No Bloodletting Today

All week I've been excited about today's blood drive at the Albany Community Center. I signed up to donate right away. I figured it was a good way to reach out and help people without actually having to, you know, *touch* them. "You can save three lives today" is one of the Red Cross' new advertising angles. I was looking forward to saving three people.

In college I tried to donate blood a few times, but my iron was always too low. It was incredibly disappointing to me, so I started eating meat (I was a vegetarain at the time) and tried again, but my blood was still not up to snuff. So I stopped trying.

That was ten years ago. My diet is much improved, plus I take iron supplements. So this morning I got up and had three pieces of toast with peanut butter and strawberry jam (mmm! a favorite breakfast!) and did some administrative work at home before walking over to the community center.

You have to read all of this literature before starting--stuff about sex and needles and blood transfusions and active duty overseas and perscription medications. They need to take as many percautions as necessary, which I understand, because I'd be livid if I got a bum blood transfusion.

This friendly hippy-ish doctor checked me in. He took my temperature and blood pressure and drew a tiny blood sample. I looked over to the area where the donors were stretched out in these whacky inverted lounge chairs, their right arms laid out with needles and tubes coming from them. I couldn't wait to ghet in one of those chairs and let my mind go. I find many medical procedures alternately relaxing and fascinating (were I to have health issues, I'm sure I'd not feel that way). Examinations and stuff are kind of fun, because it's all about you, but you really don't have to do anything except not faint. It's kind of like going to a spa.

My Mom used to donate blood a lot. She had a special pin that said "1 Gallon Club", which means that she donated one gallon in the long run, not all at once. But she said they'd give her a rose and she'd get the afternoon off work when it was all over. Well! Roses and time off...I didn't see any roses at the community center, but they did have a spread of cereal bars and raisins and cookies. Mom said all she'd get was orange juice.

Everything was going fine until the nice hippy looked at my blood sample. "Unfortunetly..." he said. I thought he was going to follow that up with something mild like "...we have to ask you a lot of personal questions about your sex life, it's just procedure." Maybe some people freak out and expect to hear "Unfortunetly, you're a junkie slut with AIDS and we can't take your blood."

But what he said was "Unfortunetly, your red blood cell count is just a little low. It's normal, especially for prementruating women, but we need it to be at least 38. Yours is 36. So please sign this form, and don't be discouraged from trying to donate again, and help yourself to the raisins and cereal bars."

Drat! My easy escape for do-gooding was suddenly gone, lost. Now I'll have to actually do something to make the day productive. Well, I tried, and if trying is half the battle, then I saved 1.5 lives today without even losing an ounce of blood! Not too shabby.

Moon Cake for Breakfast

I am lazy and bad. Woke up at 8:30, got up at 10. I'm not depressed or anything--I feel pretty good about life right now, in fact. Perhaps I need more discipline.

The red wine last night probably had to do with the sleeping in as well. My writing group came over for dinner, and when they left I continued to chip away at the wine remaining in the open bottle. It was a good night, though. Here's the menu:
-Olives, cherry tomatoes, Maytag blue cheese, and toasted baguette slivers for nibbling (I realized the abrasive baguette toasts and acidic tomatoes and salty cheese and olives makes ofr a mouth-destroying combination).
-Composed salad of baby lettuces, Belgian endive, beets, Maytag blue cheese, and pumkin seed brittle with vanilla vinaigrette.
-Gremolata roasted chicken with carrots, ruby chard, and potato-celeriac puree.
-Peach pie with homemade vanilla ice cream.

That beet/endive/blue cheese salad is a workhorse. I come back to it again and again when entertaining--you can use toasted pecans instead of the pumpkin brittle and cherve instead of blue cheese.

We have leftover chicken and beets. I think I'm going to make stock from the chicken carcass today, and perhaps use it for soup. The lemon zest from the gemolata makes for tangy stock, so maybe I'll use it to make tortilla soup.

Poor Joe. He excused himself from dinner because he didn't want to intrude. I'll make him a good dinner for his birthday next week.

So I woke up thirsty. Not hungover, really, but still. My Random Writer gusts brought over some moon cakes--three moon cakes!--and I could not resist eating a sliver of one with my otherwise reasonably healthful breakfast (toast w/ peanut butter ans strawberry jam, peaches in plain yogurt). I think the moon cake has a lotus filling. It will take a lot of work for me and Joe to eat three moon cakes, since they are so rich, but we're up to the task.

Livewire Recap

I ate seven oatmeal cookies and an apple for dinner. Maybe it was for dessert, I'm not sure. I had a late lunch/early dinner in Santa Rosa, a hamburger and fries with my friend Gary. My diet today has not been very balanced. Now that Joe and I are married we are going to get fat. I can feel it in my bones, we are slowly becoming less like our original bony selves.

I didn't even run today. I got suited up in the gear and everything, but halfway down the block I thought better of it and decided I'd get to Santa Rosa too late if I took the time to run. IO usded the time to prep some food for the dinner I'm making tomorrow night. My writing group is coming over. I should be prepping things now, but after the apple and cookies I got off-task.

Tonight I read at Zebulon's. It was a good night. Matt read a hilarious piece about the Leprachaun movies. I read about getting drunk and vomiting--one of my favorite things to write about. It's a nasty way to go about getting your material, though. People laughed at my puke story and it made me feel good. I really enjoy reading humiliating stories in front of people and I miss the satisfaction of giving chocolate factory tours. I guess if I can talk about the history of chocolate and the chocolate-making process for an hour, I can talk about any other crap for an hour, too, and make it sound good if I try hard enough. I could do a whole monologue of puke stories, but they all begin and start the same: I drink too much, then I puke.

In the puke story I read tonight, I refered several times to the '80s cover band Tainted Love as crappy and bad dressers. After I read my story, the friendly bartender said that he's friends with Tainted Love's keyboard player, and I felt sort of silly after saying such awful things about Tainted Love sucking. Well, I thought they did kind of suck, but they seemed to be capable musicians enjoying themselves. I think I don't care for '80s cover bands, period.

Oh, Joe just walked in from practice. Where was I going with this? Oh, I saw Jennifer, who I met at Zebulon's once before, and we talked about blogs before I skedaddled home to eat cookies for dinner. Thanks for coming!

Membership Dues

KQED, the NPR affiliate station I listen to seemingly 24 hours a day, is still having its marathon pledge drive. They're going on two weeks and five days or something. I've gotten used to it, the improptu theater aspect of the commentators' pleads and absurdly flat jokes. It's an art in itself, getting folks to cough up money. I wan't gonna pledge this time because I'm on the dole, but in the end I gave in and pledged $40.

I initially had sworn off giving any more money to KQED radio, because I'm always getting packets in the mail about raffles and sweepstakes. Is that what my money is funding--mass mailings? Bummer. I'm donating money to fill up more space in landfills--just what I wanted! But hell, if you wanna make an omlette, you gotta break some eggs. So I guess that's KQED's way of breaking eggs, sending out junk mail. I like the station too much to have to put up with guilt when I listen to it, and those pledge hosts are masters at evoking guilt. They must have Jewish and Catholic mothers training them!

Dicks Get Dicked

Yesterday while I was running, a woman making a right turn onto a driveway I was crossing stopped to let me pass. The woman driving the car behind the nice driver honked her horn impatiently. I waved and nodded to the nice driver, and then when the mean driver passed by, I looked right at her and yelled "BITCH."

I get real catty and impatient when I run. I know, drivers have a lot to pay attention to and stuff. I've nearly hit a few stupid pedestrians myself. But, when you're traveling urban or suburban streets on foot, you have to be a little bold and saucy or you'll never make it across the street.

After thinking about it, I felt badly for yelling at the mean driver, who probably just thought the nice lady who didn't run me over was just some incompetent driver. I'd have honked my horn, too. LAst week I totally spaced out and ran a red light on Solano Avenue, right where they just switched up all of these lanes and stuff. The sun was in my eyes and I got confused. This car cut me off and I honked my horn and yelled, only to realize I was at fault. I am an awful person.

I'm still mad at Bryan for flaking on my wedding and then just faling off the face of the earth as a friend. But I have a story, too. This guy I knew, Felix, was always really nice to me. We volunteered on the staff of this music magazine together. Pretty much everyone on staff had some kind of ego millstone around their neck (including me, sometimes). But Felix, even though he's kind of a nut, was always cool to me. I moved and the magazine folded and Felix and I kinda lost touch, but he got engaged to a good-hearted girl from his hometown and they invoted me to their wedding. I mailed back the reply card, saying Joe and I would be there, but I never got around to making plans to go. I was under the assumption it was a 4-hour drive, and the I discovered it was way more than that.

We flaked. I flaked. I still feel awful about it. I made Felix and Stephanie a mix tape as a wedding present and sent it with (I hope) an apology, but I never heard back. Maybe they hate me, maybe not. But I now understand how much it hurts your feelings to have a friend flake out on a wedding. It's weird, but you have to have a wedding to see what it's like. I got what I deserved, I guess. But I'm still pissed at Bryan. Me and Joe's wedding was awesome and Bryan, you are a fucking dummy shithead for not making it.

Cat Coda

Danger Bike and I went on a little adventure this afternoon, wherein Danger Bike earned the new name Piece of Goddamn Crap Bike. Up to today I've stuck to level gound on the thing, but I had some wanderlust and wanted to play out in the sun. There's a bike path visible under the highway overpass that you cross to get to the Bulb, and I wanted to see where that bike path went.

I rode Danger Bike to the library first. It popped, squealed, and creaked the whole way. I needed to pick up the copy of "Coal Miner's Daughter" I'd put on hold and was only running in for a second, so I felt pretty safe leaving Danger Bike unchained out front. Now way am I buying a lock for that bike--you'd have to be whacked to steal it. Anyone in their right mind would ditch that bike after riding it a mere three yards. Danger Bike it stealproof.

After the library, I had to depart from the bike path and take it to the streets to get to my destination. Straying from the bike path means crossing more intersections, and that means stopping more. Stopping is not one of Danger Bike's strong suits. I've developed a method I call the coasting dismount, where I simply hop off the bike while it's slowing down. Lots of coasting dismounts on the way to the Bulb.

To get to the Bulb, you have to ride over the tail end of Albany Hill, which is pretty steep. It's not too hairy--a good cruiser bike could hack it under some powerful legs, but it's too much for Danger Bike. I gave up and walked the bike after one uphill block. I also gave up on the downhill ride, because Danger Bike's breaks take way too much muscle just to slow the bike to a safe speed.

After making it over the hill, I dragged the bike over the railroad tracks under the overpass, seeing the bike path looming in the distance. The bogus bike path turned out to be a ramp from the overpass to the underpass that dissolved into gravel and weeds. I looked at the underside of the overpass, how it joins together like a massive concrete jigsaw puzzle. Hundreds of cars zoomed above, traveling between 60 and 80mph. Funny to think we live so close to that.

I rode to the Bulb, but not onto the Bulb itself. The Bulb is close to the horse track, and there's a massive parking lot that was empty on this Wendesday afternoon. I thought it would be fun to ride around in crazy loops out there for the sheer joy of it, but the wind was high, and Danger Bike was fighting me. Normal bikes optimize energy, but Danger Bike is like a medeival torture device: it consumes energy, squandering it on loose joints and wobbly wheels.

I got mad at the bike, which left me joyless, and I got mad at Bryan, who gave it to me. He knew I wanted a bike and started looking around, eventually buying this nice blue Schwinn called Hollywood. But he kept Hollywood for himself and wound up buying another blue Schwinn from a bum for $20. That blue Schwinn is Danger Bike. That bike is a fucked-up ride, man. I hope that bum had fun drinking $20 worth of Night Train, because Danter Bike sure ain't worth $20. At the time I thought it was thoughtful of Bryan to buy a bike for me, but in the windy racetrack parking lot this afternoon, I decided Bryan was a selfish jerk who gave me the shoddiest bike in California. Maybe he wants me to crash into a stop sign or moving car and break my leg.

At the other end of the parking lot I hear a polic siren bleeping on and off. I wondered if there was shakedown happening, but I realized it was just two guys on motorcycles. The siren bladed clumsily, starting and stopping at random intervals. It looked like one motorcycle guy had taken another one out there to learn the ropes, the way a Dad does to help his kid learn how to ride a bike. "Oaky, this is how your make the siren go!" one CHiP would say to the rookie CHiP.

I rode back a different way--less hilly, but still too many stop signs. I'm a pretty athletic gal, but a mere two miles on Danger Bike threw my muscles all kids of out of whack. From now on, I ride Danger Bike to the shopping center and the library and that's it. Maybe I'll just dump it off in Bryan's front yard next time I'm up there.

Still, I'm glad I got out. Just a few blocks into my ride, I saw a black tail attached to a white cat body lingering next to the tire of a car parked along the side of the road, and I realized it was the nutty, lovable cat that had a one-nighter as our family pet. I didn't stop to pet the cat, but I'm glad it's alive and happy, probably just haging out in front of the house where it lived all along.

Daily Writing Gripe/Rant

I polished off our last bottle of wedding wine last night. I don't like to keep an open bottle of wine around for more than a day. The wine made me frisky--I made phone calls, physically harassed Joe, and stayed up past midnight hemming the dress I've been working on. But I woke up later than usual, and I feel a little guilty about it. Every day there are so many things to do, and I need to chomp at the bit to get to them if I ever want to make anything of myself.

The sewing is a big distraction. I love to sew. I love using my Bernina. Once I start a project, all I want to do is finish it. My current project is an a-line dress with sleeves, made from a vintage pattern with vintage fabric. I even lined it and added darts to the back, which was not part of the pattern. Maybe I'm becoming a better seamstress--you know, competent.

But today I need to write, not sew. Write articles, too, not blog entries. But the blog is good, a literary warm-up. Like, I can write crappy, self-indulgent stuff on here (I do every day!) and it really makes litte difference, because so few people see it. I hope S&T never becomes popular, because I'd miss writing with no consequences. I'd have to take up writing in a journal again, which I am too lazy to do. Typing is faster.

New Sofa

I just noticed the scrolling list of "Recently Updated Blogs" on the Blogger homepage. It's mesmerizing to watch...the blogs go by, some looking boring and others promising. I went to a few, but they were all boring. Most folks would probably think old Sneey & Tacky is boring and pointless, too. But my five regular readers know better. Besides, the more blogs you look at, the more time you waste. Stop reading this now and go clean your room or take a bike ride!

Last night we aquired a new sofa. Before we had a dumpy old loveseat, and it was too small for Joe and I to both lay on at the same time. Plus if folks ever stayed with us, they could never crash on the sofa because we didn't have one. The loveseat had tire marks on some of its cushions, but I hid them under one of those tie-on covers. The cover sagged and wrinkled with the loveseat's cushions, and I was always tucking it back into the crevices.

So my friend and former co-worker gave us his sofa. It's clean and long. We're going to get rid of the loveseat by leaving it on the curb, but the slipcover may have to go with it--otherwise no one will take it. Leave a comment if you are interested in aquiring this lovely hand-covered artifact FOR FREE.

Loose Strap Means Floppy Tit

Yesterday at work my husdand (I can call him that now, and it's much easier to type than Mr. Bir Toujour) found a cache of typewritten recollections of smokers. Here's one.

I enjoyed reading them. I think they express the duality of smoking very well. On one hand, it's pretty cool. But on the other, it makes you stink like donkey butt adn plus it can kill you painfully and slowly. I wonder what the smoking testimonies were doing at the law firm where Joe works--they specialize in asbestos cases, so perhaps they have to do with asbestos being in cigarette filters, which would not be surprising. They probably put asbestos in Wonder Bread for a while.

Those smoking recollections made me nostalgic for the days when I smoked. Smoking is only cool if you are doing it or someone in a movie is doing it (especially if the movie is black and white). My Dad has smoked since he was a preteen, I think. I'm not sure when it became a habit for him, but he was a pretty rebellious kid, and it's sort of a prerequisate for rebellious kids to smoke. Especially in the 1950s, when he grew up. He was in a war--Vietnam--and them became an alcoholic, and both wars and the sauce go really well with cigs.

But as a kid I found his smoking gross. I still do. He smokes Winstons and has for as long as I've been around. He smokes in his office, which may be illegal, but he owns the building and the engineering firm, so he thinks its okay. He's probably the last civil engineer in America to smoke in his office.

Dad once quit smoking when he had a bad cold. He was too sick to smoke. But he went back to cigarettes. Eventually he gave up drinking, and he's been on the wagon for...let's see...seven or eight years by now. So he can smoke all he wants, I guess. I perfer smoking/sober Dad to drunk/smoking Dad anyday.

Considering how much I hated Dad smoking when I was younger, it's sort of silly how I picked it up. Like a lot of kids, I was bored. I was going to be a junior in high school. It was summer and I was t home, watching MTV with the air conditioning cranked up. Every day was like that. I was a lazy piece of crap. But one day I decided to switch it up a little, so I went into Mom and Dad's room and got one of Dad's Winstons from the pack that was on top of his dresser (I guess he keeps "home packs" and "work packs"). I sat on the picnic table in the back yard and smoked it. I didn't cough. It was okay.

Eventually I started buying my own cigarettes, Marlborough mediums in a soft pack. Why those? Who knows. I smoked them when I met my friends at night downtown and we ran around outside in the cold and climbed on things like trees in the park, bridge scaffolding, and the fire escapes of abandoned buildings. We liked to get to the tops of things.

In college I eventually switched to Camels. That's because I started dating this guy named Mike. He lived in my dorm and worked at a tobacco shop in a mall. He knew everythign about tobacco products. He smoked pipes, cigars, and cigarettes--quality, not quantity. We'd smoke cigars together, cigarettes. I never did smoke pipes with him, though. He got me into Drum tobacco and rolling my own cigarettes. Drum eventually got bought out by a Japanese company, and nowadays Drum does not taste nearly as good as it did back then. It had a rich, woodsy, almost mossy aroma--fresh, not stale and assy.

Mike dumped me, but smoking was a good way to hang onto a part of him any time I wanted. Plus I had dropped out of school and was pissed and moody all of the time--it was my early-20s crisis. Smoking, which I maybe did every other day, one or two cigarettes at a time, fit right in with my M.O. I'd smoke Camels and Drum, plus the occasional cigar.

A few years later I started dating Daniel, who was like a guy straight out of 1949. He rebuilt motorcycle engines and chopped firewood for fun. He smoked Camels and Lucky Strikes, the same way I did--recreationally, for pleasure and entertainment. We drank coffee and smoked at crummy restaurants. Daniel told me that the L.S.M.F.T. on the side of a Luck Strikes pack meant "Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco." I told Daniel how Dad one said to me that as a teenager he and his hoodlum friends made up this saying "Loose Strap Means Floppy Tit." What a teenege boy thing to say. But I say it myself anytime I see a pack of Lucky Strikes.

I left to go to cooking school in New York while I was dating Daniel. I smoked at cooking school a lot, mostly Drum. Cooks love to smoke--it's the only way they can get a break from the line, you see. But I smoked the way some people order dessert--it was another thing to taste and enjoy. Plus I liked the image. Daniel gave me a typewriter and I smoked and drank gin & tonics and typed, which was hard because smoking takes one hand, drinking takes another, and typing takes two. Plus by that time I was usually kind of drunk. I have those typewritten pages somewhere--god knows what kind of screeds they hold.

I dumped Daniel. Cooking school made me selfish. It was what I needed to be to succeed at the time. I was the editor of the school paper, and my stoner friend Matt and I would hang out in the filthy office of the paper and smoke and drink and talk about crap. Or I'd write, work on the paper and smoke. The room was a giant ashtray.

Once I moved to California, I started going to a lot of local rock shows. I didn't know many people, so smoking was a great way to mingle ("Got a light?") and have a purpose. I was bad about bumming cigarettes back then. It's a shameless girl thing to do. A girl can always get a cigarette. It's even easy for me.

But I stopped smoking a few years ago. I lost interest. I lost the need. Probably I smoke three cigarettes a year, and that's if I'm drunk and wound up. I love those three cigarettes, but I hate coming home and smelling like ass. I think Joe is the reason I stopped smoking. Once we started dating, the urge slipped away from me.

Joe smokes in his truck sometimes. American Spirits. I hate American Spirits. He tries to be sneaky about it, so it's fun to give him a hard time. It's okay with me if he smokes a little bit. But I don't want to anymore. It's not as fun as it used to be. That's fine--smoking and I had a great time while it lasted.

Evil: It's at Zebulon's in Petaluma

That's not actually the title of this post--it's just a message about where I'm reading 9/27. Zebulon's Lounge in Petaluma.

Yesterday I rode the bum bike to the bank and the video store. I decided to call it Danger Bike because it rides so dicey. I had cowboy boots and boot-cut pants on, which is pretty dumb sportswear for bike-riding, but on Danger Bike it works because Danger Bike is not about safety. I rode around in the gravel and trash and crap in the parking lot behind Albertson's and Ross. I feel kinda safe on Danger Bike because it used to belong to a bum, and I think it throws off bum vibes--like "don't mess with me" vibes.

Today I may not ride the bike. I'll run instead. I need to write a lot today, just to make myself feel like the day was worth it. So this is the start of the writing, like a warm-up. Off to fry bigger fish now.

Lefty Live! (and other people, too)

Last night I hosted the literary salon in Petaluma. I had a great time and I'm glad I did it. See? Usually I get on this high horse and bitch and complain about the drive and how it's impossible to eat dinner boforehand, and how drinks there cost, like, $7 a pop and how some crazy person ends up cornering me. Well, I'm the crazy person, I guess. No one has a reason to corner me. People read some good stories last night, and there was a nice mix of age and gender.

I'm looking forward to my next appearence there, which will be Tuesday, Spetember 27 at 7pm. (Faithfull readers, all five whom I see regularly anyway: take note!) Our religious advisor and my literary partner in crime, Matt Pamatmat, will read as well. It's comedy improv night, which I think is not like "Evening at the Improv," but rather just people who happen to be funny reading pieces that are, hopefully, full of comedy. I'm thinking of doing an interactive piece with Joe's iPod, but we'll see.

Barnes & Starbucks

I’m at the Starbucks at the Barnes & Noble. I come here about once a week now. Not because I love it, but because I don’t hate it. I appreciate its neutrality. While I was standing in line, I contemplated applying for a job here—not seriously, mind you, but just contemplated. Sort of like research. It might be kind of nice in its way, as long as it weren’t more than 15 hours a week. I’d be close to books, and I’d get to deal with customers. That’s nice…it always makes good fodder for writing.

But I kind of like dealing with customers, just regular people. I want to be of use somehow, in a tangible way. Sure, I do all kids of tangible things in a day—cook, clean-run, make crafts and junk like that—but they don’t touch any other lives except for Joe, maybe my parents and a few friends and relatives. It’s lonely. That’s why people come here to places like this, to be less lonely but, at the same time, alone. Alone in public. We all have to be forced to interact, and nothing is forcing me right now.

So when I post this, I’ll be at home. I’m not a wi-fi gal; I’m surprised I even can operate this laptop. But it’s really quite nice, like a whisper-soft portable typewriter. People could not have dropped in at a coffee shop with a portable typewriter, say, 40 years ago. You’d get laughed out of the place. But now, laptops and the like—iPods, cell phones—are all part of our social fabric. More ways to be alone in public. I write on my little laptop and use it to watch DVDs when I’m sewing. Technology isn’t bad, it’s the way we let it change our lives too much, allow it to move us further from what life is all about.

I’m going to start pretending that my Bernina is a Moog.

Looking for Work

I just spent about an hour online, looking around at different web pages for work. What a drag. I guess that's what it takes to find a job, but there seems to be a human element missing. The last two jobs I had I found on Craigslist, so maybe that will happen again. Maybe not. If I get a job locally, I don't want it to be too demanding or commital--part-time for sure. Being on unemployment makes me nervous.

But I'm also trying to focus and to write. That's going okay--it could go better, but I'm trying. It's hard to keep from getting distracted, because I keep thinking I'm being lazy and indulgent. I suppose that's the bane of all writers. I have big problems sitting for hours at a stretch. Four is my maximum. That goes for all desk jobs. So I have to harness the energy I have in the monring, just like I am now. We'll see if I get a job. I'm restless, but I think a lot of it is financial.

iPod vs. Magnetic Tape

Today was a good day. I baked some molasses cookies and a savory ham, cheese, and chard tart for dinner. We utilized some leftover proscuitto, mozarella, and tomato sauce, and utilizing leftovers always makes me happy. I'm a frugal lady.

But the best part of the day was our bike ride. As much as I love riding bikes you'd figure I were some kind of mountain bike geek, a big gearhead. But I'm just a dork who likes to pedal around suburbia. My latent friend Bryan bought me a bike for $20 from a bum in Santa Rosa. That was over a year ago, maybe. It took me a whole year to work up the guts to mess around with the thing, because it needed some work. All I needed to do was take off the front fender--which was rubbing against the tire--put some air in the tires, and remove the attachment for the now-missing electric light. This took all of twenty minutes. Then Joe and I took off on the bike path up to El Cerrito. The path is called the Ohlone Greenway, but it's not very green. It's just a blacktop path that runs under the BART tracks in between the loading docks of big-box stores and the front of apartment buildings and low-income residential housing. But it was a sunny day, and it was nice to tool around in no particular hurry in the afternoon sun. The bum bike--a Schwinn--still needs some work (the front tire is squirrley and off-center, and the brakes are shakey), but I think it will be fine to ride around a few miles at a time.

Joe bought an iPod today. My lapton had little juice (I bought it mainly to use as a word processor), so it's not the ideal iPod loading device. Still, it's kind of cool to think of carrying all of your music around in your palm. I'm still behind the times, so right now I'm making a new mix tape to play in my Walkman while I run. An iPod is too expensive to run with. I'm probably the last person making mix tapes on the whole West Coast.

Kitty Returns

Joe and I were walking back from a trip to the lovely local shopping center, each of us carrying a bag of groceries. It was getting close to 9pm, dark outside and a little chilly. We rounded the corner to our apartment building. "What if the cat is back tonight," I joked.

"That would be weird, I'd--" Joe broke off. There, on the stairs to the apartment's second story, was the cat. That same crazy cat, white with black spots and a jungle bell collar.

We tried to hide, but kitty busted us and sprinted to our apartment's front door. We tried to shoo it away, but that didn't work. So we tricked it by walking around the long way and then splitting up, first Joe and then me. It didn't fool the kitty too well, but it did bide us enough time to make it inside...alone.

"I'm not letting that poor cat in, no way. We can't sleep with it in here."

I agreed, but it's hard. Hard to leave such a lovable cat out there alone and scared. Heck, maybe the cat is not scared, just manipulative. It scooted its mewing to all of the three other units in our apartment, and it got rejected at every one. Thoundands of hurricaine refugees out there, destitute and displaced, and we can't even help out a cat.

This morning, once again, the cat was nowhere to be found. Maybe its people let it out at night, and that's when kitty hits the town. At least I hope so. Maybe if I see the cat tonight I'll trap it somehow and then take it to a shelter. I want to love the cat, but we can't now. We don't have enough love in us.

Found and Lost Kitty

Joe came home from band practice last night and quickly shut the door behind him, a black-spotted white cat at his heels. "This cat jumped right into my truck!" he said. "It's a nice cat. I kind of want to let it inside."

On the other side of our apartment's front door, the cat meowed. I cracked the door open to get a better look at the cat, who promptly streaked through the door and rolled onto its back in the middle of our living room floor, purring like an outboard motor.

It was too cute. Joe and sat on the floor to join the cat, petting its exposed belly. The cat flipped over and bounded away, still purring, to jump on and off the sofa, rub itself against a leg of the kitchen table, and poke its head into the bathroom.

"What is up with this cat," I said, delighted and confused.

Joe pet the cat again, who once more had positioned itself in the middle of the floor and was now caressing Joe's hand with his head. "I like the cat."

It certainly had a lot of energy. With a white flea collar and a blue nylon collar fixed with a jungle bell, the cat obviously had some people somewhere who cared for it...and fed it. The cat was pear-shaped, with quite an impressive belly.

"Someone is probably looking for this cat right now," I said. "Maybe it's a housecat that got loose and is now freaking out." Joe got up and went outside, and sure enough, the cat followed him. But the cat also followed him back inside. The cat was so cute and lovable; it was hard to want to make it go away. In the end, Joe went one way and I got to our apartment the back way, and I think this confused the cat long enough that it didn't streak through the door again.

Joe got himself ready for bed. I sat in the living room and read a magazine, and then I heard it. Meows, loud and distinct meows. I thought maybe one of our neighbors in our apartment building would take the cat in, but no one did. The meows continued. I peered out all of our windows trying to catch a glimpse of the cat, whose sad, persistent meows were too much for me.

I got Joe. "The cat won't leave," I said. "It's been meowing loud." But it was now quiet. I opened the door and stuck my head out, and then this little jingle-bell tinkle came down the sidewalk. Kitty was back.

This time it was too much. We love animals--dogs especially--and we never get to spend time around any. Our apartment is too small for a dog, and we're not really cat people. But this cat was so open, so trusting. So bold! Joe and I decided to let the cat stay with us for the night; the next day, I'd knock on doors, asking people in our neighborhood if their cat was missing. I'd take it to the animal shelter in Berkeley. I'd make signs, "FOUND: EXTREMELY FRIENDLY CAT."

Kitty, after nosing around every crevice of our apartment onve again, jumped into the middle of the armchair I had been sitting in. "Whoa, kitty!" I said, scooping it back onto the floor. Kitty jumped back into the chair, halfway on my lap and all the way on top of the remote. Joe want to bed to read, and kitty and I watched the reast of "Klute," the 1970s Jane Fonda-Donald Sutherland thriller where Jane Fonda plays a New York call girl. The movie is made pretty well, but the script is kinda lame. In the end, I wasn't thrilled very much, just entertained. Kitty stayed there the whole time, purring so loudly it made me wonder if it had some kind of breathing disorder.

It was after midnight. I wanted to go to bed. "Should we let the cat in the bedroom with us?" I asked.

"I think it's okay," Joe said. He wanted the cat in there. He used to sleep with this little family dog, Sophie, and I knew he missed it.

"This cat will want to sleep on the bed," I said.

"That will work, right? The cat can sleep down by our feet."

The cat had other ideas. It plopped on my pillow, right next to my face. "Kitty! No! That' won't work." After some kind shuffling, we got the cat to move a few inches. Its purring rumbled along louder than ever, right into my ear. I though cats only purred when they were really happy, and this cat hadn't stopped purring since it set its paw in the apartment. For a lost, confused cat, it seemed a little out of line.

"It likes people," Joe said. "It wants to be close to people." As a lost cat, it had to settle for any people it could. Cats are so silly, especially those skittish housecats who are itchng to make a break for the outside world. Then they get out there and realize they have no plan, no ideas, no friends. Cats are usually mean to me. We have a mutual distrust of each other. So when a kind, open cat strides right up and starts to put all kids of loving on some stranger--and the stranger is me--it's touching and creepy, all at once. It was weird, haing a cat on/in our bed. I couldn't sleep, what with the purring and the claws lightly gripping my arm. Joe stretched his arm across my shoulderand set his ahdn on top of mine, which was on top of the cat's paw. It was too cute, almost staged.

Sometime around 2:30am I couldn't handle it. Joe picked it up and set it in the armchair in the living room and closed the bedroom door. This worked pretty well until I got up to pee a few hours later and the cat made a break for our bed once again. "No, kitty!" I said. We kicked it out of the bedroom and shut the door. Kitty pawed on the opposite side, mewing inconsolably. "Put the cat outside," I told Joe. "If it's still prowling around in the morning, I'll take care of it." I felt kind of guilty--had we actually been helping the cat by playing host? Or was it worse to kick it out? The cat's people were probably sad and restless, missing their pet.

Joe scooped up the cat one last time and shooed it out the door. If it mewed to be let back in, we didn't hear it. We both fell back asleep, confused by the ghost of our after-hours visitor.

The cat was gone when we got up this morning. Either it wandered away or someone--its people, hopefully--found it and took it home. We're not made to be pet owners, at least no that suddenly. And I still can't decide if it was good or bad to take the cat in. It was too lovable. That's why the cat found us but then lost us.

Easy Labor

I'm just a little bit sore from hiking Mt. Tam yesterday with Joe. It was a spur-of-the-moment hike, something we'd discussed but not made concrete plans to do. I'm glad we went. It was a clear, sunny day, and though many others had the same idea we did, the trails were generally not congested. Hiking is good for your body and brain. We need to figure out more places to go.

Then we went to a cookout at our friends' place. That, too, was spur-of-the-moment. I drank too much wine, and later when we went on a walk on some trails in the darkening woods, I ran ahead in a surge of energy and nearly got myself lost. Joe drove home and I drank leftover, semi-melted chocolate ice cream straight from the container like a milkshake. Once home, Joe emptied our clean and dry whites from the dryer and dumped them on the bed. Giggling, I took off my clothes and hid in the pile. And then I pretty much passed out. Poor Joe.

I slept in a little, but otherwise I'm fine. Not too shabby for a Labor Day I didn't even deserve in the first place. This week I am going to be good and productive.

Garage Sale Days

Yesterday Joe and I had a garage sale, augmented by stuff my brother and his girlfriend brought over. I love visiting garage sales, though I feel that garage sales in the San Francisco Bay Area don't compare at all to those elsewhere. Especially those here in my tiny urban hamlet, where a fold-up card table covered with a lean assortment of chipped glassware and dog-eared paperbacks somehow qualifies in homeowners' minds as a garage sale. Perhpas because houses are smaller here, with tiny garages and no basements, it's harder to accumulate the stuff that makes a good garage sale great.

Our sale could have had better offerings, but we had some clothing (all in good condition), kitchenware, bedding and linens, and a scattering of toys. Plus a cooler, a suitcase, and a tent. Joe and I raised $26.25, while my brother and his girlfriend made $19.05. We all sold out stuff for super-cheap, too. I figured we'd make at least $40 each, but the main point was to get rid of stuff, not make bank. I gave a lot of stuff away. People try to bargain on the strangest stuff, too. This guy talked us down to $1.50 on a huge, very functional cooler. We wanted $2.00, but he said he wouldn't pay that. Fine--it's mosr important to get rid of it, and no one else had even looked at it the whole day.

Speaking of, we had probably a grand total of 25 visitors. Lame. The day started out grey and cool, but once the sun came out around lunchtime, our passersby vanished. Now we have a garage full of crap to donate to the thrift store, a task that must wait until Tuesday because of Labor Day. I hope our junk finds new homes and appreciative owners one way or another. I remember days when the need for a microwave, a set of dishes, or a dishrack was desperate...but here we are now, liquidating it. Ownership society my ass. We define ourselves by what we do, not what we have. At least in my society.

Texas Sheet Cake

I baked this Texas Sheet Cake on Monday. It's so damn good, but so damn awful: sweet, gooey, chocolate, sweet, gloppy, crusty...hmm, this is not sounding too flattering to the recipe, is it? I'm not sure if Texas Sheet Cake is the institution in California that it is in the Midwest. It's like a cross between a brownie and a chocolate devil's food cake and sugary enough to make your teeth curdle. You bake it in a 9 x 13-inch pan (hence the term "sheet"), and it has a little bit of cinnamon in the cake batter (a slightly Mexican touch, and Texas is close to Mexico, but that's just a hunch).

Right after removing the cake from the oven, you pour a thin frosting/glaze over the cake. By not allowing the cake to cool before performing this step, the topmost layer of cake and the frosting become one, while the uppermost layer of frosting gets a micro-thin crust, almost like a layer of porcelain that shatters under your teeth before liquifying. Mmm.

This cake has been around now for five days, and I keep on eating on it. I have a big piece at lunch and a big one for dessert, but it's still just as good as the day I baked it. I can't stop eating it. Today is probably the last day this cake will be around, and then Joe and I can make a new beginning in our lives, freed of the yummy bondage of Texas Sheet Cake.

Flooded Dreams

Last night I drank a little bit of wine and had to go to bed sot long after 11pm. This morning, the radio came on at 6:45, and I listened to news of Hurricaine Katrina and all hell turning loose in New Orleans.

It was too much. I couldn't get out of bed, instead just imagining what it could possibly be like down there. Would I comandeer a bus and pick up any folks I saw who needed help? Would I hitchhike, uninvited, to the Astro Dome in Houston? Would I loot food? Yeah. I would. It's like a war for these people. And of course it's all poor people, too--they all live in the huge sinkholes. Rich or middle class people would act the same way if they didn't have a car or money to get themselves out of town.

I've never been to New Orleans--and now, if I ever get there, it will be a very different city from what it once was.

CBGBs in New York in the Bowery is getting evicted. This has been months in the making, perhaps years. Blondie, The Ramones, Talking Heads...CBGBs is where the sparks of punk rock were fanned into flames. And now it's maybe gonna go, but not without a fight. Maybe they'll make it, maybe not. Bummer if they don't, but everything has gotta go sometime. You can fight and rally and rail, but everything comes to an end, grimy rock clubs and metropolises built below sea level and cities straddling a major fault line. That's Earth, and that's life.