Hater Tuesdays #9: Blond

I'm too freakin' busy (working, shopping, wrapping, ribboning, lighting, hanging, crafting, carding, oh yeah and then there's the regular stuff, too) to hate much this week, but I'll see if I can muster up some antipathy towards:

#1. Christmas tree lights. I would bet you that more than one marriage has disintegrated during a battle royale over Christmas lights. And I'm surprised we don't hear more about holiday suicides found hanging from the rafters with a string of the fuckers around their neck. I'm just sayin.

#2. Dull scissors. Nuff said.

#3. Moneyed Blond Life-Skills Challenged Coworkers. Okay. So. At work? I'm the Money Lady. You got something to talk about that has to do with money, you come talk to me. So this morning, one of our lovely employees - who has, on a previous occasion, disclosed to me that she has never balanced her checkbook in her life (when I asked her how she would know if she was ever in danger of becoming overdrawn, she said, 'Oh, if that happens it just rolls over into the other (her husband's business) account,' and I think at that point I vomited into my mouth a little bit) came and told me that she might need to have a check we gave her reissued because she just hates going to the bank and so she leaves checks in her purse or car and never, ever deposits them and yes, she knows that even though you can deposit as well as withdraw (who knew?!) at an ATM it means that's just even more time she has to spend there and now she can't find the check and she'll have a look one last time to see if it's in her car but if not could we issue her a new check and she promises she'll deposit it but she just hates going to the bank, hates hates hates it, and I'm like, am I hallucinating? 

First of all, this is a $40 check we're talking about here. And it costs about $25 for the organization to produce a stale-dated (that means 'paper' to you non-accounting-geeks) check. So we're taking a loss here because you're too lazy to drive through an ATM? SERIOUSLY? Second of all, who has the luxury of not depositing checks? Most people I know are making hot tracks to the bank with any funds at all. Third of all, who the hell does not balance their checkbook because they have an unlimited supply of money? It took every ounce of self-control I had (which is not a lot, people) to keep from dropping a pithy barb about thinking that things only come out of slots rather that go in, too (ahem); I mean, I deserve an Oscar for the poker face I kept plastered on. I'd like to thank the Academy in advance.

Lost and Found

This has been an eerie week.

I have been found by two sisters whose Dad was road dogs with my Dad - the elder sister's name has floated around in the ephemera of my memory for years, and the younger sister was born in my house when I was 10. Mirabai and Aaisha. Like their names, their emails have been music to me; full of pathos but also a shared laughter. They, like me, went through it - the insanity of being a child of the demimonde - and I look forward to hearing about their older brother, Mack, who was my age, from what I remember. Their emails have been dazzling and brought me to tears.

In addtion to being found, I have found someone as well. My mother. I haven't spoken to her in eight years. My best friend urged me last weekend to find her before she's gone, and so I started digging, and ten minutes ago I received an email with her phone number and address.

I'm almost afraid to call. Afraid of what I will hear, and what I will say. Maybe a card first. I don't know.

Hater Tuesdays #8: Holiday Edition

So last weekend I spent a significant portion of my time swearing, sweating, schlepping, and scowling. Why?

#1. Fucking Christmas lights. While the end product looks like the work of the hand of God (and in Stepford there is some real LED battling going on, with neighbors on the corners trying to outdo one another), the actual production of putting these bastards in order is surely Satan's work. Untangling them, testing them, stringing them, straightening them, tossing out whole strands into landfill because one damn little brat light decides to not work and brings down all its siblings with it. I spent three hours one night last week putting together strings of C7 (those are the big, fat, very hot traditional bulbs we 50s/60s/70s kids grew up with) lights, only to have one suddenly pop and destroy the whole strand. I almost cried. Two nights ago it took me two full hours to string lights onto my tree. Admittedly, I guess I'm a little OCD about my Christmas tree, but still. It shouldn't be that hard. I just can't seem to adopt a firm philosophy about lights and stick with it - I vacillated between 'string them in a spiral towards the center' to 'string them from the outside in' to 'just fill in the fucking holes.' When done, I felt like I'd done twelve rounds and been KO'd. But it gets worse, because the lights' evil twin is........

#2. Inadequate electrical grounding. I live in a cute vintage bungalow. And I do mean vintage. Which means that there is not one single three-prong outlet in the ENTIRE house, nor is there a single power outlet on the OUTSIDE of the house - meaning, in order to power the outdoor lights and fulfill my white-trash suburban-lawn Christmas dreams, I've had to run all manner of adapters, power strips, and extension cords through a slightly cracked window in the living room, around the porch, and across the lawn (I have to admit, it is looking pretty cute, though). So I got the lighting done and then it was onto the tree, and as I am every year, this time I'm again vexed by........

#3. Extraneous Christmas tree ornaments. As I mentioned before, I'm a little OCD about my tree. I have Rules. It must be brightly lit. No ornament is allowed to touch any branch (other than the one it hangs from) nor any other ornament. The ribbon needs to be wrapped at an angle and woven in and out of the branches at strategic intersections. I favor metallic or glass ornaments. Which leaves me with a huge box full of very cute but nonconformist ornaments that won't be making it onto my tree this year, or any other year. They're all either too heavy (like the beautiful glass bunch of violet grapes), too folksy (like the knitted sheep - one white, one black), or too long (like the fabric tassels). But many of them are near and dear to my heart, so what's a girl to do? I can't bear to leave these redheaded Yule stepchildren in a box while their shiny, lightweight siblings twinkle and glow, but I haven't yet found a viable display alternative. Ideas?

#4. Christmas cards. I love Christmas cards. Love, love, love them. I love the whole ritual of picking them out (I always get two of three types every year), writing in them, addressing them, sealing the envelope (some years I even get buck wild and use sealing wax and a seal), sticking on a cute holiday stamp, and putting them in the mailbox itself is like seriously busting a Yuletide nut to me. But I can't believe how lame and classless most people are these days by failing to send cards. WTF? Is it so hard? It's a a social nicety that we're losing and I think that is super lame. It's a very cheap, simple way of saying hey to people whom you care for but don't see or have been kind to you throughout the year but it's too much trouble? If that's the case, you kind of suck.

#4. Racist northern Italians. Apparently the xenophobes of Verona can't hack a black baby Jesus. And on top of it, they hate foreigners so much they want to ban Chinese food and kebabs? I ran this by my soul-brother and he said: "I've hated Italy since the first day I was there. Fuck that place." When I expressed interest in the source of his vitriol, given that most people go on and on about how fabulous Italy is, he responded: "mainly because it's a filthy, overpriced, self-consumed shithole living on an idealized history of misogyny and slavery. oh, and the food...so overrated it's not even funny...expensive, bad tasting wine of dubious origins.....I can go on...we can talk about the corrupt court/legal system and the anti-American sentiment...fuck that place. I laughed when their prime minister got drilled in the face a few days ago...."

I love that guy. 

So There Was This Pterodactyl.......

So I asked this girlfriend of mine, 'Does your man always have to outdo you? Like, when you say you don't feel well, he has to say 'me neither?' Or if you wake up and say you had a scary nightmare, he tells you you wouldn't believe the night terrors he had that were just so incredibly horrible that he woke up screaming in a cold sweat?' 

"Are you kidding?" she replied, "Only every damn day. Haven't I told you this? The oneupmanship? Listen, I could tell him, 'You wouldn't believe it, but this pterodactyl flew down out of the sky this morning and plucked my eyes out!' and he would say, 'Well, that's nothing! Today a T. Rex chased me down the street and bit my legs off and I had to grow them back before I could walk home!'"

Hater Tuesdays #7

You know what?

#1. I really, really, really don't care about Tiger Woods' accident, Tiger Woods' prescriptions, Tiger Woods' monster-in-law, or where Tiger Woods' has been swinging his club. Seriously. I don't care. I mean, okay - a wealthy, accomplished athlete has a taste for hot blondes, even if he maybe has a wife. This is news? There are soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan with wives and children waiting for them, foster kids aging out of the system with nowhere to go, hungry families right there in your town, the powers that be have decided to scale back breast cancer screenings for women (!!!), and the banks and private security firms are robbing us blind, but I'm supposed to give up two minutes of my day to speculate about what some golf star I've never met does in his bedroom. Media, are you for real? Which brings me to........

#2. Using 'the children' to advance your agenda. Sigh. I'm at the gym today, where both TVs were filled with Tiger, Tiger, Tiger and the closed captioning ticker says some bloggers were excoriating Tiger Woods because he's such a 'letdown' to the children because he was such a great role model before this fall from grace. Just like every other bogeyman (porn, heavy metal records, Tinky Winky, Marilyn Manson, what have you) is in danger of corrupting or damaging the children. Listen to me: human children are the most brute savage little creatures on earth and have to have the evil socialized or ass-whipped (and I say with with love) out of them, as needed. And if you're worried about the damage they might suffer at the hand of the immoral, I'd be a lot more worried about My Super Sweet Sixteen, Gossip Girls, The Hills, creepy church guys, poor nutrition, and preteens dressing like little hookers. I'm just sayin.

#3. Back to the breast cancer thing. So we're going to recommend less screening for women? I live in Marin County; which has, ironically - and I say that because of it's affluence and high levels of education, health insurance, access to information and more fucking fresh air and opportunities for wholesome outdoor activities than pretty much anywhere you can imagine - has one of the highest rates of breast cancer in the country.

Cancer is a thief. It stole my friend Sara at age 22. It stole Tree Guy's mother just when she had finished raising her boys, dumped her ex-husband, and was finally getting to live her own life for herself. My best friend's Mom has been fighting it it Mexico and my BFF at work lost her mother to it at 15, which irrevocably altered the course of her life. It nearly robbed me of my Grandmother, twice. At my workplace, every other Boomer woman is a survivor and conversations about oncologists in the breakroom are common. I guarantee you that if we were losing men at the same rate because their nutsacks were metastasizing, there wouldn't any bullshit from the DHHS about recommending less screenings.

#4. Ants. Look, I'm pretty merciful. I've decided to let the gopher in the front yard dig up my lawn because I just can't tolerate the idea of poisoning it and the poor Mama gopher dying while all her gopher babies starve. I figure there's enough lawn for the both of us. And several years ago, when I had to kill eight mice living in my beach house in a dark summer episode I still call Mauschwitz, I cried almost every time (nowever, a caveat - the flies that invaded my house this past summer, a bonus of living near horses, I showed no mercy for and almost didn't even feel bad when they buzzed in agony after being caught on flypaper). But these damn ants. In the past week or so they've made an appearance, first feasting on my boy dog's food while leaving the girl's alone. As of last night, it's all fair game. The organic orange spray isn't working, apparently, so now it's time for the toxins. I hate bugs.

#5. Know what I'm not hating on? There's snow on the hilltops here! And a white layer of frost on all the roofs and lawns. If this were happening every day for months on end that would suck, but it's a rarity and thus novel and kind of cool. 

Hater Tuesdays #6: Class Rage

I have this thing for real estate shows (House Hunters, House Hunters International, Location Location Location, etc.); it's like porn for thirtysomethings. On weekend mornings, specifically, I like to wake up, brew a pot of coffee, unfold my fresh, crisp, unsullied Chronicle, and watch real estate shows (British, preferably) while I do the crossword puzzles. Simple pleasures. I much prefer to watch the working couple with a modest budget struggle to find a cute dwelling in a passable neighborhood than to see the smarmy, spoiled millionaires shopping for a $1.4 million 'vacation' home in a tropical locale. But every once in a while, someone just take the cake. And last night it was.........

#1. Real estate trust fund brats. So last night I had pretty much tapped out the library of House Hunters International on my DVR, so I had to slum it with the domestic, plain Jane House Hunters - but oh! Look! She's looking for a house in San Francisco - this ought to be interesting! And they introduced a 25-year-old graduate student - let me say that again - student - with a 500K budget. That's half a million dollars, folks. And she was, let me say it yet again - a 25-year-old student. I nearly had an aneurysm when she said, 'I'm really lucky that my Mom and Dad put away a 'little money' for me to buy a place with,' because yes, sweetheart, half a mil is just piggy bank change! And she kept going on and on about how she wanted to live in the Mission because it was so 'young' and 'hip.' At the end of the day she saw a tiny condo in the Mission, a spacious two-bedroom flat in the Sunset that I would have given my left, and possibly right, pinkie for (but, pobrecita, she felt like she might be 'isolated' in such a 'residential neighborhood' that was so far from the 'hip and young Mission' and she thought the noise from the L-Taraval streetcar might bother her), and a passable place in Nob Hill. Where do you think she moved? Yes, the hip and young Mission! If she thought the L-Taraval was going to be a noise problem, I can't wait to see how she likes the 2am post-last call yahoos below her window, not to mention the hookers, Nortenos, and crackheads. Best of all, in the closing shot she waved at the camera and said 'Thanks, Mom and Dad!' Suck it, sweetie. Just suck it.


#2. Do you work? I have some social networking friends who shall remain nameless, but I'm like, do you have a job? Every time I read your status you're in (insert tropical island), (insert glamorous cosmopolis), or (insert ski resort), and the only work you do seem to do involves, like, painting or something. Really? I mean.........really? People like you exist? And there are the ones who flash the bling and post their exotic location photos but you know were stinky patchouli slackers living on monthly checks from their parents who couldn't cut it in the working world with their MFAs in Ceramics or whatever and ended up employed - in a management capacity, natch - for their Dad. You can front all you want, but I knew you when, you dirty hippie. And you're still a poser.

#3. Living amongst the affluent when you're...........not. I read a really interesting study somewhere that posited that when people are living in a poor community but everyone's kind of in the same boat, there's a fairly decent happiness quotient. It's when you start introducing inequity - the haves and have-nots - that tensions and unhappiness spike. I'll never forget my first few days on the job here in Marin County, when I was required (yes) to attend my predecessor's retirement lunch (and pitch in for the bill), and I ended up sitting next to a blond Boomer dripping in diamonds. I was introduced as the new girl from San Francisco and she turned to me and asked, 'Oh, did you buy a house here?' and I nearly choked on my focaccia. In the City you can pretty much assume everyone rents, and everyone takes Muni, and even if we're not all the same, we kinda look it. Then the bluehair on the other side of the Diamond Dripper, upon finding out that I'd lived in the Sunset for four years, said she grew up there but now when she drives through it looks so.......'run-down and dirty.' Shut up, trophy Matron. All over this place are women who don't 'really' have to work, but do for the 'extra' money and to 'keep busy' while their kids go through their college-prep paces at the local elite private schools. Office conversations involve private high school admissions policies, holidays at Sea Ranch, and skiing. Those of us who can afford maybe a staycation at The Ranch (as in home) and barely scrape up the money for cleats for our sons on the football team keep our mouths shut and endure. Can I get some more nails for this cross, please? I seem to be slipping off of it.


#4. Trophy spouses. When I knew you, you ate tofu and ramen every night. You were so frugal you didn't buy toilet paper, but let your housemates do that for you. You shared an in-law with six other bike messengers. You had the cheapest rent but the biggest room, becuase you knew how to hang in there. Your let your stripper girlfriend buy the groceries, or your Union/banker/gangster boyfriend shower you with dinners and chunky jewelry. Now you've managed to parlay your uterus or big one into a lucrative union with a partner who gets paid and you want to talk to me about your new SUV or latest jaunt to Bora Bora. Enjoy your ride and have a good time, but make sure you have a contingency plan for when s/he trades you in or gets tired of pulling all the weight. When that happens, feel free to call me early in the morning to kvetch - I might be just a bitter, student-loan indentured servant wage slave, but I'll be well-rested, because the peace of mind of being truly independent is priceless.

Ghetto Christmas #2

A few years ago I wrote about receiving an aesthetic smackdown from an old flatmate for even comtemplating using colored lights on the collective household tree. Though queen of my castle for quite some years by the time I wrote that, I was still scared of appearing tacky and went with my safe old white lights.

Last year, however, I let my Latin hang out and I up and went out and bought about 500 colored lights and lo, it was grand.

This year, I have for the first time in my life a full-fledged, bona fide expanse of suburban lawn and I'll be damned if I'm not going to make the most of it while I have it. For Halloween I set up a mini-graveyard out there and this Christmas I'm also going to go off - maybe it won't look like Santa and Elvis got into a barfight and threw up or anything, but I'm going to try. Courtesy of the mircale that is Freecycle, I've got those big old-fashioned, fat colored outdoor lights, 8 bags of white icicle lights, 10 walkway candy canes, a picket-fence nativity scene, matching 3' tall nutcrackers to flank the front door, and so help me GOD, I will have something lit up on that lawn - whether that be a set of reindeer, a couple of inflatable penguins, or even just a friendly snowman, I don't know. We'll have to see. Just hold me back from buying this, a 5' tall inflatable Santa in bed - with - are you sitting down, people? - rotating peppermint bedposts. Please, stop me.