Diary of an Ex-employee - Day 93.1

 

I am not a morning person. 

When I have to get up and go to work, I'm fine but, on weekends, and during the Dog Days of unemployment, just leave me in bed till 8:30.

Fluffy Bear is away, however, so I had to get up early to feed Puppy Dog and, in spite of trying hard to stay comatose, my brain woke up, so going back to bed wasn't an option.

So I plonked my irritable self on the sofa.

Then I heard a car horn.  It blasted.  Then it blasted some more.  Then it just kept going. 

Was someone beeping for a friend outside their house and was too damn lazy to go and ring the doorbell?

Was someone having a major road rage incident?

Whatever it was, I wasn't impressed.

I opened my front door, and let my feelings be known.  As you know, I can project my voice. 

"SHOOSH!" I boomed.

2 seconds after my yell, the horn beeped again.  Then again.  And again.

Were they mocking me? 

Oh, HELL no!

I stomped across to the bedroom, slapped a baseball cap over my bed hair, pulled a tracksuit top over my PJs, snapped the locks on the front door and barrelled outside to find the culprit and blurt the rude speech I'd been practising in my head.

And then I saw them.

Two guys in overalls bending over a very familiar looking car.

Our old clunker died yesterday.  They had come down from the garage to fix it.

My inner voice - never one to let me off easy - said:

"Good morning, Stoopid."

Diary of an Ex-Employee - Day 93.0

 

Things only the unemployed say to themselves:

"Do I really want that latte enough to actually get dressed and leave the house?"

"Goddammit I've watched everything I recorded on my DVR!  What now?"

"Why doesn't the video store have any new movies that I haven't watched already?"

"It's so nice that the coffee shop people know my name and my Usual."

"Wow, I'm really getting good at doing my own mani-pedi."

"Wow.  How long has that little crack in the ceiling been there?  I've never noticed that before..."

"It's A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush!!! What is WRONG with these people?  I could totally go on Wheel of Fortune!"

"GAH!  It's 5pm and I still have Bed Hair! ...  Hang on, as long as I don't look in the mirror, who cares?"

"Yeah, whatever, Lady.  This is my 15th interview in two months.  Your benefits are crap and I can tell you don't have any contracts on your books that suit my skills.  And these shoes are killing me.  Let's just wrap this up so I can get home and get back into my PJs and slippers."

"Who needs a hairbrush?  I have a baseball cap!"

"Damn! if I'd known my friend was gonna cover the bill, I'd have ordered hard liquor..."

"If one more person at a networking event tells me that 1000 people respond to a job ad in the first hour it's posted online, I shall bop them in the schnoz."

"I am going to win all 5 of these Lexulous games! I am getting SO good!  Yeah!"

"It's only 9am!  Shut the hell up out there, neighbors!!!"

Diary of an Ex-employee - Day 91.0

 

Wow.  Day 91.0.  Do you think I should throw a party on day 100?  All my employed friends would have to bring the drinks and snacks, though.  We're watchin' them pennies.

So... here's the thing.

I have a face to face interview this week.  And it's a job I really want. 

The company is nothing like my ex-employer.  They are in a different industry, they are completely customer service focussed (so much so that books have been written about them) and many of their staff are artistic people.

I am not artistic - my art lies in words.  But I love the idea of being around artistic people again. 

How many of us gave up creative pursuits to join the corporate world?  How many of us told ourselves it was just temporary, something to get a little money in the bank and then we'd be able to follow our hearts?  How many of us told ourselves that we can still be creative as a hobby, only to find we had neither the time nor the energy?

If you relate to that, raise your hand.  Mine is waving above my head right now.

I remember - once upon a time before the Plague - I worked in a bank.  I worked the night shift, and there were many actresses and artists in our team, because they wanted a well paying job to fund their real careers.  One of the guys got a painting into a local art show, so we all traipsed off to see it.  We walked through the art show peering at the labels on the walls, look for his name.  And then I saw it.  It was painting of this guy's world, his daily grind, probably what he saw in his dreams.  It was a pink and white computer keyboard. 

Because, see, that's the thing.  The corporate world takes over your life.  Even if you only do a dead end, night shift job, the corporate jaws snap, chew and spit your art out.

So, even if it is still the corporate world, the fact that this new job will mean there'll be people around me who think in color and texture and shape rather than bits and bytes, will be wonderful.

This means, of course, that I am utterly petrified that things will go wrong.

Wanting a job badly is kinda like having a crush in high school. 

You like him but - here's the really important part - does he like you back? And, if he does, how would you know?  Are there signs?

Here's where we get into female territory.  Over-analysis.  If you've seen the movie He's Just Not That into You, you'll know what I mean. 

Women are better than men at facial recognition and body language interpretation.  Perhaps it is because we give birth and breastfeed - therefore, in the caveman age, we had to look after our young.  So maybe that's when evolution taught us how to see signs in a little human who can't yet communicate with language.  is it hungry?  Is it hurt?  Is it hot?  Is it sick? 

Now we tap into our evolutionary tool bag and choose to use this skill to overanalyze every action, tone, posture of a potential suitor.

At high school:

• Omigod did he just smile at me?  Was it a real smile or a "I know you have a crush on me and I find it kinda flattering but I'm just not that into you" smile?
• Omigod he doesn't usually walk this way to class!  Did he come this way just to see me?  He knows where my locker is.  Maybe he took the longer route so he could ask me out?
• Omigod has he asked someone to the prom yet?  Should I accept Bob's invitation or wait to see if he asks me?  He ignored me yesterday on the bus.  Does that mean that he's self-conscious around me cos he likes me and he wants to get up the courage to ask me to the prom?

And on and on and on...

When job hunting:

• The job description is off the website - what does that mean?  Have they found someone?  Is the job no longer being funded?  Do they have so many candidates that they've taken the job off?
• The job is back on the website - what does that mean?  Have they rejected everyone from the first round, including me?  Is it a different job - do they need two people rather than one? 
• I haven't heard from them in a week - what does this mean?  Have they found someone?  Have they decided to take a different direction with this job and get a technical person in?  Are they about to be bought, taken over and their headquarters moved to some snowy state where everyone is half the price?
• They said the face to face interview was two hours and now they're saying just one hour - what does this mean?  Have they found someone else they really want to give the job to and so they're just paying lip service to me?  Have I got the job so this is a formality?  Or are they going to make a panel of five people to grill me to death in one hour, all at the same time?

And on and on and on...

And so I'm trying to prepare.  Do research, bone up on my resume, get my application form ready. 

Because that pimple faced, wet dreaming, voice breaking little twerp better ask me to the Prom.

Being a Doggy Mama - The yelp

 

There is nothing worse, to a parent, than hearing their child in pain.

I have been around babies and kids since I was 11.  My siblings are much older than me, so I have been Auntie to many a young thing.  In fact, a lot of them aren't that young anymore.

I've played games, run birthday parties, changed nappies - you name it (deciding to be childless was an informed decision).

I know that babies have different kinds of cries.  There's the hunger cry, the dirty nappy cry, the I'm-bored-I-don't-want-to-go-to-sleep cry.  They all sound different.

And then there's the I'm-in-real-pain cry.

This is why you'll be at a party with parents of young children and notice different scenarios. 

In the first, the child falls down, but isn't really injured.  The parent may wait for the child to toddle over to them and placate them with a high voiced "Did you go boom-si-daisy?  Aw.  Daddy kiss it better."

And then there's the second scenario, where you'll be chatting away, a cry rings out and suddenly, the person you were talking to is just, well, gone.  Parents responding to real cries can rival Olympic sprinters.  That cry is horrible, ear splitting and heart rending.

It's the same being a dog owner.

Nobody wants to hear their little poochie yelp.

And I've had two of those today.

We were walking in a local park, and Puppy Dog was off-leash.  Why was he off-leash? I hear you ask.  Well, because a lot of people walk their dogs off-leash in this park, even though it's illegal.  So I do, too.

We went into the park on-leash, and Puppy Dog smelt a dog around the corner.  I didn't see it.  First I knew was when the leash was tugged and my arm nearly came off.  I was dragged downhill and, thank God for the flash back to High School hurdles or I may never have made it over that log.

The dogs sniffed each other - the other dog was off-leash, and Puppy Dog moseyed on.  So I took him off-leash, for my own safety.  The trail is narrow and the sides are steep.

When we got to the part of the trail that crosses a road, I put him on leash again, and we went on our merry way.  Then along comes another dog, off-leash, and they become instant friends.  There follows much running and jumping and both of them get completely tied up in the leash.  So I took it off again.

We continued, and rounded another corner.

In front of us was a couple with a huge - massive - dog. 

The warning signs were there.  The horse-dog was on a tight leash, with one parent either side of it, both of them very close.

"Is he ok with other dogs?" I asked.

"No."

So I immediately told Puppy Dog to Come.

He ignored me, trotted up to the horse-dog and said hello.  Horse-dog lunged at him, Puppy Dog's Mohawk went up and it was on.  The poor guy was desperately hanging onto his dog and I was calling Puppy Dog frantically.

And then, the yelp.

Puppy Dog came running back to me and the couple quickly carried on past us.  I apologized to them, they did not apologize to me.  OK, so technically I am in the wrong with my dog off-leash, but a simple "Sorry" would've been nice.

We went home and everything seemed fine.

In case you are wondering, I put him back on-leash.

Flash forward to 8:30 pm when I get back from a networking event (yes, I'm still looking for a job...).  Puppy Dog greets me at the front door with his usual ebullience, and follows me through the house, where I open the back door so he can go out to pee.  I sit down and wait for him to come and greet me for real, and I rub his head.

Second yelp.

What a horrible sound.  It makes me shudder.

So I calm him, prod and poke and find blood in his ear. 

The annoying fact about furry things is that it can be very hard to find where the injury is.  I ran my fingers through his fur, cleaned out his ear, but I couldn't find the actual bite.

I put some ointment on where I think it was, and he licked me in gratitude.

Now he's playing the sick dog, lying on his cushion and not moving.

And I'm fretting.

I never ever want to hear that sound again.

But, considering he's such an active, crazy, energetic lump of brown fur, I probably will...

This changed my life - Madonna

 

Madonna changed my life.

The first time I saw the Like a Virgin video, I was shocked by two things. 

First, that she was wearing the stuff she was wearing and singing the lines she was singing and, second, that the video has passed the censors in the first place.

OK, I guess it's time to come clean.  I didn't grow up in England.  I lived there for many, many years, but I was born and raised in South Africa during the Apartheid years. 

Propaganda and censorship was the order of the day.

I remember watching Pop Shop - our weekly music programme on state-run television - and wondering why bands clearly spent so much money on music video production, only to not film enough to cover the three and a half minute song.  Why else would they lamely repeat portions of the video at certain points?

What I didn't know, of course, was that this was the censorship compromise.  Splice in inane bits of footage - sans boobies, sexual simulation, etc. - and so be able to actually show the video on our TV station.

When I first saw the full version of Duran Duran's Girls on Film video years later in England, I nearly fell off the sofa.

So you see how amazed I was that Madonna had squeezed through the puritanical hypocrisy of the Gereformeerde Kerk - back then South Africa's self-appointed moral compass.

But, boy, I was glad she had.

Madonna showed me what I wanted to be, what I could be, what I could dare to be.

I was never one of those girls who dressed up in big crosses, cut off gloves and fishnets like she did (I once saw a girl at a school disco dressed like her and berated myself for not coming up with the same idea).  No.  My bravery was restricted to my dreams and imagination.

But bravery it was.  New courage.  New hope. 

Hope of freedom from suburbia, from the grip of parental control, from the pressure to be an A student.  Hope of a life in a city with clubs and smoking and alcohol and fashion and sex and glamorous rebellion.

Imagine a good Catholic girl in an Apartheid regime seeing Madonna save a black Jesus in Like a Prayer?

Imagine a young suburban girl discovering her sexual urges hearing, in Papa Don't Preach, that not only does "the worst" happen but, when it does, you can rebel and say "I'm keeping my baby!"

Imagine a young woman, trying to find out if she can be pretty, seeing a previously grungy Madonna metamorphose into Marilyn Monroe in Material Girl?

For, you see, if she could do it, I could.

As Madonna evolved and transformed over the first 20 years, her fundamental iconic status for me remained untouched.

She was a strong woman, making it on her own. She was unashamedly sexually active, and sexually adventurous. She was creative, artistic, yet making money in that world. She questioned everything, thereby allowing me to do the same.

I once paid $350 a ticket to see her in Oakland.  We got lost among houses with burglar guards and next to what were clearly black windowed drug dealer cars and we were petrified.  But it was worth it.

I once flew to Paris to see her, with my BFF.  I was in a seat so far back she was just a little blot of shiny movement.  But it was worth it.

I went to see the Truth or Dare movie 7 times, each time noticing some new tiny detail I had missed before.  I had no money back then and it was luxury for me to go to the cinema.  But it was worth it.

As the years have passed, I have mostly stood by Madonna.

She still makes good music, even if it's very different to what she did back then.

But do I love her as much as I used to?

I'm not sure.

It's not about the religion, the adoptions or the divorce (I always thought Guy Ritchie was an asswipe). 

It's because she has failed me on the ultimate, the final, rebellion.

Madonna has refused to flip the bird at modern convention.

With the plastic surgery, she is telling all of us that it's not OK to grow old.  I don't want her to stop singing, or dancing, or horse-riding, or adopting.  

I just want her to have crows feet around her eyes and go on Oprah and say it's OK to not only be 50, but look it.

She is not growing old gracefully.

And for that, I find it hard to forgive her.

To read a wonderful take on Madonna and what she's meant to women over the years, see Emily Nussbaum's Justify My Love article from New York Magazine.

Quote Unquote - You're just wasting your time

 

(In a derisive tone...")

"You're too dumb to insult!"

Stu to Alan in The Hangover

Quote Unquote - Culinary revelations

 

(With an incredulous tone...)

"I didn't know Rice and Beans was Mexican!"

Kendra

Hello from Puppy Dog - Smelly Welly

Hello Friends!

Last night Mama came up to my bed to say goodnight to me, and I happened  to have just cut the cheese/beeped my horn/floated an air biscuit/hummed a rroid/puffed the magic dragon/blown my trouser trumpet.  

Now she's been calling me "Smelly Welly" all day!

It's NOT FAIR!

It's not my fault I farted!  I didn't do it on purpose!  It just happens! 

And it's not my fault she came over at that moment!  I didn't ask her to come and say goodnight!

And at least my farts aren't noisy like Mama and Dada's are!

Sometimes I jump up from my bed because I think there's a stranger in the house with a trumpet, or a kitten mewing, or some crazy 1st Amendmenter shooting off a few rounds!

Then Mama or Dada - whoever is the culprits - start to giggle at me!

I don't think it's very funny!

And if they think their farts are funny, how come mine aren't?  Huh?  Huh?

IT'S NOT FAIR!

Lots of licks and woofs,

 

Puppy Dog

  

Hell is other people - Shut the FUCK up!

Last night we went to see a movie.  It's so damn hot that my friend Bill called around to see who had good aircon, and we went to see what they were showing.

We therefore abandoned our dogs, which I feel bad about, but Puppy Dog seems to have survived.

So... the cinema we choose is a little upscale.  Let's face it, no-one has the tolerance for the proletariat when it's hot.  We needed a baseball-cap-free-zone.

This place is over 21 (the ridiculously high American age when you're allowed to drink), has full bar, armchairs, footstools and drink delivery to your seat half way through the movie. 

Very civilized.

Very cosmopolitan.

Very downtown.

But, sadly, not everyone watching the movie was.

Perhaps it's a sign of our times, but young people who have grown up with flatscreens and DVDs don't seem to know how to behave in a cinema.

Take my niece, for instance.  The first time she was taken to see a movie, it was something like The Little Mermaid.  She got popcorn, diet soda, candy - she had a great time.  Then, as the credits rolled and other people got up to leave, she turned to her mother and said:

"Rewind, Mommy!  Rewind!"

No amount of explaining could pacify her and, as my sister-in-law tells it, she was dragged screaming and crying from the cinema.

This generation - in many ways and in many situations - simply has no idea how to behave correctly.

So here we are, about to watch The Hangover.

I'm with good friends, the aircon is blasting, we have great seats.

I'm set.

I have my champagne, I have my glass of water, I have my Nicorette.

I'm set.

I'm an intelligent woman, I have a great sense of humor, I have a keen appreciation of irony.

I'm set.

But, no.

No.

You see, I clearly am not able to truly "get" what is going on without the help of the couple sitting in the row behind me.  And they - Good Christians that they are - will help me out.

And so, after each line that they thought was funny, or each line that they felt confident they could predict before the character voiced it, they articulated - loudly.

Alan: It's time to let the dogs out!

Good Christians: "Let the DOGS out! WAAH HA HA HA HA HA!"

Cellphone rings.

Good Christians: "It's Doug!"

Phil: It's Doug!

Baby is heard crying somewhere in the suite.  Stu, Phil and Alan open a closet.  They see a baby.

Good Christians: "It's a baby!  WAAAH HA HA HA HA HA!"

Alan wakes up, hungover, and stumbles into the bathroom for a pee.  As he is taking a leak, we hear a growl.  He looks to his right and, not quite believing his eyes, sees a tiger.

Good Christians: "It's a TIGER!  WAAAH HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

Hell - blistering, piercing, eviscerating, lacerating hell - is OTHER FUCKING PEOPLE!!!!

Diary of an Ex-Employee - Day 86.0

 

It's too hot.  It's too damn hot.

Yes, I know there are other people who live in hotter places than I do.  Arizona, Texas, the Kalahari Desert.  Well - guess what? - they have air conditioning! 

OK, maybe not the whole Kalahari Desert.

But, still.

I am not set up for this kind of weather.  I lived in England, for God's sake - that's gonna thicken your blood and acclimatize you to the mild-to-wet-to-chilly continuum only.  Nothing else. 

Note the absence of the "Fucking hot" category on that scale.

So here are all the crazy things I've been doing to try to keep cool:

1. 3 cold showers a day
2. Standing outside in the yard, putting my finger over the spout of the hose to make a wide jet of water, pointing it up in the air and creating rain for myself
3. Dumping ice into tubs in front of the fan to make swamp coolers
4. Wetting my hair under the bathroom basin about 6 times a day
5. Going out to meet friends with a bandana on my head, which I could wet in the restroom and tie back on
6. Eating ice
7. Eating whole pints of sorbet
8. Sleeping with two fans pointed right at the bed
9. Prizing open every previously stuck sash window in our 1910 house that I can
10. Not caring if the neighbors see me walking around naked
11. Wading into the river at the park with Puppy Dog and his pals - my cellphone didn't like that one too much
12. Wetting T-shirts and then putting them on
13. Feeling my way around a dark house at night instead of turning on the lights - my left big toe, when it hit a door, didn't like that one too much
14. Wetting baseball caps and putting them on
15. Sitting in the car, aircon blasting, long after I've arrived at my destination - my petrol (gas) gauge didn't like that one too much
16. Driving around for ten minutes or more, looking for any parking in the shade close to my destination - the woman juggling her shopping cart and her baby, that I nearly ran into, didn't like that one too much
17. Buying 6 bags or more of ice at a time
18. Wetting towels and then lying down with them covering my whole body

And I'm still fucking hot.

Hell is other people - Sometimes you just gotta boom

 

It is hot today where I live.  Very hot.  Damn hot.  Pizza oven hot.  Searing fires of hell hot.  Blazing branding-iron hot.

We are uncomfortable.  We are sweaty.  We are tetchy.

So I go out into the garden with my laptop to sit in the shade.  Somewhere from across my back alley, from a house up the hill from mine, live the cliche - the Loud Americans.

Not all Americans are like this but, in Europe, we tend to unfairly stereotype those kinds of tourists who stand in the middle of a busy piazza, neck bedecked with massive camera, and yell "Isn't it just great, Herbert?"

Suffice to say, it's a type of person, irrespective of nationality - one who insists on talking at a volume inappropriate to the proximity of those around them - that I detest.

And just because you are in your own back yard, doesn't mean that consideration isn't necessary.  We live in the city.  The back yards are postage stamps.  I can hear you flush your toilet.  You can probably hear me fart.

So there I am, hot and bothered - and not in a good way - trying to literally and figuratively chill out.

And then I hear it.

Screeching little girl:"I won, Daddy, I won!"

Muffled conversation.  That kind of conversation where you can't hear every word that is being said, but it's loud enough, and - in male base tones - deeply booming enough, to distract and annoy.

Screeching little girl:"I won, Daddy, I won!"

Continued muffled conversation.

Screeching little girl:"I won! Did you see? I WON!"

Continued muffled conversation.

Screeching little girl: "Daddy!  DADDY! LOOK! I WON!"

Continued muffled conversation.

Screeching little girl: "I WON! I WON! I WON! DADDY! DADDY!"

Continued muffled conversation.

And now I shall let you in on a little secret.  I studied Speech and Drama.  In fact, when I was 11, I won a competition in my province for the best recital of a poem and got free Speech and Drama lessons.  My parents kept them up and I did this as extra-curricular activity (outside of school - they were private lessons) from the age of 12 through to 18.

One of the things you learn in Speech and Drama is to project.

You imagine hitting the back wall of the theatre with your voice.  It's not about shouting, it's about speaking normally and yet achieving a huge range at the same time.  It's about allowing your mouth and throat to open up to create caverns which let the sound circulate, amplify and BOOM.

"Daddy," I boomed.  "Please take a moment to tell your daughter that it's great that she won."

Pause....

"Good job, honey!"

"Thank you."

Silence.

Hell is other people.

Dogs will be Dogs - Dog Park Dog Patrols

 

I took Puppy Dog to the little dog park in the city the other day.

I didn't want him to run much, because he had sore back legs that morning, so I just let him run about, rather than throwing the ball for him.

This gave me a chance to really observe some of the dogs in the park, and I realized something - some of them were on some kind of patrol.

Play patrol

A little Dalmation, about a year old, wanted to play. Now. With anyone. Just play with me. Please.

He communicated this by bounding around and barking. He went up to just about every dog and every human.

Bounce! Bounce! Bark! Bark!

Smaller dogs skittled away, bigger dogs ignored him. There was one dog - a little pitbull - who did the let's-do-it dip-down, but he was soon distracted by his daddy throwing a ball for him.

And so play patrol continued. Bounce! Bounce! Bark! Bark!

Bark patrol

The little dog park has a wire fence and, being in the middle of town, it constantly has people walking by.  Now and again you'll get the one dog who seems to think that the park is his temporary den, that pedestrians are marauding hordes and therefore it's Defcon 3.  

They run along the fence, barking and growling madly, ignoring calls and whistles and pleas from their owners.  

They're noisy little buggers.

Treat patrol

There was a big dog - I don't know what breed, except that he looked like a small pony.  

Big dog was obviously food motivated, and must have been given a treat one day by a kind - perhaps petrified - stranger.

And so big dog was checking if this might happen again.

It can be a little disconcerting to have a massive dog bound up to you, ignore the empty hand of introduction you stretch out, bend down away from your potential head stroke, sniff your purse and pockets, and bound off again.

I was a little confused till I saw him go and do it to the next person.  And the next.  And the next.

I have no idea if he got a treat in the end or not.

Sniff patrol

Puppy Dog, not having his favorite game - chase the tennis ball - to play, went off to sniff out the scene.

He ran here and there, sniff-sniff, sniff-sniff.  He ignored other people throwing balls, he ignored other dogs introducing themselves.  He just kept inspecting the park.

And, as dogs do, whenever he came accross a spot that another dog had marked, he had to mark it too.

This being a dog park, there were rather a lot of those spots.

Hence:

Sniff-sniff, psst-psst.

Watching him, a little song came into my head...

 With a sniff-sniff here

And a psst-psst there

Here a sniff

There a psst

Everywhere a sniff-psst

Puppy Dog's on sniff patrol, Ee-eye ee-eye oh!

Eventually, as he always does, he ran out of pee.  But that didn't stop him cocking his leg... Ever the optimist, our dog.

Being a Doggy Mama - Don't mess with the process

 

Dogs are like toddlers.  They sometimes get over-excited and have to be calmed down before they injure themselves, they sometimes rebel and need to be brought into line, and they sometimes like boundaries and routine.

A friend of ours inherited his dog when his dad died.  The dog is old and has certain ways she likes to do things.  

When our friend and his wife sit down to dinner... 

1. the dog has to be let out the back door, 


2. spend a few minutes in the yard, 


3. be let back in and 


4. be given a treat.  

In that order.  

Every night.  

Puppy Dog has his own routine.  I don't know if it started with his previous owners, came from his time in the pound or if he just invented.

1. He wakes us up in the morning,


2. one of us gets up and puts out his food so he can eat,


3. we open the back door so he can go out,


4. he does his business


5. he comes back in and comes into the bedroom


6. he jumps on the bed and lies with his pack 


7. he moves when we get up.

If, like this morning, we have to go the gym and we jump from No. 3 right to No. 7, he is pissed.  Then we had the audacity to go out the house and leave him behind!

Boy did we get the pouty lips when we got home!

Do not mess with the process!

This changed my life - Sex and the City

Sex and the City changed my life.

First, being someone living in a foreign city far away from home, Sex and the City showed me that your friends can be your family.

Second, it showed us that, as women, we were allowed to be out there having cocktails, fun and sex and be choosy about men. We didn't have to be like our mothers, and "settle".

Third, it showed us that the didn't have to have everything figured out. This is best summed up by Melissa Grego, from Television Week, being interviewed on "The 100 Greatest TV Characters."

The thing about Carrie Bradshaw is that she is a cultural game changer. At her age, most people have their life figured out. They're a wife, mother, maybe a working mother or they've decided to be single. She's sorta still figuring out who she is and what she wants. Is she defined by her work? Is she defined by a man? Is she defined by her friends? Is she defined by where she lives or what she wears?

And finally, a quote which shows how this amazingly written, acted and produced show could shake up a young woman of my generation, and make her question everything she'd been taught growing up...

Carrie: "Did you ever think that maybe we're the White Knights? And we're the ones that have to save ourselves?"

Charlotte: "That is so depressing."

Carrie: "Is it?"

Divided by a Common Language - The Tram Tour

England, as you probably know, is a very small place. Imagine Texas farted. That would be England.

Some might argue that, historically, it's the other way around, but let's not go there.

There are malls in England. Some are relatively big, but nothinglike what you have here. We just don't have the space. Thank God.

So there we are in LA and we stumble on a new mall in Glendale. The mall is a hollow square, with a big area in the middle - let's call it a piazza.

The piazza has grass and fountains and little carts where more stuff is sold. In one corner there's a cinema, there are restaurants with patios and lots of high end stores. It's all very clean and nice. Too clean and nice, when you come from Europe and cities are old and dirty.

But, OK, I can live with that.

The fountains shoot spurts of water in constant accompaniment with piped show tunes. On top of the stores, there are condoes. It's a mystery to me who wants to live in a place where "Fly me to the Moon" and similar songs blast out from 9am to 6pm but hey - it takes all sorts to make a world, as my mother used to say. They choose to live there - it's their problem.

I can live with that.

I am starting to get used to the idea of the Mall being a destinationfor the day. Something to look at, to experience, like the beach or the mountains. It's depressing, but it's a fact - families go to the mall as an outing.

I can live with that.

There was a fake San-Francisco-type tram going round the outer edge of the piazza. It was cute and fun for kids with the conductor ringing the bell.

I can live with that, too.

What I couldn't stand was - wait for it - it had a tour guide. I actually heard him as the tram rumbled past...

"And here we have Crate and Barrel. There's the Gap on your left and..."

A tram tour of a mall?

Are you fracking kidding me?

Flavors of America - Hollywood!

In the distance and fuzzy because of the smog, but still uber-cool to see it in person.

Flavors of America - The ABCD of Santa Monica

We took a virtually free vacation to LA last weekend.  Flights on airmiles, a dear friend to host us, etc. We had a great time! 

Mulholland Drive, Chinese Theatre, Hollywood sign... all the classic stuff.

Continuing the tourist thing, we went to Santa Monica pier.  It was a blisteringly hot day, and the mad folks were all out...

The Doggie pram...

The Hair Fashion Crime...

The Mylie Cyrus Wannabe, who God has cruelly cursed with a mediocre voice...

Next, the beach.  Who knew what wonders awaited us?  

It was packed to the gills with people... under umbrellas, paddling, body-surfing.

Our experience was a little different.  I chose not to illustrate the two nastiest with photos... you don't need that.

A is for Armband

Lying on the sand, one of those rubber things drug addicts tie around their arms, pulling one side with their teeth to tighten and make their veins bulge before they shoot up.

B is for Butt

Say no more...

C is for Condom

Yes, we paddled into the water and there it was... a used blue condom.  There then followed one of those Charlie Chaplin moments where we tried to run out of the sea and the little waves kept washing the condom after us.  I started singing the jaws theme while breaking into a sprint up the sand.

D is for Disgusting

You thought the condom was bad?  Nope.  Further horrors awaited us.

We started to leave the beach and got to the outdoor showers.  There was a woman in a bikini with a wrap around her waist.  At first she seemed to be rinsing off like everyone else... but then I saw her take out shower gel.  And then I saw her take out a razor.  And then she proceeded to shave her inner thighs.  Seriously.  Patootie shaving in public.  Lovely.

Hello from Puppy Dog - Treat time!

 

I wish Mama could talk dog.  She just doesn't listen to me. 

Here's an example:

Mama: "Do you want a treat?"

Me: Yes, please.

Mama: "Have you been a good boy?"

Me: Well, yes, I think I have, frankly.

Mama: "Does my good boy want a treat?"

Me: I already said yes, Mama.

Mama: "Should we go get my boy a treat?"

Me: Is the Pope Catholic?

Mama: "Should we?  Should we go get a treat?"

Me: Does a dog mark in the woods?

Mama: "Maybe he should get a treat.  Should he get a treat?"

Me: Are squirrels the scourge of suburbia? Are cats plotting to take over the planet?  Are tennis balls there to be skinned and chewed till they break?  Are dog prams an abomination?  Are pigeons flying rats?  Do humans pretend chocolate is bad for dogs to keep it all to themselves?  Is peanut butter proof there is a God?  In sniffing a butt the best way to introduce yourself?  Is shedding Nature's way of telling you to brush me?  Do Hairless Apes blame their farts on dogs?  Is the toilet my backup water bowl?  Come on woman!  There are small ducks bathing in my pool of drool! 

Mama:  "Here's your treat!"

Me: About F-ing time, woman.

Sigh.

Hairless Apes are so dumb.

Lots of licks and woofs,

 Puppy Dog

Quote Unquote - PC vs. Mac

Fluffy Bear on a business trip, via IM:

[2:48:35 PM] crappo music in this coffee shop

[2:48:41 PM] too fucking hippie by far

[2:48:56 PM] I can see 10 laptops from where I'm sitting and mine is the only PC

Diary of an Ex-Employee - Day 72.0

Today may very well go down in history as the beginning of the end of my sanity.

For the first time in my life, I had a real OCD moment.

Not a mini-OCD moment, like when you think you've left the oven on as you are locking the front door, so you go back in just to check.

A real "I have to clean" OCD moment.

The day started with me going to the gym.  Our gym is in a strip-mall thing, and I decided to try and get one of the precious parkings out front, rather than go into the garage, where there are lots of empty bays.

Mistake No. 1.

So I get to the small parking lot and see one tiny parking and think: "Hey, I can squeeze into that."

Mistake No. 2.

I drive the car in, and the left wheel catches on the sidewalky bit.  Then I see that I am under the outside stairs, and there is a pipe hanging down over where my hood needs to be.  So I think "OK, I can't use this parking. 

But now my left front wheel is kinda stuck on the vertical bit of the sidewalky thing and so I need to get that loose before I can back out.  So I pump the gas a tiny bit.

Mistake No. 3.

Suddenly the wheel is free of the sidewalky thing and, in slow motion, the car luuuuuurches forward, the hood hits the pipe and the pipe scraaaaaapes the hood of the car.

Four inches of parallel grooves.  At one point, through the red paint to the grey gizzards of the car.

I get out of the car.  I look at the damage.  

Freak out No. 1.

Fluffy Bear is going to kill me - slowly and painfully.

Frack gym - I'm going home.

I go home.  I call the dealer about the scratch.  Not much help.

I do yoga to calm down.  I have an interview.  Standing strong in Warrior 1, 2, and 3 poses will help my confidence and still my mind.

It works.

I put Puppy Dog in the car, I put the address in the sat nav and we drive over to the interview.

I drive into the wrong strip mall office block. 

Mistake No. 4.

So now I am on the phone with the potential employer blabbing about being lost and not being able to find their building and I am parked next to the basketball court and can someone direct me?

"We don't have a basketball court," she replies.

Great first impression I made on her, then.

I find the right place... interview, chat, chat, bla, bla.

Not my dream job.

I head back out to the highway, and listen to my messages.  Turns out a dear friend of mine is in hospital.  

Freak out No. 2.

I call her, I drive to her house, I ring her doorbell, I call her again.

She's not released yet, someone is with her, she's going to be on her way home soon, all is fine.  

What I don't think I am adequately conveying here is the low-grade evil of niggling anxiety which flowed through this entire day.  And it wasn't just me.  Puppy Dog was utterly uncontrollable on the leash, bouncing around with manic energy.

I had started the day being growled at (really badly) by him when I touched his hind legs.  Three times.  So I'd set up an acupuncture vet appointment, more of which later.

I took Puppy Dog to the small downtown dog park, but didn't throw balls for him.  I didn't want him sprinting around when he had something odd going on with his legs.

So I am standing chatting to some other dog owners and I explain that he has something wrong with him, so I am laying off the tennis balls today.  So this guy - either deaf or dumb - picks up a ball and throws it for him and Puppy Dog chases it, skids, turns his body awkwardly... all the stuff he usually does.  But with sore legs.

Freak out No. 3.

Time to leave the dog park.

We head up to Hippieville, where I am going to see the vet acupuncturist.  In my mind, I visualize the route, remembering the right road.  Except my mind is seeing Seaville, not Hippieville, and I get totally lost.

Mistake No... what number is it now?  I've lost count.

Anyway, I wrestle with the sat nav in the car - if you don't have a definitive address, it doesn't want to help you get where you are going - and find which direction to head in.

We get there, I meet a friend for a drink, and realize my phone hasn't synched and I don't know the name, address or phone number of the vet I am supposed to be seeing.

Mistake No. 6.

Freak out No. 4.

My friend - let's call him Oliver - kindly Googles and Bings till we figure out where the hell I am meant to be going.

I head to the vet.  Puppy Dog gets acupuncture, and starts to calm down a little.  Then he grabs a needle out of his thigh, and we both immediately grab his mouth, but we think he might have eaten it.

So now I have killed my dog.

Freak out No. 5.

The vet talks to me about how the needle is very slim and bendy and tells me stories of other dogs who have eaten them and been just fine.

Yeah, whatever.

I go to the store to get canned pumpkin.  I need to feed this to Puppy Dog with bread so he has bulk to surround the perhaps-swallowed-needle and fibre to poo out the perhaps-swallowed-needle.  I feed the dog.  

I'll need to check his poo in the morning.

Oh, yay.

And then, out of nowhere, at 8:30 at night, the impulse to clean.  I clean the kitchen counters, the stove top, even behind the microwave.  Then I get down on my knees and scrub the kitchen floor.

Please understand that the only way I would ever contemplate such a thing was under extreme duress.  I hate cleaning.  

But there I am, manicure ruined, scrub-a-dub-dubbing, baby.

Oh.

See.

Dee.

Big time.

And it made me feel better.

And the kitchen looks clean for the first time in over a month.

And that's not such a bad thing, I guess.

As long as I never do that again, of course.