OK the best of 2007

Still moving along with posts from MySpace - wheeeee!

Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Victor Garber has freakishly large ears.
I'm sure you've noticed them. They're all I can stare at when I'm watching him in anything from Godspell to Guiding light, from Annie to Alias, from Exotica to External Affairs.
Today I was forced to tear my eyes away from his freakishly large ears, because I became obsessed with my freakishly long eyebrow hairs. I plucked one out of my eyebrow that was 1/2 an inch long, and I plucked a bunch more that were about 1/4 inch long.
Is it common to have such long eyebrow hairs? Probably less common than Victor Garber's freakishly large ears. Am I alone?

West Coast Soup Nazi
Who gets the soup?
The admin asst. simply buying her lunch, or the cranky executive looking up from his blackberry only long enough to bark out his order "soup"?

At Il Fornaio at Levi Plaza in San Francisco, it seems as though they favor the latter.
Let me explain further. I am that admin asst; the admin who was waiting in line in front of the cranky executive with the blackberry; the admin who ordered her soup BEFORE the executive had his turn at ordering; the admin who orders plenty of catering since my office is in the same complex as your restaurant; the admin who from now on will think twice about ordering your food, and just call Specialty instead. I was told I get no soup. He not only got a soup, but a big 20 oz cup of soup. When I pointed this out to the cashier, he told me there was no soup left for me. So, on a cold, blustery day I had to eat some mushy fruit and a sandwich made with yesterday's bread that ripped up the roof of my mouth when I ate it.
Thanks.

Monday, October 22, 2007
Little Theif will get hers.
This morning I experienced some unneeded stress.
I checked the balance on my credit card and there was a charge for $400+ dollars that I didn't make. It was for a party supply company that makes goodie bag stuff for birthday parties and decorations and such. I called my cc company, notified them of the faulty charge. They cancelled my card and are sending me a new one, investigating the charge and refunding me.
I remember I got a vm from this party supply company a week ago telling me there was a problem w/ my order. Since I didn't place an order, I didn't think anything of it. This morning, I listened to my old messages, found the message and from it got my customer number. I went to the company's website, with some prodding, found "my" order, and it turns out it was for 50 cardboard parrots, bags and bags of 100 ct. jelly bracelets, stickers, crap like that, being shipped to someone in Richmond. Luckily I got the order cancelled, got my credit card cancelled. And I also got the shipping address and the name of the person who stole my cc info. I let my credit card company know all about it, including the theif's name and address, and little miss who stole my info will certainly reap the ill effects of stealing my information, either legally or through all the bad karma she's creating for herself.
Hopefully, the reaping of that bad karma will include breaking a nail really bad at the quick so it bleeds a lot all over her new white dress, getting a paper cut with a manilla folder on the tip of her index finger on a day when she has to do a lot of typing or 10 key and then has to squeeze a lot of lemons, getting a super bad zit right under her nostril, getting a zit on her upper lip so everyone will think its a herpie on a day when she's got a hot date, getting decaf coffee instead of regular on a day when she hadn't had a lot of sleep the night before, getting regular instead of decaf on a day when she has to go to bed early, breaks a shoelace when she's running late, and whatever else I think of later.

Thursday, August 30, 2007
My friend B’s weirdness
We all have our weird little things that no one else understands. I'm fascinated by my friend B's.
She has this interesting problem with fruit. Here goes . . .
She can't eat small round fruit -- no blueberries or grapes especially. She can eat cherries if she picks them herself from a tree and she psychs herself up enough. She doesn't like the way they pop in her mouth. It's too much like eating eyes. Oddly enough, if one were to cut the fruit in half, thereby changing the shape and getting rid of the 'popping' factor, the fruit is even more creepy and she really won't be able to eat it. She does, however like the flavor of grapes and will drink grape juice, but she does not like the flavor of blueberries, except for the one time her friend tricked her and made her a banana-blueberry smoothie.Most large round fruit is OK. Melons are great, if one does not use a melon-baller to do the cutting of the melon, because then the fruit would be small and round. Melons and other fruit, however, can't touch. Cut like fruit is only allowed to touch cut like fruit. Cut watermelon cannot touch cut honeydew melon. They can be eaten separately, however.Fruit salad is a big no-no. All those cut pieces of fruit touching each other. She just can't do it.
I am not without my weirdness. The last job interview I had, which was for the job I have now, my boss asked me "What bothers you?" without thinking, and without restraint, my answer was "Tapping". I hate the sound of tapping, especially when there isn't a real pattern, like the wind opening and shutting a door, like that part in Dr. Zhivago when Yuri is a young boy and he's about to go to sleep after a long day at his mom's funeral. His adoptive parents and Tanya just said good night to him. They shut the door, turn out the light, the wind starts howling and starts knocking a branch against the window. Tapping, tapping tapping. Poor Yuri. I hate that part of the movie.
Embrace your ticks. It's who you are.

Friday, July 27, 2007
Genoa Keawe asked me to Dance!
We got back from Hawaii last week. I came home so freakin' sick. I'm blaming it on the coughing guy sitting behind me on the airplane. We were at Volcanoes Nat'l Park and I thought "man, my allergies are killing me today", but when I woke up the next morning I thought "that's no small moon, that's a space station." meaning "that's not allergies, that's a full on sucky cold". That day we drove to Akaka Falls. I felt awful. We went for lunch in Hilo. Hubby and kid decided they wanted to go to the dirtiest grocery store in Hawaii-nei and buy a bunch of Tuna Poki and Tako for lunch. Having the worst cold ever, I didn't eat. It didn't help that the place hubby chose to sit and eat was under a gazebo that was already occupied by a bunch of homless trannies drinking tall-boys out of paper bags.The coolest part of Hawaii however, the coolest thing that makes up for being sick on the Big Island, was that on Oahu, we went to see Genoa Keawe perform. I introduced myself to her, told her who my Kumu was and she told me to dance Papalina Lahilahi. I was totally stoked. However, she forgot to call me up to dance. I didn't get to dance for her. Still, Genoa Keawe asked me to dance for her. That's the coolest ever.

Saturday, June 23, 2007
Rhonda
One night, when I was19, I went out w/ my friend Jon. We went to see Dead Poet's Society at some theatre in Seal Beach. The night ended, as most nights did when I was 19 years old, at the Reno Room. Where was it? 4th and Redondo? Or was that Dick and Fay's Bistro? Whereever it was, we were at the Reno Room. We sat in a U-Shaped booth across from the bar. We noticed this couple at the bar. They weren't really a couple, they were just two people who were friends. They guy kept hitting on the girl. She kept pushing him off. Something funny happened, a joke in our conversation, somebody tripping or getting hit in the nards, I don't remember, but something unrelated to this couple happened, at it was funny, so we started laughing. The girl at the bar turned around, looked at us and said "Stop laughing at me." Jon and I both said at the same time "We're not laughing at you, we're laughing near you." (jinx, buy me a coke). Then the girl got up, grabbed my arm and demanded that I come w/ her to the bathroom. The bathroom at the Reno Room wasn't as bad as the bathroom in Trainspotting, but it did rival the bathroom at the Elbo Room in SF. It was a single room w/ a dirty toilet and sink. While she was peeing, she told me the guy she was with was named Tom, and they had been friends for a really long time. He wanted to hook up, but she didn't. And, if they were to hook up, she'd have to tell him that she had herpes, and she just didn't want him to know. I was thinking, gosh, I don't even know this girl's name and I know she has herpes, why wouldn't the guy she's friends with know already? When we got back to the table, the guy was sitting w/ Jon, and someone had bought another round of drinks. I learned the girl's name, Rhonda. We all sat down and had a few more rounds, talked, and then the night was over. Jon took me home.The next day, having remembered that Rhonda told me that she worked at the Robinson's in the Mall and I should stop by, I went to Robinson's and stopped by. We found out we went to the same crappy community college and started hanging out. We would go for cheap manicures at the college's cosmetology dept., we would eat lunch at the cafeteria run by the culinary department (run by tweakers who worked at the Olive Garden at the Cerritos Mall). We started clubbing together, going to El Paso Cantina on PCH, dance clubs in Hollywood almost every weekend. Rhonda taught me how to get free drinks out of guys, great make-up tips that I still use, fashion tips like never matching your tights to your shirt, but instead to your skirt. Over the years, our partying became less frequent and our friendship turned into the occasional e-mail and sporatic sending of Christmas Cards. I moved to SF, and she moved to NYC.Rhonda e-mailed me today. She said she was in town for the Giants vs Yankees game and wants me to meet up w/ her after the game tomorrow. I haven't seen her for about 15 years. Not only am I a different person, I also look a lot different. 15 years, two knee replacements, childbirth, being married, not indulging in the vices of my past anymore ... lets just say I'm a lot more curvy than I used to be. Let's just say Raphael and Gaugin would have thought me a great subject to paint if they were alive and well in SF today.What do I have to lose. I'll go see her tomorrow. I'll regret it if I don't.
update 02.11.09 - I went to see her. we had a great time together and I hope I get to see her again someday
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Open Letter to Trader Joe's -- Daly City
Aloha

Please speak with the sign maker at the TJ's in Daly City. Many of the signs have misspelled word, shoddy syntax and bad, inconsistent punctuation.
For instance, there is a sign in the wine department that speaks to a wine COMPLIMENTING a particular food. A wine cannot say good things about a particular food. A wine, can however COMPLEMENT a particular food, meaning, the wine pairs nicely with something. I chose not to buy that particular wine because the sign did not represent the product well.
Another example is the sign by customer service. It says "save significant money". What kind of money is insignificant? Shouldn't the sign read "save significant amounts of money" or "save significantly"?
If I had to single out the one thing that bugged me the most was the signmaker's ignorance of how to use an apostrophe correctly. An apostrophe is used to show possession, not plurality. However, an apostrophe is not used with the pronoun "it". It is, however, used as the contraction "it is".
I brought these three examples to the signmaker's attention one day. She told me that it wasn't a big deal and she shouldn't be expected to write perfect signs all the time. I agree that accurate pricing is more important, but by creating your own signage, rather than allowing manufacturer-generaged signage, you are taking on the role of representing a given product. If I am a manufacturer and I see my terrific product being represented poorly by Trader Joe's, why would I want to continue to sell to you, or for that matter, why would I want to continue to sell my products to your parent company Aldi?
Thank you for your time.
Friday, June 01, 2007
I don't speak Klingon, Mr. Chu
Today J., B. and I walked to Mixt Greens for lunch. On our way back we saw Frank Chu. I said "howzit hangin', Mr. Chu". He proceeded to bark out his theories and convictions about the 12 galaxies, president clinton, aliens, etc. B. said "I don't speak Klingon, Mr. Chu", he followed us for 2 blocks barking more of his philosophies. Finally B. said "Bill Clinton isn't president anymore". He stopped following us.


For you non-locals, just in case you don't know who Frank Chu is . . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Chu