Hockey. Passive Aggression.

Brook works all the time, and I just assumed that he was doing legal work. Turns out he got called up to the NHL, and is playing in the Stanley Cup or something as I write. Well, that explains his long absences better than "The Henderson Matter" does.

Which raises the question: WHY is hockey still being played, as June arrives? Does this season ever end? Don't the rookies need to get back to the farm to help their folks plant the fields or something? And by "farm", I don't mean the farm system the NHL uses, I mean the actual farms that these Minnesotan/Canuck boys come off of, and thus return to, during the only month when they don't have hockey.

I think hockey would be much more popular if it happened less often. Let the hunger build a little. Of course, I think all sports' seasons are too long. The NBA season is interminable, but more so at the beginning of the season than the end. In reality, football is the only one that used to get it right, and with all the weekday games being played, plus college, plus Pro Bowls and the draft, football now seems too long as well*. Baseball is too long, but it operates on a different principle. There are so many games that no one pretends they will see them all or care about them all, so they don't go to the buffet table too often, only when they're hungry. At least, that's my approach, helping me not hate baseball. NASCAR: too long. And so forth.

Thanks to Rangelife for tipping me off to Passive-Aggressive Notes from Roommates, Neighbors, Coworkers and Strangers. It is awesome. It also triggers a confession. And another memory.

First the memory. One time I was parked outside of Reckless Records on the North Side of Chicago, and when I came out to the car, there was a note on it that said, "Nice parking job! Oh wait, I forgot: Toyota!" I was seriously freaked out. Not sure why, except that the parking job was fine, and there were no other cars around, and I thought possibly I was being accidentally Asian-race-baited or something. I thought for sure that someone was in the shadows, ready to jump me. I found out later that my boyfriend's roommate had driven by, seen the car, and left the note. She thought it was hilarious, and for awhile I was mad (not sure why) but now if I see a car that's poorly parked, I think: "Oh wait, I forgot: Toyota!"

Confession: I used to live in this house called the Plutoschloss, and it was supposed to be a very temporary arrangement but I ended up living there, mentally in a liminal state, for 22 months. My roommates were a day trader and a "rocker". I went away for the weekend and returned to find a pair of my underwear and a bra of mine stashed behind the toilet on the second floor. They were clean. This freaked me. Wierder still was the combination. It was a thong and jogging bra (neither of which I ever wore, for different reasons) that must have been found only in the deepest recesses of my underwear drawer. Although I had known these guys for years, I didn't feel like this was something we could discuss face-to-face. So I wrote a note that said something like, "while I was gone, someone took my underwear from my dresser and hid it in the bathroom. Do NOT let your friends in my room. I don't want to talk about this ever, I just don't want it to happen again!" I posted it on the stairs where neither could miss it and hid in my room.

The day trader did something that lives in my memory as the only stand-up thing he has ever done: he confronted me and told me I was being passive-aggressive. Kudos. The rocker waited two weeks and then mumbled that his girlfriend got her period and needed some clothes and cleaned them but then didn't want to go back into my room to return them. [Whu? Why get a sense of propriety at this late date?] and he was sorry, geez, mumble mumble, (walk away).

Those are my two passive-aggressive stories. I feel so much better now.

*Really, I think the football season is too long even with only 32 games per season per team. I hate football, and would be fine with skipping the whole season and enduring only the Super Bowl. One game every year, and I would still only watch the commercials.

Why?

Sorry to be all judgey and shit, but why does someone think this is a good idea? Note: This woman already has a 33-year old. This is like if my mom decided to have another kid. Or twins. Only my mom is not even 62-years old yet! So its more like my mom having twins when I am, what? Well, in order to not divulge my mother's age, I'll just say "older". Like my own kids will be in elementary school. Probably getting sex ed talks of their own in this hippie-dippie, drown-them-in-TMI-so-they-still-think-a-girl-can-get-pregnant-in-a-hot-tub town.

Awright, I'm babbling.

Different Kinds of Revelations

It is impossible to me that today is Thursday. This week has dragged on interminably. Each hour seems twice as long as the one before, and the week seems as though it is a whole month long.

Of course, time is a construct. Mere mortals defined time to help them control and understand the natural world. As Saint Peter notes: "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." 2 Peter 3:8-9. That does not mean, necessarily, that the dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. No, Peter just meant that metaphorically; the dinosaurs coexisted peacefully with humans just 6,000 years ago. You can learn all about it at The Creation Museum.

Hipsters, start your engines and let the ironic road trips BEGIN!

So if dinosaurs* lived six thousand years ago, why does it seem like this week also started this long ago?

Another revelation, this one gustatory: There are Oreo Pop-Tarts. Have these been intentionally kept from me? Okay, they are not technically branded as Oreo, but that is a minor licensing issue that is no doubt being hammered out by the armies of senior associates at various NY law firms. Keep up the good work, colleagues in the Trademark department!

* If you are older than 25, and you have any interactions with small children, you already know this: The six dinosaurs of our youth are gone, replaced by multitudes of dinosaurs with unpronounceable names. Remember the brontosaurus? Gone, replaced by the diplodocus and bracheasaur. T. Rex, Triceratops are still clinging to dear . . . extinction, but they are being crowded out by other, bigger dinosaurs. Pteradactyl? Try Archeopteryx, Eoraptor or one of their cousins. Who are all these beasts? Alas, the Stegosaur is no more.

Questions, Answered.

First, here's a link to Pants-Off Dance-Off, for those of you whose google button is broken.

Second, there is one question that haunts me every time I am out of my office on a weekday. Okay, two questions: Who are these people at the cafes and restaurants? And why aren't they working? I have obtained some satisfaction from this man-on-the-street report, which confirms what I suspected. They are disabled, retired, blogging graduate students. All of them.

The End of Civilization

There is a TV show called Pants-Off Dance-Off.

It is what it sounds like.

Or is that funny enough to give one hope for humanity? I need to think on that one.

So sad

I saw a billboard for a Huey Lewis & the News show at Wente Winery today.* Huey Lewis was the first concert I ever went to - 20 years ago. I am relieved to report that I did not think, upon seeing the poster, "ohmigod! I should go see them." That would thoroughly depress me.

Not so sad: I think changing the color of the blog has reinvigorated me.

A tangent: why is it that I can think up the plots of short stories but I hate reading them? I think its because they all seem so one-note. I'm not going to read any to test the theory, so don't bother offering suggestions for ones that are "complex" or "multi-layered". Okay, talk amongst yourselves.

* Next day edit: Let's be clear, I was on the BART when I saw this poster, not at Wente Winery.

Other thoughts

Why do people sit for hours at Starbucks just staring?

Why do art students wear aggressively ugly eyewear?

Panhandling 203

The Bay Area is sort of famous, in my mind, for panhandlers with "witty" signs along the lines of "I won't lie, I need $ for weed." These annoy me highly. But today I saw a dude outside the SF MOMA with a cup and a sign that said, "give to the United Negro Pizza Fund". And that made me laugh.

Next day update: "Starvin' Like Marvin". That's another good one I've seen around.

Who'da Thunk It?

Out of the corner of my eye I caught a TV news segment on the recently formed Marin County Anti-Hoarding Task Force, and I thought it would be a quick and dirty funny post reliving certain earlier, funnier blog posts about hoarding. I was so wrong. Doing a Google search about the task force yielded such an embarassment of riches that I don't even feel up to the task of blogging about this topic. Did you know that there are professional declutterers? Support groups for the children of hoarders? Hoarders on the anti-hoarding task force? When it's this farcical, it ceases to be funny.

If you're wondering about all the changes around here, don't worry, it's just the color that's different. I won't be funnier or more topical or more interesting. I added tags, but since I have posted more than 300 times in almost 2 years, getting the catalog up to speed may take a little while. I am doing it in a totally scattershot approach, and if there's a topic you feel needs to be represented, well then, get your own blog.

Argh!

Here's the obligatory post-after-the-photo post, so you can read the text below. Someday, when I am retired, I will actually read the Help section of this damn program, and figure out how to solve this photo posting problem, and change the color of the blog, and generally make it so much nicer to visit this website. By then blogging will be so passe, you won't even check to see what it looks like. But it will rock.

Rejecting the Clamor of Weevil

A call went up from the believers, exhorting the blogger to post an image of thy holiest of corporeal maternal mentors. Yay, truly unto thee: here, here, are the godmothers.

I just wanted to be clear on that in case you were thinking: When did the Church start endorsing same sex marriage?

The little guy on the left there isn't Q's godfather, by the way. It's Father Tim.

I Forgot

I meant to post some pix in that prior post, but even I got tired of reading it. So here are some pictures. They were taken a few weeks ago when we hedged our bets. Oops, I mean, got the kids' baptized. Enjoy.

This is what passes for baptismal whites here in NoCal.

Mimi trying to read the creation story from Genesis to Q, while he eats a toy shark.

Godmothers! Gather 'round!

A Really Verbose Entry - Worse Than the Prior Post

Wow. It was quite a weekend. Lots to blog about. Actually, don’t get your hopes up. The stuff that happened is exciting at the level of, well, blogging about, but it will not leave a lasting impression, or have a kicker of a punchline or anything. But I’ll give it my best shot.

Yesterday I took the kiddos to the zoo, which would not be notable in itself, but there was a guy being led around the children’s area on a leash by a much older, slovenly and obnoxious woman. He was in his thirties, black jeans, black T-shirt, leather collar, black leash. She was in her sixties, very heavy, wearing maybe cullottes, white hair, fanny pack. They were with another couple, both heavy and in their sixties. He was wearing a leather vest, leather cap and had a very dark thick van dyke beard and a shaved head. His lovely mistress was wearing shorts, a big red T-shirt, and had two braids, like she was Heidi. I tried to ignore them – and hope Li didn’t ask – but dog mistress kept yelling out loud comments to The Bear dude. “I feel like Peabody and Sherman!” God, poor Peabody and Sherman.

This little show irritated me at the time, but I got progressively more annoyed by it as the day wore on. For a variety of reasons (none of them my own sexual predilection), I have had cause to think about the leather subculture, and as a general matter, I just find it annoying and slightly pathetic. Why do people need to go through all the rigamorale to get off? That's sort of a bummer for you, if you need costumes and equipment to get into it.

Anyway, for this pair, it's clearly part of the thrill to go out in public and be seen behaving this way. But the part that makes it awful is that the intended audience for this little parade were zoo visitors (or -- horrors! -- the animals?), which at the Oakland Zoo at 10:30 on a Saturday morning, is people under the age of 5 and their parents. Making it a sort of reverse kiddie porn or something. I mentioned this to a friend last night and she thought maybe they were just in the kids' area because they'd seen the rest of the zoo, and also the Oakland Zoo is small, but it isn't like outside the kids' area, there were any more adults. I guess the thrill for this couple is to go to the place where they would be least expected, and to be seen there. And that's hot? I am just lost on this one. And grossed out.

And so then last night was Paladar Temescal, which seemed really fun at the time but today's wicked hangover sort of colors its memory.* We sat with a group of people who were pretty random, including a dead ringer for Teri Garr and who was so loud that I was dumbstruck and became a reserved consumer of her wit. Which was hit or miss, by the way. She laughed very loudly at her own jokes, and at one point made offensive remarks to another woman at our table which were so ballsy, I thought I would die. She said that she and her friends would invent fake stories for each of us, and then proceeded to say that the only Asian woman at the table was a mail order bride. By the end of the night, Teri had become . . . almost the father of the bride at the end of the reception, pouring more wine, laughing loudly but also possibly on the verge of tears, just saying shit that everyone later pretends wasn't said. She was awesome. One of her friends looked like Cheryl Crow. Cheryl, to her credit, was suitably mortified by Teri's awesomeness.

Today was a lackluster Mother's Day, but I am not blaming that on Mr. Scobs and the kids. They cleared out and the only thing I could think to do was drive to The Gap to see if I could find some new workout pants. So lame. It was the hangover. I probably had all of three glasses of wine, and I am such a wuss, I've been holding my head all day. Who cares, right? I only mention today to tell you that a very sad watershed event occurred at dinner tonight. Li, who is in the habit of asking, "When you were little, did you like ___?" all the time, asked, "When you were little, did you like the Yankees?" I said, no. He then asked, "Do you like the Yankees now?" which brought B back into the dining room to say, "We are Red Sox fans and we think the Yankees stink." To which, L said, "I like the Yankees."

You know that cartoon sound where the car skids off the road, and there's the squeal of breaks and the smash of chrome? That sound happened in our dining room tonight. It sent B around the bend. He's so mad. Li then asked me who someone in the sports section was (Derek Jeter) and he walked around asking about Derek Jeter all night. He's clearly figured out a way to piss off his dad without there being any repercussions. B has decided to ignore it in hopes that this will pass, but possibly his greatest fear, just short of our kids getting addicted to drugs, is that they will be Yankees' fans.

*The Paladar was actually fun, and delicious, but raving about it would bury the lead, which was Teri Garr.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

My husband warned me this would happen. He's been urging me to do it for months. And I reached the end of the road today. It's over between us. Me and Scott McKinzie, Dentist.

He's had it coming for about six months, but I'll start at the beginning. When I first moved to CA, I started seeing Paula Roemer, World's Greatest Dentist. Dr. Roemer's staff were kind and funny and not nosy, and they unfailingly put lip balm on your lips before they gently removed the tar and plaque from your teeth. Dr. Roemer is a Master Swimmer, mother to 4 boys, runs her own business. What's not to love? She's also got the curliest hair you've ever seen! Adorable!

Then she decided to have another child - a little girl - and a few years later she brought on two younger dentists to help out. Drs. Chen and Loew. Nice enough, quiet. Still gentle and lip balmy. Did not push X-rays while I was pregnant, no matter how safe they might have been. Later still, Dr. Roemer decided to sell part of her practice and practice solely out of her Martinez office. Fine for her, but I'm not going to Martinez any more often than the law requires (literally, I mean. I have some cases out there).

She sells the practice to Scott McKinzie. For a while, a lot of the staff stayed the same, and although the lip balm was struck from the budget, it was convenient, and there was parking.

But the Worm has turned. The grievances started to mount. Large (I mean 20x30) photos of The Dentist crossing various finish lines started appearing. Then Tina, a hygenist I particularly liked, left (after she told me that a disconcertingly large number of people fear dentists because they were sexually molested by dentists in their childhood, making me wonder if the American Dental Academy - or whoever certifies toothbrushes - will come in for a Vatican-style sex abuse conspiracy shakedown in the next few years).

I digress sharply. Anyway, the first real trouble was when I was told that I had to have all my fillings replaced. I was quoted a price (on paper) but delayed the procedure til after Q was born. During the changing of the fillings, I realized I didn't like this guy. It took four giant shots of novocaine to get one area in a pain tolerant (not pain free) zone and, the kicker was, he broke a sweat while he was working. I realized then that there is only one man whose face should be as close to mine as that, and I am married to him. Seeing other men's faces up close is completely disgusting. Sorry, male readers, it just is.

Alright, this story is taking way longer than necessary. Suffice to say,

1. the fillings are much more cold sensitive than the old ones;
2. I ended up getting charged way more than I had been quoted, basically at the whim of the dentist's wife;
3. I had a three-month argument with said wife about the bill via the office manager who kept apologizing and agreeing that it wasn't fair but then who didn't do anything. (I won, in the end).

Fast forward to today. Here are the intolerable conditions. You tell me whether I am wrong.

1. There are now no parking spots in the lot reserved for his patients. Cheap bastard! First the lip balm and now this!?
2. The hygenist asked me, for the third straight visit, how I had potty-trained my three-year-old. What's that about?? Talk to your 8 year old (or whatever) about it, lady, not me!
3. The Wife was there with a puppy. In a medical office. Is that legal? It sure is gross.
4. And here's the most annoying: The office walls are now decorated with American Idol quotes. And there's an American Idol board game featured on the counter - a prize to the winner of the American Idol word search and trivia games which were written by The Dentist and His Wife. Paradoxically, the waiting room magazines have gone boringly upscale. Newsweek and the New Yorker have replaced Us Weekly and People. That's not right. Why is the only source of American Idol information in the office posted next to the examination chair on a pastel sign?

So it's over. And I am not even going to postpone it because of William Hung's untimely death. Dr. McK will just have to muddle through this difficult time all by himself.

Jersey Pride - WTF Edition

A favorite blog of mine, Rangelife, recently featured a story about a house that collapsed in SF. Although an entry in Seamus' WTF regular column, the story was not in itself memorable until I got to the comments section, where "Rox" said:

Maybe I should remain on the East Coast. That sh#$ doesn't happen here in NJ.

Now anyone who knows me knows that I don't take Jersey throwdowns lightly. And in a real Jersey fashion, I am very critical of uses of New Jersey as a comparison tool even when Jersey comes out on top. Here's why. If you think Jersey can't produce a house sliding off a hill as well as SF can, YOU ARE WRAWNG. To wit:

Never doubt that New Jersey will have better collapsed houses than anywhere else outside of an underdeveloped nation in the path of an earthquake-induced tsunami-cane.

In an eerily similar vein, weatherologists reported that the first storm of the 2007 hurricane season was identified today and named Subtropical Storm Andrea. Although I am humbled by the reference, nothing short of a catastrophic event that takes Andrea off the List of Popular Baby Names will satisfy me. I hate the name Andrea.

A Truth Universally Reviled

Excuse the formality of tonight's title. I finished reading Emma last night and the annoying circumlocutions of the 19th century are fixed in my brain until (insert your own corny Victorian weather reference here).

Here are the truths which I have previously reviled but am accepting, however tentatively, these days:

1. Once you have two babies, it does not matter how much weight you lose or how cute you once were, your body changes shape, occasionally in undesirable ways.
2. The only way to return a pregnancy-deformed body to a shadow of its prior cuteness is to exercise (NOTE: This is an as-yet untested maxim).
3. Exercise actually delivers on the other promises I have so ruefully ignored and rebuffed lo these 33 years.

So annoying. I joined the Y again though and went this morning. The Oakland Y is the world's greatest place to work out, because, in addition to the benefits of exercise that accrue from 25 minutes on an elliptical machine (if any; see 2 above), the other clientele cannot possibly make you feel bad. The blind, the halt and the lame. Is that the expression? As someone funnier than me once said, Everyone at the Oakland Y is there on doctor's orders. This has a twofold effect: (a) you look great and perfect by comparison and (b) you realize that if they can haul their medical scooters up the front steps, you can shut up and sweat.

Other truths, less universally reviled:

The White House is a warren of G-A-Y-ness. Yeah, you knew that. But if there's one thing to make it achingly clear, its a white tie dinner honoring the Queen. Have you seen the guest list? Both Josh Bolton and Stephen Hadley brought their moms, dude.

By the way, young Barbara Bush attended with Jay Blount. I don't know if she's seriously involved with this guy, but here he is rocking such a DeGrassi Jr. High look, it makes me think she brought him to honor the place in the British Commonwealth held by our neighbors to the North.*

Maybe the "gay" assessment of our national security advisor is a little half-cocked (har har). Maybe his wife is too down-to-earth for monarchy. If so, godspeed to her. Mrs. Hadley was all like, "take your mother, she'll love that crap."

*Here's how lame Canadians are: in voting on the Worst Canadian, the leading candidate may be a hockey team owner. Britain chose Jack the Ripper as the Worst Brit. Although maybe I shouldn't slag Canada for that. There are "certain quarters" where A-Rod would probably win Worst American.

What's Up With Us?

This is what's up with us. We've decided to rescue our backyard from concrete tree stumps that litter it. I like to imagine that the prior owner had a problem controlling all the concrete trees in the back yard, and cut them down, leaving the ugly stumps for us to toss out.

The bigger quandary for us is how to honor the duck that once lived at our house without actually keeping his fake pond and "house". I'm not kidding with this one. A prior owner kept a duck in the yard to control the snails. A pest control method I can almost get behind, if I could find a compliant duck that wouldn't fear the kids or vice versa. We have a big black plastic tub that was probably a pool for the duck, as well as a wierd hutch that it lived in at times.

Once the backyard is finished, we will have y'all over to roll around in the hardy grass/white clover, dig your toes into the "sand pond" and sit on the man patio that will be built outside the workhouse (aka the man hut, aka the MAN-struation hut).

Overheard

"The ciabatta's cool though." One male teen to another, entering Albertsons.

This statement is only true if it refers to the temperature of recently baked bread.

But how down on your conversational luck would you have to be to say it for any other reason?

Stop Stopping the War in Iraq!

It probably isn't the most impotent protest being held tomorrow, but I think the "Emergency Rally to end the war tomorrow in Oakland" ranks right up there.

I could pretend that this was a rally to stop some war in Oakland, but that would be more credible and effective than what it is. Some civic rallying against the high murder rate, or the shitty schools, or the As moving to Fremont - all of those I can see "sending a message" to someone. But I know this rally is against the war in Iraq, so why should I bother showing up?

First off, its being held in Oakland, where there is probably 100% agreement that this is a dumb war, and it is 100% certain that Bush could give a shit what we think. Second, it's in front of the Grand Lake Theater (famous for its owner's political commentary on the marquee), which means they anticipate only about same number of people who showed up for the premiere of Planet of the Apes to be at this rally.

Which will be demoralizing, right? I mean, with 100% unanimity on this point (at least presumed by the Bush administration), shouldn't Oaklanders turn their attentions elsewhere? Like, to seeing if Hot Fuzz is any good?