews of her first book on Amazon and was the tiniest bit pleased about some of the more critical remarks. I am horrible! Oh my god! I hate myself! NO WONDER NO ONE WANTS TO HAVE DINNER WITH ME ON BEST FRIEND’S DAY!
I’m sure I’ll get over it. Or 99% sure anyway.
Oooh, I have to go now. It’s 3:00, and I’ve got some phone calls to make.
