Last night I climbed into my time machine and went back to 1970. A room full of people with scrawny ponytails (men) and lumpy dresses (women) sat, rapt, in the candlelight, on mismatched thrift store furniture, listening to a man sing without moving his lips. It's a style that's thrifty with the alphabet and doesn't expend much energy. Consonants, particularly at the end of words, are discouraged. "Aay wah to lay doww besiii you..." (and, honestly, am I the last person on earth who cares about lay and lie?). It made for excellent napping on a dandy thrift store sofa while waiting for the band we really wanted to hear.
Said band was billed as a dance band. And so it was. Unfortunately, it was not a dance audience. A modest space for dancing had been cleared on the excellent hardwood floor and the band leader announced, first thing, that it would be a good thing to move the tables back as far as possible to make more room for dancing. Imagine the imposing stone faces of Easter Island. Now imagine them sitting around a dance floor, impassive, in lumpy dresses and inadequate ponytails, arms (if they had any) crossed. That's how much they moved. Not at all.
The most recent season of Dancing with the Stars introduced some new dance genres and team performances and last night's exercise has inspired an idea that I think is worth sending in. Obstacle dancing. The audience moves their chairs onto the floor and throws down random clothing items like stocking caps and jackets. Coffee tables with sharp corners ramp up the excitement. A wandering Labrador retriever pulls in the family demographic. They can hold the preliminaries in Portland, Oregon. The course is already set up.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Do You Hear What I Hear?
November 2nd Newsweek article, The Devil Loves Cell Phones, and subtitled, Silence isn't just golden -- it's heavenly, rails on about cell phones, yelling TV pundits and Twitter, but nowhere does it mention the Devil's most insidious weapon: Christmas Muzak®.
I don't shop. Oh, I buy stuff. But I don't shop as a form of entertainment. However, I am a devoted mother, and when my son and his intended bride asked me to look for a birdcage as a wedding decoration, it became my mission to unearth the personality-plus cage of all cages. The best one is on ebay, but by the time the auction is over it'll be too late. Thus, I felt compelled to go to brick and mortar stores. In shopping malls. In November.
Note to Pier One Imports, Michael's Arts and Crafts, and the antique mall: If your Christmas music is boring holes in my brain like a cross between mad cow disease and a railroad spike, I can't think about purchasing your products. In fact, that person sprinting out the door that you think, considering the speed, must be a shoplifter? That's me.
I don't shop. Oh, I buy stuff. But I don't shop as a form of entertainment. However, I am a devoted mother, and when my son and his intended bride asked me to look for a birdcage as a wedding decoration, it became my mission to unearth the personality-plus cage of all cages. The best one is on ebay, but by the time the auction is over it'll be too late. Thus, I felt compelled to go to brick and mortar stores. In shopping malls. In November.
Note to Pier One Imports, Michael's Arts and Crafts, and the antique mall: If your Christmas music is boring holes in my brain like a cross between mad cow disease and a railroad spike, I can't think about purchasing your products. In fact, that person sprinting out the door that you think, considering the speed, must be a shoplifter? That's me.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Darwin at Work
One of my favorite stories from a fellow blogger: Man standing at the freeway exit waiting for a handout. He's holding a square of cardboard... with nothing written on it. Subliminal message? "Will work for Sharpie."
How many times have you wondered - where do the cardboard sign people get those nice black markers?
For about a month, I have been involved with helping someone get off the street and into some sort of life - a life that the most of us would regard as sorely inadequate. Just a warm, safe place to stay. Food to eat. An address.
A number of years ago, I attended a dinner party that included a well-to-do real estate broker and his wife who were clad in matching Planet Hollywood sweatshirts. The conversation turned to prisoners in state custody and the education in social skills and job training provided to them on the taxpayer's dime. Said real estate broker maintained, hotly, that our money was being wasted mollycoddling prisoners. Make 'em do their time, pay their debt to society, and then kick them out and let them pull themselves up by their bootstraps and if they pulled hard enough, by golly, they could be just like him! (hopefully, without the sweatshirts) But, I digress. Sort of.
The person I've been helping isn't an ex-con. This person just made a lifetime of dumb choices that put him where none of us ever expect to be. A dear friend of mine, concerned for my sanity and pocketbook, told me, "Don't get involved. There's always someone who will take care of these people." But, you know what? It's not true. Here's what happens if you are homeless, penniless, ill, and have no transportation. You can stay in a shelter for the night, 1. if you know where to go, 2. you manage to sign in between the hours of 5:45 and 6:30, 3. you have a TB card, and 4. your name gets called in the nightly lottery for beds. You can be seen in the free clinic if you can be there on Thursday night between 7 and 9 pm. (Hmm, we need to do some tests! Come back in a week, and try to not die in the meantime.) A wonderful entity called Northwest Pilot Project (seriously, they are a blessing for some) will help you find housing if you are willing to come back day after day and wait for 5 hours in the hope that you'll be one of the four people they can see that day. Oh wait, they can't help you find housing if you have no income. You might be able to rent an SRO (single room occupancy - got to learn the jargon) if you have $40 for the application, no criminal record, and good credit. The waiting list for subsidized housing is over a year long unless you're a pregnant woman, HIV positive, or in a recovery program (note to self: plan ahead!).
And don't ever, ever, ever lose your I.D. Nothing happens without identification.
I don't have any answers. The real estate broker would probably tell me this was evolution doing its job and I'm messing up the program by not allowing the weak member of the herd to be taken down by the wolves.
(Note to self: buy Sharpies)
How many times have you wondered - where do the cardboard sign people get those nice black markers?
For about a month, I have been involved with helping someone get off the street and into some sort of life - a life that the most of us would regard as sorely inadequate. Just a warm, safe place to stay. Food to eat. An address.
A number of years ago, I attended a dinner party that included a well-to-do real estate broker and his wife who were clad in matching Planet Hollywood sweatshirts. The conversation turned to prisoners in state custody and the education in social skills and job training provided to them on the taxpayer's dime. Said real estate broker maintained, hotly, that our money was being wasted mollycoddling prisoners. Make 'em do their time, pay their debt to society, and then kick them out and let them pull themselves up by their bootstraps and if they pulled hard enough, by golly, they could be just like him! (hopefully, without the sweatshirts) But, I digress. Sort of.
The person I've been helping isn't an ex-con. This person just made a lifetime of dumb choices that put him where none of us ever expect to be. A dear friend of mine, concerned for my sanity and pocketbook, told me, "Don't get involved. There's always someone who will take care of these people." But, you know what? It's not true. Here's what happens if you are homeless, penniless, ill, and have no transportation. You can stay in a shelter for the night, 1. if you know where to go, 2. you manage to sign in between the hours of 5:45 and 6:30, 3. you have a TB card, and 4. your name gets called in the nightly lottery for beds. You can be seen in the free clinic if you can be there on Thursday night between 7 and 9 pm. (Hmm, we need to do some tests! Come back in a week, and try to not die in the meantime.) A wonderful entity called Northwest Pilot Project (seriously, they are a blessing for some) will help you find housing if you are willing to come back day after day and wait for 5 hours in the hope that you'll be one of the four people they can see that day. Oh wait, they can't help you find housing if you have no income. You might be able to rent an SRO (single room occupancy - got to learn the jargon) if you have $40 for the application, no criminal record, and good credit. The waiting list for subsidized housing is over a year long unless you're a pregnant woman, HIV positive, or in a recovery program (note to self: plan ahead!).
And don't ever, ever, ever lose your I.D. Nothing happens without identification.
I don't have any answers. The real estate broker would probably tell me this was evolution doing its job and I'm messing up the program by not allowing the weak member of the herd to be taken down by the wolves.
(Note to self: buy Sharpies)
Friday, September 11, 2009
Fish!
Well, I was going to talk about health care reform, but considering I ate tuna casserole for lunch and fish and chips for dinner, I will, instead direct you to my new blog Everything Fish. It is especially appropriate for those blog visitors that are more right brained, i.e. heavy on pictures, light on words. And besides, it will give you whole new vistas of artwork you might want to take into your home to cherish, adore, and pay me to make for you.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Details, details...
The last line of a job posting on today's craigslist:
Candidate must be detail oriented, personable, and must have excellent communication and organization ski
Candidate must be detail oriented, personable, and must have excellent communication and organization ski
Saturday, August 15, 2009
On the Road Again
A little something for everyone at this Battleground, Washington business:
Tackle Box
Wedding Events
Tackle Box
Wedding Events
Which rivals my favorite that used to be on the north side of Hwy 30 between St Helens and Rainier:
Tanning
Toning
Saw Sharpening
Toning
Saw Sharpening
Friday, August 14, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
One for all, and all for one.
This evening as we came abreast of the bar at The Refectory (home of the Sunday night blues jam), I heard a spirited conversation between the bartender and a customer. "I'm no f***ing Dooh Mahs", declared the bartender. My first thought was that he was referring to his writing style as being unequal to that of the author of The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas. As we passed on by, however, the sentence concluded with something about a huge flat screen tv and I realized that, while he was not squeamish about shouting out the F word in the workplace, he apparently just couldn't bring himself to say dumb ass.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Things to Ponder
The other day, as I reflexively emptied the change from my cocoa order into the tip jar at the coffee shop, I wondered, not for the first time, why do we tip baristas? We don't tip the people in TacoBellMcDonaldsBurgerKingArbysKFC, who probably earn a smaller wage and lead lives several degrees more miserable than attractively apron-clad coffee workers in nice grease-free, polished wood environments. They don't make several trips to our table to take our order, explain the daily special, deliver our order, or top off our water. And they don't even give us a nice scalp massage like the hairdresser or get up at 3:00 a.m. like the paper boy.
What is the rate of PTICTD* among ice cream truck drivers? (Whom, I might add, don't get tips...) My across-the-street neighbor drives an ordinary looking Scion, but when he starts it up Scott Joplin's The Entertainer begins tootling out the window. I hear about four bars before he drives away and another four when he returns. Be he must hear it a billion times a summer. That can't be healthy. He has it easy. The ice cream truck I heard at a local park plays Pop Goes the Weasel. But it just plays the first line. "Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel." "Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel." "Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel." He never gets any closure. Does he wake up at night screaming, "The monkey thought t'was all in fun, POP goes the weasel!"?
*Post Traumatic Ice Cream Truck Disorder
What is the rate of PTICTD* among ice cream truck drivers? (Whom, I might add, don't get tips...) My across-the-street neighbor drives an ordinary looking Scion, but when he starts it up Scott Joplin's The Entertainer begins tootling out the window. I hear about four bars before he drives away and another four when he returns. Be he must hear it a billion times a summer. That can't be healthy. He has it easy. The ice cream truck I heard at a local park plays Pop Goes the Weasel. But it just plays the first line. "Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel." "Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel." "Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel." He never gets any closure. Does he wake up at night screaming, "The monkey thought t'was all in fun, POP goes the weasel!"?
*Post Traumatic Ice Cream Truck Disorder
Monday, July 13, 2009
Plays Well with Others
Oh, what a jolly place is the dog park. A chance to frolic with Misty, Clancy, Lulu, Harvey, and Touch-My-Ball-I-Bite-a-You-Face. Leo and I had spent a peaceful 30 minutes in the small dog corral with Misty, Clancy, their mother, and the chatty transvestite who hung over the fence trading pit-bull-bite stories with me. We agreed, it's usually not the dog, but the owner, who creates a troublesome pet.
Misty and Clancy headed home, so Leo and I shifted over to the general inmate population consisting of a sheltie, a lab pup, some Heinz 57s, Lulu, a recently adopted 13-year-old husky mix, a goldendoodle, and a Belgian Shepherd. When Leo, 15 pounds soaking wet, took a sniff at the Shepherd's ball she abruptly morphed into the Jaws of Death, leaped on Leo and appeared to be reducing him to so much canine confetti. Leo screamed as though his short life was passing before his eyes, the owner ran over and yanked her dog away, and Leo took off like a missile. Three other dogs, innocent bystanders, thought that looked like a lark, and followed him in hot pursuit. Leo surmised they were all in on the murder plot and took a chunk out of Lulu's face when she bowled him over.
Once the fracas came to a halt and everyone examined their respective dogs, the shepherd's owner apologized profusely, "I've been working on her 'ball possessiveness issue' for two years". Oh-kaaaay, so you bring her to a place full of dogs and, well, balls??
Now, who has the behavior problem? Hmm?
Misty and Clancy headed home, so Leo and I shifted over to the general inmate population consisting of a sheltie, a lab pup, some Heinz 57s, Lulu, a recently adopted 13-year-old husky mix, a goldendoodle, and a Belgian Shepherd. When Leo, 15 pounds soaking wet, took a sniff at the Shepherd's ball she abruptly morphed into the Jaws of Death, leaped on Leo and appeared to be reducing him to so much canine confetti. Leo screamed as though his short life was passing before his eyes, the owner ran over and yanked her dog away, and Leo took off like a missile. Three other dogs, innocent bystanders, thought that looked like a lark, and followed him in hot pursuit. Leo surmised they were all in on the murder plot and took a chunk out of Lulu's face when she bowled him over.
Once the fracas came to a halt and everyone examined their respective dogs, the shepherd's owner apologized profusely, "I've been working on her 'ball possessiveness issue' for two years". Oh-kaaaay, so you bring her to a place full of dogs and, well, balls??
Now, who has the behavior problem? Hmm?
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