Ice Skating Fail

Bummer about the cold weather in Northern California on the first day of spring.

I hate cold weather. I don’t do winter well. You wouldn’t think so though. I grew up in one of the New England states.

I preferred indoor activities, especially during the winter. I was the kid who sat in the corner with her nose stuck in a book or magazine. However, when I was eleven, I really liked ice skating. Trouble was I wasn’t able to like it enough.

My participation in that activity was usually limited to thirty minutes or less. And, yes, I did dress in layers. For starters, I pulled on every sweater I owned. The rest of my outfit included three pairs of knee socks, slacks, a snowsuit, boots, a scarf, a hat, and gloves and mittens.

Dressing in layers didn’t help a whole lot. Actually, wearing all that clothing made it harder to navigate the bumpy neighborhood ice rink (aka the frozen swamp). After enduring single digit temperatures for fifteen or twenty minutes, I shivered so much that I had trouble staying upright. I usually stumbled around for another five or ten minutes. By that time, I felt like I was turning into a Popsicle and gave up, but only for the day. I peeled off my skates, pulled on my boots, and plodded home, determined to stay longer next time.

Post from the Past

[Note: St. Patrick's Day will soon be here, so this week I’m recycling an entry that was originally posted in March 2006.]

Every year around St. Patrick’s Day, I think about a fellow I met when I was a junior in high school. He had an Irish last name, an Elvis haircut, and a whole lot of freckles. We dated for approximately four months when he was on the outs with the girl he had gone steady with since he was about thirteen.

“Jeremy” liked cars. He liked to see how fast they could go. He also liked to see how fast he they could stop. (Hey, former neighbors, now you know how all those skid marks got on the road in front of your houses.)

During one of the several times that he was stopped for speeding, he told the policeman that he was “just burning out the carbon.” That excuse failed to impress the policeman, and Jeremy ended up in court the next day.

The judge he appeared before had a reputation for being unsympathetic to teenage boys with a hot foot on the gas pedal. When Jeremy’s case was called, the judge told him, “Son, there are three rates of speed in this town, slow, medium, and good morning, Judge.”

I Went Berserk in a Department Store

Last week at the mall, I noticed several new, life-sized, white fiberglass mannequins in a store window. The mannequins had both arms and legs. At the same time, I noticed that the mannequins in the window of a neighboring teen-oriented store had no arms. (Maybe armless mannequins are cheaper.) However, the mannequins in the teen store had heads and faces, and they looked like “real” people. The white fiberglass mannequins in the other store had only half heads. Yes, that’s right—half heads. They looked, well, sort of like aliens that had missed the turnoff to their own planet and ended up on Earth.

I wondered if the half-headed mannequins had freaked out any little kids.

They would have freaked out the two-year-old me.

When I was a toddler, my aunt worked as a combination salesclerk/bookkeeper at a department store. My mother shopped there frequently, and she preferred to shop alone. She took me with her only when she had no other choice.

On those days, Mom crossed her fingers and told me to stay close to her. She knew what would happen if the sales clerks were in the middle of changing the clothing displays. As soon as I spotted a mannequin with an arm or a leg, or better yet, a head, missing, I’d throw myself on the floor and scream like crazy.

Outside, pedestrians would forget where they were going and peek in the windows to see what all the fuss was about. If my aunt happened to be working on the floor, she would flee to the back office. That left my red-faced mother to explain my fear of dismembered dummies to anyone who seemed alarmed by my behavior.

As soon as the store owner thought he could keep a straight face, he’d emerge from his office, walk over to my mother, point a finger at me, and say, “Get her out of here. She’s ruining my business.”

Did I Sound Snarky?

The following sentences are from the bio that I posted on this site.

 In between office jobs, I worked in the retail field; that's always been my choice of interim job. Sad to say, I'm domestically dysfunctional, and, probably because of this, I have no aptitude for restaurant work.


Golly, I hope that last sentence doesn’t sound snarky. I have a lot of respect for people who work in restaurants. Those jobs are not easy ones, and sometimes they don’t pay well, even with tips included.


And I really don’t have the aptitude for restaurant work. I found that out one afternoon, way too many years ago, when I was shanghaied to impersonate a waitress at a friend’s restaurant.


It was mid afternoon on Saturday. I had been some-where, I forget where, and was on my way home. I didn’t think the restaurant would be too busy, so I decided to stop for coffee and conversation. When I walked through the door, I noticed that several customers seemed to be waiting for their food or waiting to order. They did not look happy.


As it turned out, Sam was working alone. He did not look happy either. Sam called me into the kitchen. He told me that the waitress who was supposed to be there hadn’t showed up. He had called another waitress. She was coming in—eventually. She couldn’t leave the house until her baby sitter arrived. In the meantime he needed my help again. Before I could escape, he stuck an order pad in my hands and gave me a shove. “Go get the orders,” he said.


I didn’t want to do it, but I sort of felt sorry for him. I knew he was having trouble hiring good employees. One evening, not too long ago, a kitchen helper hadn’t shown up. Sam had drafted me to wash dishes. Every time he popped into the kitchen he had complained that I wasn’t doing the job right. He had been especially annoyed when I tossed the pots and pans in with the glassware.


That afternoon, my first customers were two twenty-something men, probably college students, who ordered sandwiches and sodas. After they left, I found $1.40 in change on their table. I scooped up the money and headed to the kitchen, “Sam,” I said, showing him the coins, “those guys forgot their change.”


“That’s your tip,” Sam said, rolling his eyes.


During the next twenty-five minutes, I took orders, delivered food, and got more tips. And then a woman asked for a cup of coffee. “Put an ice cube in it,” she said.


Well, I’d never heard of anyone doing that before. I stared at her for several seconds; then I retreated into the kitchen. “Sam,” I said, “there’s a woman sitting at the counter who wants me to put an ice cube in her coffee.”


Sam shrugged and rolled his eyes again. “Well, PUT. AN. ICE CUBE. IN. IT.”


So I did and made both Sam and the customer happy.


By the time my replacement showed up, I knew that working in a restaurant was something I didn’t want to do ever again, even for forty-five minutes.


Postscript: Many years later I lived on a ranch in the Santa Catalina Mountains, several miles from a very small town. My job opportunities were so limited that they were almost nonexistent. I was offered a job as a bartender, and I accepted the offer. That job lasted all of two weeks.

Water Woes

Wednesday evening, a city employee (CE) came to the door at 6:08 p.m. and announced that a water main had broken across the street. He told us the repair crew would be shutting off our water soon. I said, “Yes, I know about the break. I noticed it at nine-twenty this morning.” (Did I sound snarky?)

And, yes, the City knew about the break earlier, too. When I left to go to Barnes and Noble (at nine-twenty), I saw a city truck parked on the side of the property.

CE said he thought the repairs would be completed in “about three hours.” Having been inconvenienced by several water main breaks in our area during the last three years or so, I didn’t share his optimism.

Somewhere between 11 p.m. and 3:30 a.m., the repair crew restored our water service. How can I be so sure of the time frame? I went to bed at 11 p.m., and the sound of the rain on the roof woke me at 3:30 a.m.

On Hiatus From Blogging Until 2011

I won’t be updating my blogs again until sometime in 2011. Currently, I'm working on several writing projects, including two short stories, a Craigslist blurb, and my resume (got to get that right, even when looking for only a part-time job).

I’m also in the process of creating several WordPress pages. I found it easy to create blogs on Blogger and MySpace. I think WordPress is less user-friendly—at least to me.

My writing goals for 2011 include posting more often and finally completing my first novel. Now that I’m not working full time, I feel that I have a good chance to meet my writing goals and some other goals, too.

My other goals include getting rid of all the “stuff” that we absolutely do not need or will never use again.
Happy holidays to everyone out there in cyberspace. See you in 2011.

(Well, I did post a short entry on December 23.)

Christmas Season on the Bus

I rode the bus home from Barnes and Noble yesterday. The man sitting across from me looked really sad.His uncombed hair probably hadn’t seen a bottle of shampoo in several weeks, and his clothes were badly stained. He looked between 75 and 80 years old. I had never seen him before; I had no idea as to what his circumstances were.

Even though he was a stranger, I felt bad thinking that perhaps he had no one who cared about him or who checked to see if he was okay.


Everyone (well, maybe except for someone who’s really, really evil) should have someone who cares about him or her, especially at this time of year.

Hello There in Tucson: Part IV

(continued from previous post)


Oops, my error. Hanging up on Ms. Hello Hello was a really dumb move. Why, oh why, did I do that? I guess it was the shock of recognition. I don’t know what I expected, but I never expected her to answer the phone.

Ms. Hello Hello always called during the day, when no one was around. Well, Other Household Member suspected there was a party in progress. Maybe Ms. Hello Hello chugged down a couple margaritas and got up the courage to call us from a friend’s phone. Maybe she figured she could finally speak to a real person. On the other hand, maybe she figured that 9:30 p.m. was a good time to play phone games and annoy the heck out of us.

By Sunday morning, I figured that I didn’t have anything to lose, so I called Bina. On the first try, I got a busy signal. On the second try, I got Bina. I expected her to deny any knowledge of the calls or to hang up on me. However, she seemed willing to hear me out.

I explained that someone apparently had called my house several times from her phone on Saturday night. She hesitated and then asked if I was in Arizona. When I told her I was, she said she had been trying to call her boyfriend in Arizona and guessed that she had dialed a wrong number.

“Three times?” I asked. She hesitated again, so I took the direct approach and said, “When I called your number last night, the woman who has been leaving hello, hello messages on my phone for the last few months answered your phone.”

“Well, I don’t know anything about that,” she said. I asked if she had been at a party. “I was at a nightclub.” Okay, so Bina had a cell phone. Some people are a little careless about leaving their cell phones lying around. Maybe Ms. Hello Hello had grabbed the phone and made the calls when Bina was occupied elsewhere.

However, Bina knew that the calls had been made to Arizona. So I was sure she had at least a nodding acquaintance with Ms. Hello Hello. “If you think you might know this person,” I said, “please give her a message from me. Tell her to tell us what she wants or stop calling.”

For a while, there were no more messages from Ms. Hello Hello. However, several months later, there was another, barely audible, “Hello” message from someone who sounded a lot like her. Over the next four or five months, that woman left two or three also barely audible messages. At those times, I did not access *69 in an attempt to trace her phone number. I would have succeeded only in adding more extra charges to my phone bill. I also decided that, if she didn’t have the courtesy to talk to us, I couldn’t be bothered with her. If Ms. Hello Hello wanted something from us, she couldn’t have wanted it that badly.

Over ten years later, her identity and the purpose of those calls remain an unsolved mini-mystery. I never got to talk to Ms. Hello Hello, nor, to my knowledge, did anyone else in the household. Did she want a favor from us, or was she only trying to annoy us—and why? If she wanted something from us, if she had a valid request for help with something, I would have tried to help her.

 And would I recognize her voice if I heard it today? You betcha!

Hello There in Tucson: Part III

(continued from previous post)

We’ve always asked friends and family members not to call us after 9 p.m. unless it’s an emergency. So we were a bit apprehensive when the phone rang shortly after 9:30 p.m. one Saturday in May.

OHM picked up, barked “Hello,” and slammed down the phone. “Sounds like someone is having a party,” he growled. A few minutes later, the phone rang again. He picked up again. No one on the line again, same background noise. The third time the phone rang, I bounced off the couch, picked up the phone, hung up, and punched *69.

I guess miracles do happen—I got a phone number. I did a quick area code search and discovered that the phone number was located in Los Angeles. That was another surprise. We didn’t know anyone in Los Angeles.

I called the number and a woman answered the phone. I should have demanded “Okay, Ms. Hello Hello, who are you, and what do you want from us?” But I was so stunned that I hung up. A few minutes later, after I stopped freaking out, I called the number again. This time, the call went to a voice mail message from a woman with an accent who identified herself as Bina. Bina wasn’t the woman I had just hung up on.

Ms. Hello Hello didn’t have an accent.

(to be concluded)

Hello There in Tucson: Part II

(continued from previous post)


In 2000, Tucson probably was the call center capital of the United States, if not the world. Many of those companies had set up shop in the airport area. During the week, I rode the bus surrounded by legions of call center employees. Out of curiosity, I asked a few of them if telemarketers ever left messages on answering machines. No, they did not. “Telemarketers can’t sell anything to answering machines,” one woman explained.

Our second caller, the woman with the giggles, called once for sure—possibly twice. I know she didn’t dial a wrong number because she asked for Other Household Member by name. Well, maybe she was a volunteer calling from her home on behalf of a local charity. That could explain the children chattering in the background.

The first caller was more persistent. Every couple of weeks, for over two months, she left the same repeated one-word message on the answering machine during the day. I nicknamed her Ms. Hello Hello.

If she wasn’t a shy or nervous newbie telemarketer, then who was this person with the soft, almost musical voice and very limited vocabulary? More important, how did she get my unlisted phone number? Every time I found a message from her, I punched *69, hoping to get her phone number. All I got were extra charges on my phone bills and a recorded message that announced: “The last number called cannot be reached.”

One friend suggested that I change my phone number. A coworker thought I should complain to the phone company. Complain about what? The phone company’s CSR would have laughed at me. The greeting “Hello, hello” wasn’t threatening by any stretch of the imagination. However, by the end of April, I was sure that this woman thought she was playing games with someone. I just didn’t know if it was with us.

I couldn’t think of anyone we’d offended recently. Maybe someone purposely gave Ms. Hello Hello a wrong number. Maybe she wrote the right number down wrong. Or maybe she thought she was calling the person who had phone number before I did.

The calls were annoying, but they didn’t freak me out. I didn’t want to change my phone number, but I wasn’t looking forward to listening to her messages forever. I figured if I kept punching *69 after I heard her voice, I would eventually get a phone number.

And I did.

Hello, Good Morning, Hello There in Tucson

That was the message the young woman left on my answering machine in February 2000. I’m sure about the date for two reasons. 1) She left the message shortly after the company I worked for moved to the airport area, thereby inconveniencing most of its employees, including me. 2) Even better: I’m a writer; I tend to document stuff, stuff like odd phone calls. I documented that first message and many subsequent “Hello, hello” messages from the same woman. I still have those notes in my files.


Oddly enough, a second woman also called one afternoon in February and asked to speak to Other Household Member (OHM). OHM told the woman she was speaking to him. The woman giggled and hung up. OHM said he could hear children in the background. Another time, we got a garbled message that sounded like the second woman’s voice saying “It would be at night.” What would be at night?


I was annoyed and with good reason. I had been the recipient of some bizarre phone calls when I first moved to Tucson. I ended up changing my phone number, and I didn’t want to feel forced into doing it again. If the women had something to say to us, I figured they should just say it and stop playing games.

I was certain that the calls were not coming from some zany, disorganized telemarketing company.


And, as it turned out, they weren't.

(to be continued)

Mystery Shopping and Name Badges

Some retirees earn extra cash as mystery shoppers. Not me. I’ve been there, done that, and don’t think I’ll do it again.

In the late 90s, I shopped a restaurant chain in Current City for about a year. I felt like a spy, which, in a way, I was. Taking notes was difficult with servers hovering around, asking if everything was okay. If a server seemed suspicious, I pretended to be editing a writing project.

Most of the time I was able to write positive comments about the food and service. However, I usually wrote up at least one employee for not wearing his or her name badge. Maybe it seems nitpicky, but I would not give an employee a pass on that item.

Once upon a time I worked for Major Big Box Store. Management constantly wrote up employees who weren’t wearing their name badges. Before leaving home, I always made sure that I had my name badge—well, except one time. That evening I borrowed a name badge from an associate who had clocked out for the day. Nobody noticed that it wasn’t mine.

I Wasn't Laughing

Got a certified letter Tuesday. Good news.

Got a certified letter from Texas sent to my address at The Apartment Complex in December 2004. Bizarre!

I think the December letter must have been someone’s idea of a joke. The envelope was “sort of” addressed correctly; i.e., the address did include the name of a household member. First red flag: The envelope was handwritten, with a stamped, not printed, return address.
Second red flag: The letter was typed on an obvious copy of the (legitimate) company’s letterhead, with the address blocked out. The body of the letter comprised three semi-literate sentences. The assistant manager's signature did not match the handwriting on the envelope.

The salutation did not include household member's name. It referenced a Mr. Harmony. No first name, just Mr. Harmony. I had no idea as to who this person was. Mr. Harmony, it seems, was three months behind in rent payments for his office space—in Texas. The assistant manager, Ms. AC, requested that he pay the past due amount of $628.30 by December 10.

What???

A quick check with the property management company confirmed that no one named Harmony lived in the The Apartment Complex. (However, I believe Harmony actually is the name of a town/city in Texas.) I had never been to The Woodlands, the Texas city referenced in the return address on the envelope. Furthermore, in 2004, I hadn’t been anywhere near Texas in three years.

Fortunately for me, in an effort to appear professional, the assistant manager copied the company’s regional director and collections manager on the letter. Thank you, Ms. AC. You made my research efforts a lot easier.I wrote a complaint letter to the regional director and sent copies to the collections manager AND the company's CEO. The regional director responded with an apology that was fairly literate, but more confusing than the original letter.

Someday, somewhere in cyberspace, I will post an article about how I researched and “resolved” this fiasco. (There was some screaming involved on my part.) Maybe I’ll even post a photo of the letter and the envelope—with the names of the company and letter writer blocked out.

Housework and Me

I might as well face it: I’m not going to get any major house cleaning chores done until I “retire.” Cleaning out closets and washing walls will just have to wait.

Working full time, I often have little energy/motivation left to work on my writing projects during the evening, let alone dust, vacuum, or mop floors. By the time the weekend rolls around, I feel that, after working all week, I deserve some time for myself. So, I dust, vacuum, or mop whatever really needs it and spend the rest of the weekend writing, reading, or just trolling the ‘Net. It’s worked well so far.

And, no, I don’t live in a pig sty.

Actually, I have found that a lot of other people feel the same way. Makes me feel less guilty about the whole thing.

Fun at the Bank

One day, not too long ago, I went to the bank to visit my money. Waiting in line, I noticed a thirty- something man standing off to one side. He was wearing a baseball cap. The baby in his arms was also wearing a hat. Well, that was sensible. We’re in the Southwest, after all, and it probably was 106 degrees outside.

A bank employee was standing next to the customer, but neither man was talking. The bank employee looked nervous; the customer looked angry.

They were joined by another employee. She said something to the customer that I couldn’t hear. But I did hear his response. Was the man overdrawn? Behind in car payments? Complaining about a bank error? No. As it turned out, he didn’t want to remove his hat.

That’s when I remembered the sign on the door. Please remove hat and sunglasses for security reasons. Sounds reasonable to me. Banks in this city seem to get robbed on a daily basis. I’d seen too many news reports with videos that featured bank robbers wearing hats and sunglasses.

But this guy insisted on keeping his hat on his head. I guess he thought it was un-American to ask him to remove his hat in a bank, even for security reasons. At one point, he lifted the hat off his daughter’s head, pointed toward the spot where he thought the security camera was located, and remarked, “Suspected bank robber.”

The male employee said, “That isn’t funny, Sir.”

In the end, they compromised. The man pulled the hat off his forehead so that the camera could get a clear view of his face.

I thought his attitude was really weird. I’m not insulted because I have to remove my hat and sunglasses. After all, that rule was made for everyone’s protection including his—and for the protection of that baby he held in his arms.

Don't Get Your Hopes Up About the Job

Waiting in the check-out line at the library, I couldn’t help but hear a twenty-something man talking on his cell phone. He was discussing his job application with a prospective employer.

My ears perked up as he listed a number of “concessions” that he needed from any employer.
“And I’ll need at least one Sunday off a month,” he said. “And probably a couple of Saturdays too. I put that on my application.”

Well, okay, it’s a drag to work weekends. But I did it. Several times, in fact. And a lot of other people do, too. You tend to agree to that if being available to work weekends is one of the requirements for the job—and you really want/need the job. Had I not been willing to work weekends, I wouldn’t have had a job at SmartMart for over three years.

Given today’s economy, that fellow probably isn’t going to have a job either. Too bad, because he left with a woman and a couple of small children who called him “Daddy.”

Yes, some companies offer flexible work schedules, but generally the employer, not the employee, decides the definition of flexible. With all the people in this country who are out of work, that man’s prospective employer will, no doubt, find someone willing to work the hours required for the job.

Don't Run Me Down

HELLO Mr. SUV driver.

Yes, that is a pedestrian—me—in your path as you try to sneak in a left turn before the north-bound traffic slams into your gas guzzling, over-priced hunk of steel. I realize that you didn’t notice me, but, according to the walk sign, I have the right of way. So stay right where you are until I finish crossing the street.

I apologize for having to walk to work in the dark. Believe me, I like it even less that I have to get up at 4:15 a.m.

And I don’t understand how you could not have seen me. Yes, it is dark out here, and, yes, I am wearing a black coat, but the intersection is well lit. And the flashlight I’m waving all over the place should give you a clue that someone is attempting to cross the street. What do you think the beam of light is? A signal from an alien spaceship?

I Am Not a Stalker

I view certain individuals’ MySpace pages (and sometimes their Classmates pages), but that’s because I miss them, think of them often, and hope life is going well for them.

My Computer Crashed

My laptop crashed on October 4, just before I had to leave for a writing workshop. I have no idea what happened. I will admit that there was a lot of “stuff” on that computer. Maybe the hard drive was so bloated that it just gave up.

I have a new computer now, and I’m slowly but surely getting used to the Vista operating system and Office 2007. Vista is very different from the XP operating system, but I think I’m going to like it—once I figure it out.

Good thing I budgeted for a new computer back in June. That’s where my stimulus check went. I put the check in the bank, intending to buy the computer in November or December. Instead, out of necessity, I bought it in October, just in time for NanoWriMo.

Web Page Advice

I’m thinking about creating a MySpace page. So, I have been doing some online research. After looking at many individuals’ personal web pages, I’m going to offer an opinion that probably won’t go over well with most readers.

Are you a teacher, preacher, lawyer, or member of any other profession whose members are—even in this day and age—generally described by the term conservative? If the answer is yes, then maybe you shouldn’t post text and pictures that could be construed as even a teensy bit, um, suggestive.

Your posts could come back to haunt you because you never know who’s out there.