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Thursday, August 28, 2003
Bye Bye Bertie
I keep the pet chatter to a minimum here. And in keeping with a promise I made when I began this blog, I have posted no cat pictures. So indulge me here as I note the passing yesterday of Mr. Bertie, a tuxedo cat belonging to a neighbor and for whom I catsat on several occasions. My favorite Bertie feature was his white mustache. In the e-mail informing me of his death, his owner included what he called his favorite Bertie story:
Bertie always learned more about his environment via biting, as opposed to smelling. When he was 2 years old, I had left an open case of Diet Coke, with about 7 unopened cans, on a counter in the butler pantry. One morning I found coke on the counter, the floor, and seeping into the cookbooks at the back of the counter. The case of Diet Cokes was missing. Bertie had bitten into one of the cans (I wish I had been there to see the look on his face as the coke spewed about). Bertie had pushed the case off of the counter and dragged it through the dining room, into the living room, and hid it behind the sofa in the living room. Disposing of the evidence, no doubt. Today the world is a poorer place.
Indeed.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
8:59 PM
Starts with F, ends in UCK, Episode II
Ok, so I had just posted my garage rant, listening to music on my computer headphones and facing away from the windows. It's August, it's warm, and I'm not expecting company, so I'm clad in plaid cotton seersucker lounge-y pants and, well, a sports bra, one that can accommodate my set of double D's. Loud knock at the door. Cats fleeing to the safety of their secret hidey-hole (under the bed.) "Who IS it?" I yell, grabbing for the chambray shirt draped over the back of the computer chair. No answer, but as I turn to go see, out of the living room window I notice about half of the fleet of the Arlington County fire department in the back parking lot, lights all a-flash. Uh-oh. And with my lights on and the shades open, the firehumans standing outside get a good look at me hastily pulling my shirt on. With said shirt pulled around me but not buttoned, and my hair mussed from pulling the headphones off, I open the door. Standing there is a tall, burly fireman (do they make any other kind?) bearing an uncanny resemblance to Friend Dave Ferry. "Anything going on in your apartment, ma'am?" he asks. I wish. "No," I say, "except for a little anxiety now. What's going on?" "Are you drilling in there?" he asks. What, is he trying to kill me? In response, I point silently to the door of the neighboring unit, from which vague hammering sounds have been emanating all evening. He turns toward that door just as one of his burly colleagues is asking the occupant of that unit "Anything going on in your apartment, sir?" It's my excitable neighbor, so I close my door, leaving the firefighters to whatever it is they have come to do. That was all about 10 minutes ago and the trucks have all gone away. No sign (or sound) of what might have been amiss.
Dang. Should have invited the Ferry-esque fireman in so he could help me fix my bathroom faucet. As if.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:43 PM
Road Passive-Aggression
One of the banes of my morning existence is the posse of clowns who seem to believe that the "One Way/Do Not Enter" lanes in the underground parking garage at my place of work do not apply to them. Since they're already disregarding the signs they also ignore the fact that someone might be using those very lanes properly, that is to say heading straight toward them -- not terribly common at the start of the workday but it does happen -- so they usually advance at a brisk clip. Yes, I've written of this phenomenon before in these pages, including where possible the license plate numbers of these pinheads' vehicles.
This morning's close encounter of the pinhead kind left me without a plate number. It also left me without all but the most fleeting sense of satisfaction. I had circled around in the proper direction, finding a spot that required me to use one of the outgoing lanes -- but in the proper direction -- to get at it. Since the spot was at a turn at the top of the ramp 'twixt levels P3 and P4, I thought it best that I back in, the better to not get creamed at the end of the day trying to back out into homegoing traffic. Since I was in the middle of an outgoing lane in the morning, chances were slim that my turning around and backing up would inconvenience anyone exiting, but at the same time the chances were great that I might (heh, heh) hinder the inbound progress of a pinhead helping him/herself to an illegal shortcut. Which is what I ended up doing.
I take perverse pride in being able to maneuver my compact car into parking spaces with a minimum of moves and had just lined up my ride in a not-too-shabby semblance of equidistance between the painted lines, if I do say so myself. As I turned to look over my left shoulder for final verfication before backing right in, I found myself looking at a pinhead-operated vehicle approaching from the wrong direction. The pinhead looked none too happy to find me blocking his way. I cocked one eyebrow in his direction as unapologetically as I could then took a few extra seconds to make some, ahem, unnecessary adjustments to my angle of approach before inching into the spot. Sorry, dude. If you had obeyed the sign, p'raps you wouldn't have had to wait.
But like I said, the satisfaction was short-lived. I knew deep down that this pinhead only saw the annoyance and not the comeuppance. I also felt disappointed in myself for sinking to his level, even though (she rationalized) he was more wrong than I was.
Will I do it again, should the opportunity present itself? Damn straight.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:21 PM
It's the plumber, I've come to fix the sink
It's a never-ending cycle, isn't it? Fix one problem and up pops another like a bubble in the wallpaper before you get a chance to pat yourself on the back for smoothing out the first one. Case in point: I actually fixed two problems in a rare fit of DIY-ness, to wit successfully unclogging a sluggish sink drain with a small plunger an a couple quarts of elbow grease AND applying grease of a different origin to the ball cock thingy in the toilet that had been failing to float. So I knew it wasn't a witch, but it still vexed me by making me lift the toilet tank lid after every flush to manually lift it to prevent overflowage. No sooner had those two monsters been slain when the toilet stopper flapper thingy I replaced last summer (and chronicled in these pages) began to mis-align anew, forcing me to keep right on lifting the tank lid every flush go push into place AND the newly unclogged bathroom drain had no traffic, since the faucet is now emulating the drain's former sluggishness, letting out only the thinnest of trickles even when opened full throttle. Sigh.
Maybe if I hitched my jeans down lower?
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:06 PM
Takin' it to the streets
A group e-discussion on how far kids should have to walk to school or to a bus stop and at what age, not to mention the dangers of modern-day road-raging, cell-phone-talking, me-first drivers and childnapping pervs reminded me of the following episode from my school days:
The Great Blizzard of '78, the one that closed the state of Ohio, overwhelmed the normally efficient snow-removal services in Shaker Heights, leaving the sidewalks impassable for a couple of weeks. We had no choice but to walk in the street to get to school, which wasn't too much of an ordeal for me since our house was within a 5-minute walk of an elementary school, junior high and high school. But even the kids who had a longer walk managed to survive somehow. This was a well-paved, wide-streeted residential suburban area in the Snowbelt; perhaps snow-savvy drivers were being extra-cautious.
What was worrisome was that by the time the buttload of snow melted it had become fashionable to walk in the street; sidewalks were for nerds. It was mostly the high school kids who did this, but eventually even the elementary school kids took to walking in the street. The high school principal would remind us periodically via the PA to stay off peoples' lawns but he never cautioned us against streetwalking. That was my senior year and I wouldn't have noticed that the trend continued into the following school year except for as noted we lived so near three schools it became an annoyance trying to drive through the neighborhood during school hours. Damn smug kids just took up the whole street and no one did a thing about it. Well, I once splashed three Heathers when I had to pull around their sneering, street-hogging selves and darned if there wasn't a huge puddle right there. Too bad, how sad. But you never heard about anykid getting hit by a car. A miracle.
Now, what's puzzling about this is that Shaker Heights was one of the first communities in the country to pass a pooper scooper ordinance, at one time strictly limited the choice of colors you could paint your house, and when the first fast-food joint (a Wendy's) opened up within the city limits in the early '80s you would have thought it was the apocalypse, yet it took a couple of years to stamp out student streetwalking. Bet it would be a different story today.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
5:15 PM
My digital solution
Dear virus/worm mongers, whether your intent is evil or good:
Love,
Sandra
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
8:34 PM
Stick a fork in me
For the first time in nearly 16 years I have new flatware. That's not counting of course my grandmother's silver that I received about 10 years ago, but that only gets pressed into service for extra-special occasions. I'm talking everyday stainless steel. This makes my third set of flatware in 20-some years of living-on-my-owness. The first set had roses or some kind of floral design on the handles; I don't know what became of them. The second, just-replaced, set had plain white plastic handles. Not my choice; my dad gave them to me for Christmas the year I got my masters and moved to DC. He also gave me a set of drinking glasses, making a big fuss over furnishing what he termed my "first apartment," which kinda pissed me off since at that point I had already maintained two apartments on my own and had an adequate set of dishes, furniture and stuff. But you know how it is with parents; you're perpetually 12 years old to them. Anyway, I ended up not taking the glasses with me, keeping instead the set a friend had given me a few years before when I moved into my (ahem) first first apartment but as noted I got a lot of use out of Dad's flatware.
Wishing for something jazzier than plain white, every now and then I would look at replacement flatware in housewares catalogs and stores, but nothing ever grabbed me. Then a few weeks ago I saw service for 8 for around $20 in a catalog. Cheap, yeah, but then I do have real silver remember. The opaque plastic handles came in my choice of cranberry or cobalt blue. The colors in my current kitchen -- the one I've had for 11 years now - are cobalt blue and white, but the scheme in the area where the dining table sits is primarily pink and burgundy. I have some cobalt blue appliances, serving dishes and spoons but when I bought new dishes a few years ago (from the same catalog, come to think of it) I went with cranberry-colored glass, reasoning that they would better blend in with the decor where they would be most often used. After much deliberation over which color flatware to go with, I concluded that cranberry flatware AND dishes seemed a little too much. Cobalt blue it is. They are so pretty and go well with the cranberry dishes, even outside of the blue kitchen.
One more thing: I inventoried the old white flatware as I bundled it up for eventual drop-off at Goodwill. Out of an original 32-piece set (8 forks, 8 knives, 16 spoons in 2 sizes) I lost only 3 forks in 16 years. The rest of the set is intact. Not too bad. But still, maybe I should order a backup set of $20 cobalt blue flatware. Or should I mix it up and go with cranberry... ?
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
10:41 PM
That's Hedley
Here's something I learned today: When you choke on a Raisinet, the worst is not over when you cough the raisin back out. The chocolate that remains behind and slowly melts down your windpipe is a bitch.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
3:42 PM
Plus ça change
This evening while waiting for Windows XP patches to download and install and the de-wormer to de-worm my hard drive I kept myself busy sorting and wrapping up loose change collected over the course of a year or so in a Tootsie Roll bank, a Barbie treasure (heh heh) chest, and a large glass mug with my current employer's logo etched upon it. (Hey, it just now occurs to me that I should use one for pennies, one for nickels and one for dimes, to obviate the sorting later on.) Even though the cash has been lying around the house all along I feel as if I am richer now. $81.50 richer, to be exact. It would be more if I didn't relegate all my spare quarters to the laundry cup. Having said that, I did find five stray quarters in the various banks, plus 3 Canadian pennies.
I'd gladly give it all away if only I could have five minutes in a room alone with whoever is responsible for the blasted Blaster worm. Well, not all of it. I'd want to keep a couple of rolls of pennies. In a sock.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
10:42 PM
Discretion: 0
So I'm on the elevator at the office just now and the three other passengers are chit-chatting. One asks another if she's still doing yoga. "Oh, yes. As a matter of fact I just spent a long weekend at a yoga workshop." This isn't the post office and they seem like nice people so I feel as if I can give voice to the thought that pops into my head.
Sandra: 1
I say with what I hope is a comical expression on my face, "that's not what they mean by 'going on a bender,' is it?" Smiles all around. Whew.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
2:14 PM
Tag, you're not it
Anticipating the day that the G-Men come knocking on my door to arrest me for harboring unauthorized music files on my hard drive, I've been busily tagging the files that are totally and utterly legit. This also gives me a chance to be anal-retentive in cleaning up sloppy taggage. So far so good, but one set of files, ripped from an audiotape version of a Jackson Browne album -- purchased by me in 1988 if memory serves, and that was the first I digitized once I figured out how -- is giving me untold grief. I've successfully put the origin and my initials in the notes sections, but the track numbers refuse to stay put, grrrrr. I diligently edit them and they equally diligently refuse to line up in order when I view the album in the Media Player. Harumph. This must be god's way of telling me that what I really need to do is buy the damn thing on CD anyway.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:24 PM
Don't touch that dial
My world has been turned upside down. Nothing is what it used to be. Everything has changed. I'm old enough to know that I'll adjust to the new situation in time yet I mourn the old way. The crisis? Starting today, the cable company has re-numbered all of the channels. I can still refer to Reagan Airport as National but there's no way around re-learning my way around the channel lineup. Heavy sigh; I've only just recently mastered the remote for the VCR I bought last spring.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
8:07 PM
Discretion is the better part of cowardice
Today's exciting after-work errand was stopping off at the post office to mail my un-signed John Hiatt CD to cyber-friend Pat, who was (heh, heh) instrumental in procuring a signed copy of same for me. I shopped the on-site "boutique" for a mailing envelope then stuffed and addressed it while waiting in line to pay. The clerk seemed cheery, possibly because she had just come on shift. After the person ahead of me had left and as I was approaching she good-naturedly told a co-worker that she could tell the previous clerk had re-arranged stuff at the boutique counter. All smiling and joking-like she said "they had better not do that again or else I'll..." and left it at that. Never one to let a straight line get away, I was on the verge of finishing her sentence with "go postal!" when thanks to maturity or else sheer self-preservation I decided at the last possible second to keep my big fat mouth shut.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
7:41 PM
Subterranean Carpark Blues, #874
Just two things:
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:17 PM
Hard on soft cases
In a recent e-conversation, Friend Bob mentioned his hard and fast rule about the care and feeding of musical instruments, particularly guitars: always buy a really good hardshell case for them. This wisdom was given to him by his mother and he has successfully passed it along to his son David. He closed with "No gig bags, nossir."
What are friends for if not to toy with, so I wrote back with an imagined scene from the imaginary movie "Bobbie Dearest" in which Bob, face slathered with cold cream, is inspecting young David's guitar collection. He lovingly runs his hands over the hard-cased instruments but stops suddenly at the sight of a nylon bag. Infuriated, he wakes his son by beating him with the offending item while shouting over and over "No gig bags EVER!"
Of course that gives whole new meaning to the line "Tina, bring me the axe!"
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
8:43 PM
Gear in rear
Friday's complimentary boost made me forget about a much more humbling incident that happened about an hour earlier. There I was on Columbia Pike, stopped at a light. No problem. But when it turned green, for some reason, either due to foot slippage (I hope) or mechanical malfunction (oh please, not that), my 5-speed car stuttered forward instead of gliding smoothly. If you know how to drive a stick, think back to that first lesson and your first, unsuccessful, and near-whiplash-inducing attempt to accelerate. That was me at this light. Now, I've been driving a stick shift since I was 13 (repeat that and I'll deny it), so this was especially distressing for me, not to mention muy embarassing. Did I mention that the stoplight where it happened is right next to a bus stop? That was packed at the time with commuters? Yikes.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
10:09 PM
Laying it on thin
That little swagger in my walk today? Thank an agency staff member who as we exchanged hellos in the in-house snack bar this morning commented "I saw you walking down the hall and noticed you were showing a little bee-hind." My first thought was "Oh lord I've got a tear in the seat of my pants" but she elaborated with "Are you losing weight? You're lookin' good, girl!" Oh. Um, thanks! A few other people have remarked on this in the past few weeks, although this was the first specific mention of any perceived improvement in my tush-al area. I've also noticed that my usual-size capris are loose-ish, even the newest pair. The odd part is that I'm not doing any deliberate dieting or exercise. I can only hope that somehow I am unconsciously doing something right and that I'm not wasting away from some undetected disease. I'll hope it's the former, even though this morning's compliment was delivered to me as I was waiting for my sausage, egg and cheese on a bagel breakfast sandwich. Either way, it is nice to be told by different people that I am looking good, or at least better. It makes me feel good!
I wonder how many calories are burned by swaggering?
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
1:09 PM