okay

At 10 this morning, everyone was fine. Haven't heard anything since, but news and blog reports indicate that where they are, they should be okay. In a bizarre twist, the ones who did actually leave? By all accounts they're house is under 11' of water.

Jesus

fingers crossed

Consider Your Mellow Harshed.

People are amazed when I talk about how much friendlier people are here in CA than they were there in MN. It's really night and day. I feel so much more comfortable here than I think I really ever did in Minnesota. A lot of it is the fact that the pace of Long Beach/L.A. feels more like home (home is Chicago, have I not mentioned that before?) and that there is so much more diversity of peoples and food and thought and everything. But when it really comes down to it, the people are so much more welcoming here than they ever were in Mpls, with few exceptions.

Now. On to the exceptions.

I felt like I found a home, a slightly awkward home, but a home with the Minneapolis improv community. Here were a group of people that were mostly transplants themselves and were artists, so a little more open. It was never 100% bestest friends, but I had them over and we hung out occasionally. They were mostly a good bit younger, but not tragically so. I considered myself a part of the community. As it turns out, not so much.

One person I like started a nice topic on the improv bulletin board saying she missed me. One person I hardly knew replied. All the people I considered myself friendly with completely ignored it.

My initial reaction to this is - ow. It sucks. At the most juvenile place, at the pit of the insecurities, it's no fun. But...the positive side of it is that now I have nothing to miss from Minneapolis.*


* to be fair there are a few people from work, improv and our neighborhood that we still like and wouldn't mind seeing.

Grow Up, You Idiots

CNET is making Google look like complete fools.

Here's the email I send in response.

TO: David@google.com, investors@google.com

Dear Mr. Krane and/or To Whom it May Concern;

I am a small (very) investor in Google and I have always been a fan of your company. However, that opinion is changing. I read CNET among other news outlets for technology news. Whenever I read CNET I am reminded that you guys are acting like 5 year olds. CNET gets to point and laugh at you every day (sometimes more than once a day) for a year.

As a citizen, it's funny that you pulled a 'take our ball and go home.' As an investor, it makes me seriously question your judgement in running a company. If business decisions are going to be made based on the personal vendettas of the CEO this is not a company I want to have my money sunk in.

As I said, I am a very small investor (10 shares), so I'm sure my opinion doesn't mean much. Still, I would be very surprised if I were alone in my thinking.

Sincerely,
Betty Wu

Ranty!

I called into the morning show on public radio this morning to make an cogent and salient point about the inconsistent reactions of the Bush administration to Pat Robertson (just a private citizen) vs. their reaction to Bill Maher after 9/11 (everyone needs to watch what they say). It was to sparkle with insight into the state of civil liberties in our nation. It was to concisely skewer the hypocracy of those in power!
It turned into Lola the bag lady screeching about covert ties, and whipped up talkiness and possibly even tin foil hats.

What the hell happened?

that'll teach me to be too judgmental of things people say in public under pressure. At least it should. It probably won't. AHHH! A BLACK HELICOPTER!!!

Mike and the Evil Woman

Today Miles decided that he was, sometimes, a dog named Mike. I love this kid so much.

Otherwise we spent the day inside mostly reading books - I had to read the whale book about 400 times. Since he was so torqued on whales and he (Mike) had made me laugh so hard, I figured we'd take a quick trip down to the Aquarium of the Pacific. I called B and asked him to meet us down there and we'd walk around and find something to eat down there.

It's a cool area and we ended up in Shoreline Village instead of the Pike in case that means anything to someone out there.
We got to the end of the pier at a semi-fancy place for dinner (Parkers' I think), but we were tired of walking and they had a kids menu so we stayed. After his dinner and halfway through ours, Miles gave me that unmistakable wide eyed look...and he threw up everywhere. I got him to the bathroom and started sponging him down when a woman looked at him and said "aw poor guy, what he needs is some nice vanilla ice cream when he gets home. Wouldn't you like some nice vanilla ice cream?"

Good Lord woman. What. The. Hell. Is. Your. Problem. My kid is tired and sick and now he thinks I'm going to give him sugar and dairy to ease his stomach before bed?

I'm sure she meant well too, but I kept up a nice string of nasties at her in my head when we got home and I tried to explain to my sweet weeping boy that no, we weren't going to have any ice cream. Just bath and bed.

May you receive many a paper cut

Went shopping today at the Fat Girl Store (tm) for some shirts.

While changing into one I could hear, over Miles' unintelligible but constant dialog, a woman giving her friend advice on her* clothing choices. Finally after reassuring and reassuring the woman trying on clothes that "it doesn't make your back fat stick out" the woman* trying on clothes must have flagged a stranger and asked her if it made her back fat stick out. "um, oh, no, not at all" Our hero* says "I can't believe her, she's thin. She's never been fat a day in her life, she doesn't understand"

The reason for the * is that I would have put $100 on the fact that the friend trying on clothes - the fat friend, we'll call her - was a transvestite. This person had a booming baritone.

Oh, I am dying to get a load of this pair by now. But life with a toddler means you often forget about that sort of thing in the frantic game to keep it amused so it doesn't screech.

I finally get up to the counter and there they are on the other side of the counter being checked out by a different clerk. First of all the fat friend appears to be around 50 years old, rather unattractive, but undeniably female. The other friend is nondescript. Until the fat friend walks away from the checkout for something and the other friend begins to speak. She says to the clerk - who is definitely as plus size as the rest of us heathens,

"I would love to shop here, you have great things, but I'm a size 3!"

I rolled my eyes so hard they are still mostly stuck up there. What an enormous bitch. and/or what a sad, sad life that you have to come into the Fat Girl Store and oh, so pointedly remark on your size. I started to image what else she must do in her spare time...

Waltzing into AA meetings and announcing, "I'd love to stay, but I am so drunk right now, I couldn't begin to find a chair!"

Speaking of waltzing, galloping into an amputee support group (they have those, right?) and saying "I'd love to dance the Lambada for you right now, but I have leg cramps!"

The unemployment office "Love to stay and get drunk with you, but I'm off to work!"

okay, these are getting lame. I don't like her.

Liberals

I got it from Heaneyland (www.yarnivore.com/francis) who got it from the 1/26/05 episode of "The Pain" (http://www.thepaincomics.com/)

I just love it.

"But that’s liberals for you: never happy, always agitating for change, clamoring for some hopeless pie-in-the-sky fantasy world where gay people get married and health care is free and nobody has to be poor, or where women work in offices and frequent saloons and Negroes can vote and must be addressed as “Mister”, where slavery doesn’t exist and men live without kings to rule them. Dream on, crackpots!"

Profiling

This isn't fair. This is not correct, neither politically nor factually.

You can see bullies from 100 paces. It's in their walk, in the way they set their face, the narrowing of the eyes. I'm talking about kids from 2 to 17 here - sometimes adults too, sadly. There are kids we instinctively steer clear of on the playground, and so far we've been proven right every time.

I can also make sweeping generalizations about the parents of these kids, but I'll save that for another time.

Mommy

Miles is getting more words every day and has started to 'string' them together into small narrative structures. Moth. Outside. Paco.

It's very minimalist and profound.

Toddler Danger Sign #1 - refusal to sit in high chair and eat snack if not wearing Elmo bib. However, he has no interest in watching Elmo on TV. The TV show costs money to produce and has no commercials to make up the slack. Elmo swag is all profit, baby.

Children's Television Workshop - I salute you.