The Sniff Test

We took Eric's Mac to the Apple store on Saturday because after a mere six months the casing is starting to crack open.

The gentle young man at the Genius Bar who was examining it asked a bunch of questions to determine whether or not the fix will be covered under warranty.

Has it been dropped?
No.

Have you opened it to attempt any repairs yourself?
No.

Has in come into contact with any liquids?
No.

So far so good, I'm thinking.

He then picked the laptop up, held the keyboard just below is nose and sniffed it, moving it from side to side to smell all the way from caps lock to enter. His nose twitched a bit, and then he set the laptop down.

OK, he said. You're covered under warranty.

Stop thief!

Friday night, after losing a generous amount of money to friends who came over for poker night at our place, we were cleaning up deep dish pizza crumbs when we heard a car alarm go off in the street below. Though I would normally have rolled my eyes and ignored it, I happened to be standing near the window and saw that there was a shady-looking fellow hovering nervously near the car. It looked a little suspicious.

"I think that guy's breaking into that car," I said, mesmerized, standing there watching as The Clementina Show headed into CSI territory.

Eric came dashing over to the window just as the guy reached into the car and grabbed two bags through the window he had just broken.

We then immediately called the police, of course.

I wasn't wearing my glasses so Eric fed me details of the dude's appearance and watched what direction he was going so we could tell the nice woman at 9-1-1 where the police might catch up with the perp.*

We gave her the basics: he was tall-ish, wearing dark pants, a hooded sweatshirt and a hat and carrying a white shopping bag and a briefcase taken out of the car. The she got kind of demanding: What hand was he carrying the bag in? Um, one in each maybe? What kind of shoes was he wearing? Uh, hmmm. What color was his parachute? Oh, wait. Sorry. Job search on the brain.

She said they might need us to come down to talk to the cops; they would call us if so. Cops were on the scene just a few minutes later, and the people whose car it was came out to talk to them which meant that we probably didn't have to go down. But we really wanted to help, so Eric and I hung out of our 4th story window watching and listening, looking for a chance to be helpful.

We heard the cops ask who had called the police and Eric eagerly shouted out the window:

"We did! Hey! Up here in the window! We called!"

Four heads turned, registered our presence, gave a small wave, and then ignored us.


*I hope this is not the last time I get to use the word "perp" in the blog, but I hope that it is always removed from direct personal experience.

Don't try this at home

I currently have a prescription-strength obsession with all things peppermint. I drink more peppermint tea than is probably fair, and I've used my many networking coffee dates of late to drink a peppermint mocha latte or five. Another favorite peppermint drink is a concoction from apres-ski culture known as a "snuggler" (hot cocoa with peppermint schnapps).

I am certainly capable of making peppermint tea at home, and have successfully mixed peppermint schnapps into cocoa with pleasantly delicious and warming results. But as an exercise in will, I am not drinking alcohol for the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so that leaves the schnapps on the shelf for another week.

To feed my peppermint/caffeine addiction this afternoon without leaving the house, I very cleverly mixed peppermint extract into a coffee-milk-cocoa mixture to create what I can only describe as a truly naseous-making beverage. It tastes like the first sip of coffee after brushing your teeth and swishing with mouthwash in the morning, only the mouthwash taste doesn't go away after a moment. It persists.

Yuck.

Maybe it was because they played that heartbreaking Sarah McLachlan song

This morning while I was making breakfast, NPR had a short piece about a homeless shelter in Oakland that held a memorial service for all of the homeless people who had died over the past few weeks. One of the women who had organized it said she felt that the passing of these people's lives should be recognized no matter what their circumstances had been in life. "If their deaths aren't recognized, then it's as if they never existed. But they did exist," she explained.

One man, newly homeless, became very emotional and stepped away from the ceremony. Like any good newsman, the NPR reporter followed the man to badger him with questions. He shared how scared he is, how he has been trying so hard to make things work, and he is wondering when things are going to start to come together, or if maybe this is just all that his life is going to amount to.

Something about the story struck a nerve. Maybe it was that I've been worried that The Clementina Show has been suspiciously subdued due to the cold weather. Or maybe it was that I wasn't yet caffeinated. Or maybe it's just sad. I cried. But just a little. And then I forced myself to pull it together and get the zucchini bread out of the toaster oven before it burned because that would have been really sad.

Graphic, but not like that

Last night Jamaica and I went to the opening of a new exhibit at the Cartoon Art Museum here in San Francisco. I mostly agreed to go because it was cold out* and this happens to be close to where I live.

We'd gotten there early and so we spent a few minutes perusing the bookstore's many and odd offerings. I was fascinated to see all these comic book books, which apparently are called "graphic novels"** and are very cutting edge in the literary world, or so the cartoon art museum bookstore would have you believe. I've never read one but I am starting to wonder if I should, just so that I can say I've done it. You know, like running up the Philadelphia Art Museum steps and then hopping around while fake punching, or going to see live mud wrestling.

When they finally started letting people in, Jamaica and I were among the first to enter and we headed toward the back because our strategy was to avoid the crowd by viewing the exhibit in reverse. About halfway back there was a table set up with green tea and sushi. One of the volunteers who was helping out with the opening and who had let us in was somehow already at the table and was apparently doing his best to eat as much sushi as he could before anyone else could get in. This man was doing as much damage as was possible short of having an actual shovel. He noticed us approaching and, mouth literally half-full of rice, nori and tuna, said:

"I know I'm being a bad volunteer but I really wanted to get some of the sushi before it was gone."

Mission accomplished, I'd say.


*In San Francisco terms, so, you know, like 45 degrees.
**Without the cartoon art context, I would definitely be tempted to think this referred to a different genre of literature. It strikes me that until this term achieves widespread use, there is ample opportunity for awkward misunderstandings, mayhem and hilarity to ensue.

Why I love this tree

We got a little Christmas tree for our place and it sits there all day making me happy. I can tell you why:

1. It's a sustainable tree. Responsible forest management, no chemicals, healthy land. What's not to feel good about?
2. It smells good. Or at least it looks like it smells good and I'm pretty sure I can detect a faint piney odor.
3. It is going to help me win a bet: I sided with 'won't drop majority of needles before we leave for Hawaii on the 23rd' and so far I am the clear winner.*
4. It's wearing earrings.
5. It has an ornament that looks like an eyeball. That's right. One day I brought home a fun craft project for Eric and me to do: decorate your own ornaments! It came with two blank white ornaments - one snowman-shaped and the other globe-shaped. Eric chose the globe and excitedly colored it as...an eyeball. A bloodshot eyeball. Yup.**

*I fear this may be irresistably tempt the malicious sprinkler...
**Not pictured here but rest assured, it is being displayed prominently on the tree.

Smooth ride

After five months of living in this apartment, I am now prepared to tell you what it sounds like when it rains: it sounds exactly the same as it sounds when you are in a car when it is raining. So much so that yesterday I commented on the sound of the rain hitting the sunroof, which in buildings is actually usually called a skylight.