My Day Off

Today is my roommate's going away party, the night my sister and her boyfriend get into town, and the day before a big family weekend in Napa. So I took the day off to get ready for all this stuff.

I started the day by going to Borders Books to shop for some, well, books. I hadn't had any breakfast when I arrived, so I got a raspberry bar and some ice tea. Sitting next to me, while I ate my ras-be-bar, was an old black man with thinning hair combed such that he had a very defined part. He was dressed in a linen shirt and pants, both extremely wrinkle free and rust colored. From the neck up he wore huge red Sally Jesse Rafael reading glasses and to top it all off (as it were), a pith helmet. (Like the one below, minus the pink strap.)



As I type this my room is being rocked by the overwhelming din of power tools. They were doing something to the front of the house, and when I opened my door the upstairs lady tried to explain what they were up to. Unfortunately she did it in Chinese, so the only word I caught was window. It turns out she was saying, "we're putting bars on our windows. Doesn't that make you feel like you picked a nice safe neighborhood?" Or something to that effect.

Upstairs

There are a husband, wife, and daughter who live in the main part of my house. (Or, more accurately, I live in the little basement part of their house.) I haven't seen the wife much apart from the time or two I've noticed her peeking out from between her curtains as I was moving stuff into my new place. And I only see the daughter when I come bearing large wads of cash. The husband, however, seems to be much more social.

The first time I saw him he was smoking a cigarette at the top of the stairs which lead to his door. He speaks very little English, and as far as I know it might be limited to "good morning." The next morning I saw him doing stretches halfway down the stairs. (Half way down the stairs is the stair where I stretch. There isn't any other stair quite like Fletch.) And tonight when I was making sure my car fit in the parking spot I had chosen, he trotted enthusiastically down the stairs in his pajama pants and undershirt to guide me toward parking perfection.

When I finally move my coffee table and TV in he'll probably leap out of his front door to help me carry them in. Then I’ll have to figure out how to say thank you in Chinese.

Falling Down on the Blog

Apparently I have trouble blogging when I'm not totally situated. So I guess it'll be wise not to expect regular updates until July.

The reason I'm not completely situated, as I've mentioned before, is that I'm moving, and I'm moving because my roommate is going to New York for law school. So, in honor of him moving, I'm going to relate the list of check memo lines I've written to him over the years.

$47.17 A whole heap of things
$971.51 Big ticket items
$846.83 Roommate fees
$873.86 September hoopla
$763.33 Stuff and stuff
$792.13 Many varied things
$827.31 The poodle pictures
$830.55 Puppies
$796.75 Small arms
$1541.45 Kittens
$742.59 Novembers box o' porn
$745.77 December's "social" engagements
$758.77 "Protection"
$757.42 Juicy gossip
$746.47 Sexual healing
$714.45 Sweet, sweet nub
$731.03 Removing unsightly hair
$1444.78 Hair removal from "down under" (I guess I wasn't very creative this month)
$1535.38 Deep body massage
$1495.88 Animal parts
$746.89 December's discovery of how many licks it takes to get to the center
$1513.24 Lovely ladies
$100.00 Puppy bits
$30.00 Vanquishing my mortal enemy

I Can Do That Already

I got a piece of spam today whose subject line was "CyberNude! Surf Nude!"

I don't know what great advance in technology one needs to surf the web in the nude. I think shutting the door about covers it.

The First Night in the New Place

Before heading over to my new apartment, I took careful stock of what I was going to take with me. I was moving my file cabinet, my towel, my toiletries, a change of clothing, my pillows, and everything from my medicine cabinet. I looked. I thought. I decided that I had everything.

So I drove to my new place and unloaded my van, put all my bathroom stuff away, and built a set of shelves. At bed time I turned to my brand new, super squishy, never-before-slept-in bed, and realized that I'd forgotten my comforter. All I had available between me and the elements (besides four walls and a roof) was a single cotton sheet.

My first Idea was to use my great big Costco towel. It's big, but not full size bed big. So at 10:45pm I decided that I was cold and that I needed more of a barrier against the harsh San Francisco June. Luckily, I own far too many t-shirts.

I opened up my box of t-shirts and spread them evenly over my sheet. 25 t-shirts and 5 minutes later I was snug as a bug in a rug named Doug.

I would have been all set for the night if I hadn't left the flaps of my t-shirt box open to slowly scratch closed over the next 3 hours. Until I actually got up and turned on the light I was convinced I had a mouse in my box. When I discovered what it actually was I was most annoyed that I hadn't closed it earlier. However it was an excellent demonstration of plate tectonics, and how things move a lot (relatively speaking) from time to time, not a little constantly.

Then again, nobody wants science at 2am.

Open Mic

Just in case anyone is interested, I'll be playing the open mic at Dylan's (19th and Folsom) tomorrow, Monday the 6th. I plan to sign up for a 9:40pm spot, and I plan memorize all my lyrics ahead of time.

The first is very likely, the second, not so much.

A Word of Advice from the "Do as I Say, Not as I Do" Files

I was waiting in my new apartment for Mancini Sleepwear to drop off my fancy new mattress, and I discovered that my doorbell doesn't work. No problem, I simply left my door open a crack to hear them knock on the outer door. I wanted to be extra sure I could hear them, because I needed to go to the airport to pick somebody up immediately after the Mancini guys left.

And then I dropped my phone in the toilet.

There are a number of things that can't happen with a waterlogged phone:
- Mancini can't call me to say that they can't find my house.
- I can't exchange phone calls to find anyone at the airport.
- I can't make all the vital phone calls that need to be made for my own mattress delivery antics.

I reached in a grabbed my phone and immediately turned it off, then let it air out for a while. When I put the battery back in and turned it on some of the buttons didn't work and the screen was all foggy. So I put it in the oven on warm for a while. That made the screen better, but the end/on/off button kept pressing itself. My phone would turn off, then on, then off, then on, then off, then on but displayed the time and date as 1:30am January 4th, 2000.

So it spent some more time in the oven. After the mattress guys left my phone left the oven for a position in front of my car's air vent with the AC and heat turned all the way up. That seemed to do the trick, and now I have a fully functioning phone. (Although the volume up button only started working 5 minutes ago.)

To sum up, the moral of the story is that when you need your cell phone the most; don't drop it in the toilet.


(And because I'm sure inquiring minds want to know, it fell in before, not after.)

Shopping for Beds

I've decided to buy a bed. The idea came from 2 realizations.

The first was that if I buy a new bed, I don't have to move my old one. The bed people come to my new apartment and drop off my bed. Then, when I'm ready to start sleeping there, I'll put my current bed on craigstlist in the free department.

The second realization came while watching the American version of The Office. One of the office characters was making fun of Steve Carrell's character for sleeping on a futon. I think they said something like, "what's he doing sleeping on a futon? I mean, he's a grown man." I sleep on a futon. I am 26. It's time for a real bed. Plus I'm always hitting my arms and feet on the stupid armrests.

So I'm trying to decide now between the Serta Velveteen Eurotop, full set for $600, or the Serta Blue Oak Eurotop, full set for $950. The Blue Oak is much nicer than the Velveteen, but is it $350 nicer? And I sure wish I could compare prices between stores, but it seems that every store calls the mattress something new. I can't tell which is which. One place has the Serta King Fluffy European Topped Comfy Castle for $799, and another place only carries the Serta Anti-lump Squish-o-rama Sleepgasm for $800 (box spring sold separately.) And the Serta site doesn't list their various models at all. They only list the Perfect Sleeper and the Perfect Night. Mancini Sleep world didn't mention perfect squat. (However, if I had to choose, I think a perfect sleep would probably be included in my perfect night. That, a dinner of Chicken Madera, and sweet, sweet nub. So the perfect night series might be the way to go.)

You'd think that working in the world of mattresses as I do, I would be perfectly poised to make an informed purchasing decision. Not so. All the mattresses I'm looking at are pillow topped or euro topped. When I step outside the realm of alternation pressure relief, I am lost.

The Most Powerful Man in the Universe

When I was little, I was taught that making top ramen involved breaking the square of noodles in quarters inside the bag. My tiny self used to require banging the bag on the corner of a counter, or bracing the bag on an edge of the counter and pushing on the outer edges. Those noodles were tough.

In recent years I've just put the whole block-o-noodles into the pot. But today, since I was using a microwave, I decided I would break them up. So I put the package in one hand and crushed them into little bits. I felt like the guy in any given action movie who shows how strong he is by crushing the cue ball.

I may not be a threat to billiard equipment yet, but noodles beware: You are no match for my grip of steel.

The Tuesday

As I expected, it wasn't even a little bit fun.

After I parked in front of the house, I took out my Polaroid to figure out what the focal length was. After all, I needed to get a close up of this thing, and I didn't want it to be blurry.

The Polaroid instruction book is pretty thick, but it turns out that's because there are 2 pages of instructions in every language. None of these instructions seem to involve focal length, so I went with what I felt was a pretty standard 2-3 feet.

After summoning all my available courage, I walked up the house, Polaroid in hand, and knocked on the door, through which I heard a friendly, "just a minute." This was followed by, "that's right little dog, you're going to get muzzled. I know you don't like it, but you are an ill-mannered little dog, and that's what happens to ill-mannered dogs; they get muzzled."

And sure enough they do, because when the elderly woman let me into the house the dog ran right up to me and tried to nip my hand through her muzzle. The woman explained that she doesn't really bite, just nips. But that a nip can still break the skin. "What an ill-mannered little dog," I thought. And then, "doesn't a nip which breaks the skin constitute a bite?"

Unfortunately there was no time for such rumination. There were pictures of bedsores to take.

The woman led me into the living room where her husband was sitting on the edge of his bed wearing boxers. Maybe, I hoped, I could take the picture without exposing myself to any nudity. Alas, my hopes were dashed when he asked if I was ready, and when I said that I was, he walked over to a chair, turned his back to me, explained (inexplicably) that "this is a popular spot," and dropped trou.

So here I am faced with a very old and naked ass, as well as the dangly bits I can see between his legs, and I can't see a sore. The whole reason I came out there was to photograph the sore for Medicare, and I can't find it. "I don't see a sore," I say.

"It's right there," the man says, pointing haphazardly at various locals on his exposed behind.

"I still don't see it," I say, terrified that I'm going to need to go out to my van and get gloves.

"You have to spread the cheeks," his wife explains, as she (and thankfully not me) spreads said cheeks to reveal a slight redness and tiny bump.

"Great," I say, "could you hold that for a minute?"

So I snap two pictures and frantically wave them around willing them to develop so this man can put his boxer shorts back on. When they finally resolve into pictures of naked man parts, I decided they were about as good as I was going to get, thanked everyone involved, and left.

Today I got a call from corporate complaining that my pictures were out of focus and quizzing me on whether or not there were any breaks in the skin. I told them that I did my best, and there were no breaks in the skin. They explained that just redness didn't constitute a sore, and pronounced him healed.

The really terrible part of this whole thing - taking two pictures, seeing old naked man parts, seeing those parts spread out, looking at the pictures to see if they came out well, and then sending them next day air to Headquarters - was that I didn't have to do any of it. He was healed, and if they had just said that on the phone we could have made arrangements to pick up the mattress. Instead I'm going to be needlessly haunted by memories of smutty Polaroids of the geriatric.