Spookmaster triumphs

Call me old fashioned, or stubborn, or just plain foolish, but I like doing things without help, which is also known as "the hard way." I like to think of it as the "pure" way. And I would only ever consider carving pumpkins freehand based on my own inner vision of what that pumpkin had to offer.

Well, there's further evidence today that I am an idiot. After much resistance, I reluctantly and grudgingly carved my pumpkin with a design that you trace onto the pumpkin and then carve around. I will now grudgingly admit that the pumpkins look awesome.

Happy Halloween!



PS The designs are from a book called "Spookmaster" and every time I see that word all I can think of is the Rapmaster episode from the Simpsons, which is classic. Tragically, I can't seem to find a video of it anywhere on the interweb.

Ticket to ride

Last night I attended the classroom portion of the three-day class that will result, if all goes well, in me having a motorcycle license within about a week.

The class was 4 1/2 hours long and felt every minute of it. The agenda consisted of watching short video clips, then working with our tables to answer blindingly obvious questions, then sharing our newfound insights with the whole group, then doing it all over again.

There were about 10 video clips, so probably about 40 minutes of video, yet by my count there were only about seven different stock clips used, just played over and over with different voiceover each time, sometimes several times within the same four-minute clip. It made me start to think I was losing my mind, which is just as well since I think that might actually be a requirement for riding a motorcycle.

"When turning while carrying a passenger," the video explained in the Passengers and Cargo clip, "the passenger should look over your shoulder to the inside of the turn, just as if you were on a bobsled."

I looked around the room; yes, this was not a group that would find bobsledding references to be particularly meaningful.

The riding portion of the class takes place this Saturday and Sunday for five hours each day. I've got a helmet and gloves but I still need to get some motorcycle boots. And then I'll be getting my full body riding suit. It might look something like this.

Shiva to the left, shiva to the right

I went to a new yoga studio last night to try it out as part of my sampling of the San Francisco Yoga Buffet*. I'm checking out all the studios within a 20 min bike ride of home to see which one I like the best.

The class I went to last night was at Laughing Lotus in the Mission. The teacher talked waaaaaay more than I want or need any yoga teacher to talk during class. However, what she did do effectively through the combo lecture/yoga class was create an overarching theme for the practice: we focused on Shiva, who symbolizes destruction, change and dance all wound together in a spinning way with a little bit of almost falling down thrown in as well.

After we got a little warmed up, the teacher stopped and declared that the class was taking a field trip: she instructed us all to crowd around a painting of Shiva on the wall. It looked like this:



"During class today," she said, "I'm going to call out 'Shiva!' and then you strike this pose." [She spread her arms and lifted one leg up, like Shiva in the painting.]

"I might say 'Shiva to the left!' and ha! [she strikes the pose] you go there."

"Or I might say 'Shiva to the right!' Ha! [pose again] You go there."

And so we Shiva'd our way through the practice, residing in the moment and the feeling of almost falling.

I give the class 7 out of 10, but then need to dock them an additional half point for going 20 min over the scheduled end time.



*Not an actual buffet.

They're liliputians I tell you!

Believe it or not, I was not photoshopped into this photo. I just have unusually small friends.

Safety first

Here's a sign that I pass every time I go to the bathroom at work:

(It says: Please do not remove extinguisher from holder. Contents may explode.)

I take comfort knowing that, if there ever were a fire, the fire extinguisher would play the helpful role of exploding if someone were to take it off the wall to, you know, extinguish the fire.

I bet the first aid kit has extrabacterial bandaids and slices of lemon instead of antiseptic wipes.

There's only one thing to do

There's only one thing to do when your boyfriend is growing increasingly irritated that he's been wearing his coat, hat and scarf in the house for 15 minutes while you keep insisting you are ready to walk out the door but just need another 30 seconds.

And that thing is to put a dog pillow on the chair with him and take his picture.

It smells different

Fall is great. We've had zero to minimal fallness in SF so being in Chicago this past weekend was a great taste of that elusive season. Welcome to fall, I say to myself when I look at this picture.

Whiskey everybody wants

For the second time this week, last night I stayed up past my bedtime drinking free whiskey.

It was for a good cause. Actually, it wasn't for a good cause unless whiskey is, in and of itself, a good cause. But it was fun. Not the whole time, but there were definitely moments when I was having fun. Or at least a close substitute for fun, like being drunk.

The event was a theatrical whiskey tasting put on by The Macallen. We went with Jamaica and Nelson who are regulars at these sorts of events and as such were able to identify the subtler notes of vanilla, hazelnut, peatiness and pompousness in the single malts we sampled. And I learned that I prefer 17 year old scotch to 10, 12, 15, or 18 year varieties.

Upshacked, unpacked

It was 40 days without furniture and 40 nights on an air mattress, but my stuff finally arrived from DC and the final touch - a chocolate brown sofa - arrived last week. For the first time since leaving DC on May 25, I have a home.

Curry horse

Last night we made and bought Indian food for dinner. We made a homemade curry with tomatoes, curry paste, coconut milk and a week's supply of fresh veggies, and then we supplemented it with Palak Paneer courtesy of Kitchens of India.

Also courtesy of Kitchens of India, we discovered, was a free music CD.


Never one to let free Indian music go unmocked, I giddily slipped the CD into my laptop to have a listen while I finished up some emails before dinner.

The music was exactly what you would expect: tortured kittens to the beat of clumsy furniture movers going down several flights of stairs.

And then my computer started behaving weirdly: programs were freezing, weird windows started popping up and then disappearing, and a delicate curry smell wafted up from the CD drive.

Is it possible, I asked myself, that this is not free music at all but rather a brilliant scheme by Indian programmers in cahoots with Kitchens of India to steal Indian-food-loving Americans' identities and credit card information?

Probably not. But I took the CD out pretty quickly just in case.

Hot, Flat and Crowded

Friday night, we drove all over San Francisco in an unintentional neighborhood tour which included Potrero Hill (best view of the city, hands down) and the Richmond. We had dinner at a very warm yet delicious Burmese restaurant and played Rock Band at a friend's house afterward. I think it is safe to say it is no less than tragic that my talent as a drummer has gone heretofore unappreciated.

In an unrelated story, Saturday morning the car had a flat tire.

No big deal, right? You put on the spare and drive to get a new tire. Unless you have no jack or tire iron with which to put said spare on said car in said foul mood at 8 fricking am on a Saturday.

Surely one of the upsides of living in a neighborhood with more auto repair shops than human or animal residents is that this should be relatively painless to resolve. The first place I went into would have been more than happy to help but was going to charge me $65 just to put the spare on. Several other places just plain weren't helpful, with varying degrees of nastiness, indifference and bad breath.

Finally, I found a friendly old man who may or may not have actually worked at the shop he was sitting near and was willing to let me walk away with pretty much anything in the shop I could find without even asking me for my name, much less an ID or something that would guarantee its safe return. This man was my new best friend.

We rummaged around the shop and found a tire iron that looked like it would serve but had a hard time finding a small portable jack that I could take with me. All that they had, other than the built-in hydraulic lifts, were these rolling jacks that looked like small lawnmovers with a single broom handle sticking out. It was portable in the sense that it was on wheels, but it was very heavy and pulling it made a noise like dragging metal filing cabinets wrapped in metal chains across concrete, which isn't too far from what I was in fact doing. A little short on alternatives, I steeled myself for nasty looks and began dragging this much-needed tool towards home, just one ear-splitting block away.

As I rounded the corner and started the last half block down Clementina Street, I had a moment of horror, shame, pride and aural sensory overload all mixed together: this Saturday morning, for these brief but excruciating moments, I was the Clementina Show. I savored it. And then I said the loudest silent prayer I could muster that I am never, ever, ever in that position again.

What I didn't do on Saturday afternoon was go check out the Red Bull soapbox derby event, but the final count was that 75,000 people had attended. Friends, this park is not that big. And that's a lot of people. But I am willing to bet that none of them are as good at drums on Rock Band as I am.

Unsolicited advice

My little startup is looking for free help and we thought we might be able to get an intern or two in to help out so we posted an internship opportunity on craigslist that asked for an undergrad or advanced degree plus a few years of relevant work experience.

This may very well be an absurd request. But the bonus for me has been that a number of people have been so incensed by our job posting that they have been compelled to email us with their thoughts on the matter.

Let me share just a few:

You want someone with an MBA for an unpaid internship?

My daughter is only a junior in college and is working on her second paid job in the sustainability field.

Best wishes and good luck.

And there was this guy:

No disrespect but your education requirements are far too high for a "marketing intern". Why would anyone with a BS degree + 2-3 years work experience do an unpaid internship? The economy is bad, but NOT THAT BAD! Get a fucking clue and good luck finding anyone close to your "standards".

Cheers

And yet another came this morning:

Ahem.

Minimum: BS/BA degree plus 2-3+ years relevant work experience
Preferred: MBA plus 2-3+ years relevant experience
This internship position is unpaid

Um...If someone already has "relevant work experience" and major educational credentials - why are they going to work for you for free? Because you're so "dynamic" and shit?

Good luck with that start-up.

In addition to these replies, we have also received a deluge of resumes from people applying for the internships, some of whom even meet the requested standard. (The applicant pool thus far does largely suggest, however, that you get what you pay for.)

I'm just now putting the following touches on my next posting: "Opportunity to give me your cash. Come on over and give me some of your money. Whatever's in your wallet. Or stop by the ATM on your way. Will accept USD but Euros preferred. This opportunity is limited and will end by November 1."

Happy hour

Eric and I drank a beer on our roof deck last night and watched the sunset. It was a lovely way to enjoy the last inhabitable moments out of doors on the roofdeck before the temperature plummets and the chill winds start howling. Remember in The Day After Tomorrow how the temperature suddenly dropped severely forcing an unlikely romance and a touching story of family loyalty? Well, that happens every night on our roof deck just after sunset.

A few weird things happened during the brief time we were up there. First, the airplane equivalent of a hunchback on a circus bicycle went put-putting by in the sky, closely flanked by two other unusual looking aircraft. You could almost hear a distant cartoony theme as we tracked them across the sky. I have no idea what that was all about.

Then, like suddenly remembering a word that has lingered elusively on the tip of your tongue, I had a revelation: I realized that this building I have been looking at all these weeks we've lived here isn't actually a building at all. It is a giant Ionic Breeze for the city of San Francisco. Check it out:

Seriously. Check it out!

The only other weird thing that happened was that Eric found a pit in one of the olives that were allegedly pit-free. I mean, man! That is so freaky!

"I think the chias heard us fighting"

Text message and photo received from Eric after a minor disagreement at breakfast.

Spork used as knife

Sometimes I get in a silly mood. It often involves wine, but not always.

The time I have in mind, which is right now, does involve wine. And it also involves trying to sell furniture on craigslist. While on the one hand I suspect that these two activities are not friends, on the other hand I am willing to give this friendship a chance. Not convinced? You can judge for yourself. Judge some more here.

Blogging after two glasses of wine is never a bad idea. Never.


PS This is also kind of a perfect moment because Eric is singing harmony with Amos Lee which just makes me really happy.

PPS "This American Life" did a segment about the writers of The Onion and "Spork used as knife" was (unfathomably) rejected as an Onion headline which I think is just a crime against comedy writing. If I ever have an original thought even half that funny I will consider this a productive life.

All together now

I had lunch yesterday with the infamous shirt-removing recruit of several weeks ago. We're still working out the details of having him join the firm, and this was a chance for us to catch up and talk through a few things.

For lunch, he suggested we check out this Korean BBQ food truck that allegedly parks a few blocks away on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:30 to 1:45pm. I found nothing suspicious about this at all, which is one of the reasons why I would not be a good spy.*

In the course of chatting, it came up that he was going to be out of town this weekend and all next week.

"I'm going to be in North Carolina," he explained, then paused and looked at me intently.

"I think I can tell you this," he said conspiratorially, in an almost hushed tone.

(Wait for it....)

"It's a competition for my synchronized swimming team."

I reacted by explosively laughing, spastically clapping my hands and then literally throwing them over my head with delight. This guy is one funny dude.

Yeah, he was serious.

Apparently, it is quite common** for serious competitive swimmers to take up synchronized swimming after they get "water-logged" which I took to be an insider term meaning the same as "burned out" but adapted for, you know, water. He explained that he was essentially following in his mother's footsteps, as she had also been a competitive synchronized swimmer following her racing career.

"So for you it really has a lot to do with the family legacy," I reflected.

"Yes, absolutely." He seemed to feel he had been sufficiently heard and understood.

The Korean food wasn't half bad either, though if North Korea ever invades San Francisco I think we'll know where the advance team was on Tuesdays and Thursdays around lunch time.


*Full list potentially forthcoming. No guarantees.
**I have no idea how common it is. Isn't "quite" a great word? It could be any amount of common and quite would still be quite appropriate.
***Youtube "coed synchronized swimming" at your own risk.

Getting all growed up

Seeing Steve's hair (fur?) leaning eagerly towards the light does make me glad that my hair doesn't have its own tropisms, except for the days when I think maybe it does.

Adult supervision required

This is day three of a professional conference I'm attending as a sales/marketing representative of my startup. This is a great conference for us because there are a lot of potential customers here: it's like someone took our list of the executives we are hoping to entice to join our membership program on sustainability and slipped them each a mickey, dropped them through a trapdoor and brought them here for us to talk to. It has been a very interesting week so far and I've really appreciated being here, getting a chance to talk to these executives and hear the content at the sessions. One thing I can get a little self-conscious about is that people sometimes perceive me to be young and they don't regard me as a peer professional. Short of giving up wearing sunblock, I've done everything I can think of to compensate and put my most adult foot forward.

Last night after the conference dinner a group of people stayed out to have a drink and continue the conversation, and of course I didn't want to miss out on the chance to meet and spend time with more potential customers so I joined as well.

This was slightly complicated by the fact that, to save cash for the business, I am staying with my mother who lives here in Chicago, but out in the burbs. She had generously offered to come get me and I was mid-sentence when she called to say she had arrived.

"I've got to go," I said.

There was a pause.

"My mom is here to pick me up," I blurted.

Dammit.

Next conference I may as well just wear pigtails and a high school uniform.

Hardly strictly a parking spot

There was a shortage of bike parking for the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival this past weekend in the Golden Gate Park so Eric and I did the only sensible thing we could think of to do: we hung our bikes from a tree and locked them to the branch. See Exhibit A.



Off we went to enjoy some of that sweet twangy music that makes me want to laugh and weep at the same time. Many banjo solos later we came back to find that we had inadvertently caused a bicycle infestation and the tree was clearly helpless to defend itself. I give you: Exhibit B.



I don't know if it's credit or blame; I just know that it's mine.

Somewhere between a house plant and a fish

Meet Steve and Nessy.



Steve is the dumpy-looking puppy on the left. Nessy is the chipper dinosaur/monster on the right.

Nessy won Round 1 of the chia competition back in DC not only because she grew a nice even, full coat and had a pleasing well-groomed look to her, but also because she didn't become nauseatingly moldy and rank like some other chia pets I know. Poor Steve. It's not his fault he looks like he pooped his pants and also kind of looks like a pervert.

I see growing the chias as an exercise in loving unconditionally. And trying not to inadvertently kill living things that depend on you for their survival. Both admirable things and worth cultivating, I think. Until Steve gets moldy again at which point I'm throwing him away.

Cats and dogs living together

Living in San Francisco messes with my head because this is land that shakes. Sometimes a lot. And everyone seems to agree that some big shaking is due in relatively short order.

"There could be an earthquake right now," says a voice in my head at least 27 times a day. And it's true.

Or now.


Or now.







OR RIGHT NOW!!!!

See, that's the thing: you just don't know.

On the one hand, I love it when I can just add a fear to the list of things I can't control because that means, by definition, that there is absolutely nothing I can do about it, so there's no use worrying. Which is freeing. For example, I don't worry about being in a plane crash. I'm not saying I'd sign up for one, but other than not flying there is literally nothing I can do to really protect myself from that. Blissful irresponsibility is mine.

And yet, something about earthquakes has me hideously fascinated.

I've heard people with a fear of heights say that it isn't just a fear of falling but a fear of suddenly feeling compelled to jump. I think that's how I feel about earthquakes: I secretly want one to happen. I'm obsessed with what it would feel like to have the whole earth move beneath your feet.

Of course when I really think about it, I know that I don't really want San Francisco to crumble into the Pacific ocean. Mass hysteria is not my thing. Nonetheless, that fear/fascination suckerpunch keeps me thinking about it.

It doesn't really matter what I want or not, of course, since there absolutely nothing I can do about it.

Unpeel your eyes

I was sitting on the couch last night admiring our new black leaning bookshelves against the brown wall when I realized that it was unnaturally quiet and had been for some time. The unsettling quiet was coming from the street below which, though it is a small side street, is pretty much a 24 hour stage for a range of human tragedies in progress.

We call it The Clementina Show.

One of the things we've learned is that no matter how much you might think you want to look out the window to see the images that accompany the soundtrack, you don't. I'm only going to say this once: don't look.

Oh sure, we've got the requisite naked man on his balcony directly across from our place. This dude might not actually own any clothing: he reads nude, barbeques nude, he's clearly got nothing to hide from us. But he's an amateur act compared to the pros at street-level.

Eric made the rookie mistake once while looking out our window of making eye contact with a homeless man on the street below, who then, without breaking eye contact, proceeded to drop his pants and poop on the sidewalk.

Another evening, we heard a commotion on the street below: yelling, car doors slamming, tires screeching. Then a pause. Then a woman weeping. We peeked out the window and there was a woman wearing just a t-shirt and high heels standing next to a large suitcase and just crying. It was horrible. About 20 min later - more commotion and she was gone.

The show goes on. And on. But we're just tuning into the radio portion these days.

This past Monday night was karate night on The Clementina Show. "Hiiiiya! Ya!" we heard again and again from the street. Who was doing this new verbal martial art? I have no idea because I know better than to look out the window.

It was nice to have a bit of quiet last night but somehow it just didn't feel like home. Happily, I woke up this morning to the sound of a man trying to vomit up his lower intenstine, god bless him. It's nice to have things back to normal.