A Lovely start to The Halloween Weekend with Friends!

Couldn't ask for a nicer evening, even with all the mess from the bridge closure.

Started out the evening rockin' out to Rush and pulled up to the curb tonight with The Beatles. Nice!

I never get to spend enough time with Tammy so I was thrilled that she was able to join me for the closing performance of The Heidi Chronicles! It was totally worth driving over two bridges and the traffic jam. The play was awesome. The cookies were yummy!The cruise back was a breeze!

Tammy! You did look fabulous and classy in those leather pants! You rocked that look girl!

Especially nice as I saw both opening and closing nights! I love doing that! Thanks Dan!

Chilling with cast & crew after, as always was great fun!

Nice to meet Juliet too!

Driving through the city at the start of Halloween weekend was amusing.

Thanks for the great storytelling on the way home Tammy!

Dropping Tam off at home in Richmond, I must admit I was a little disappointed that I did not get to see the Hos on Ohio Street. They must have all gone to bed. It was cold out there.

I dressed up as a hooker for Halloween once. Do hookers dress up as something else for Halloween, I wonder?

Coming home to my purring kitties hits the spot!

I'm so lucky to have friends that I adore & are such good company!

Happy Halloween / Samhain everyone!

I'm geuinely perplexed!

Lorelei:

Wonders why people make things more difficult & painful than they need to be.

Wonders why some people won't take responsibility for their own actions.

Wishes people could discuss things honestly without all the subterfuge!

Wonders why people feel they can't support person A and still care about person B. Why is it all or nothing, with or against?

Wishes people would make up their own minds instead of going along with whatever side their little circle is telling them the status quo is.

Wishes people would base their opinions on their own experiences with someone instead of believing gossip.

Is disappointed in & ashamed of a number of people right now.

Is proud and grateful for good friends who can make up their own minds!

Here's to my true friends! You know who you are! Thanks for the support! I cherish you now more than ever!

FREAKY FRIDAY

Originally posted Friday, September 23, 2009

Great! Just as I was starting to heal up I took a header today that would have made Chevy Chase proud! Nothing like going flying through the air and skidding across the parking lot asphalt! Ow! My knee is huge!

Boy do my hand and face hurt! Aries Mars strikes again! Have to blame my clumsiness on something.

So much for all the stuff I needed to do this weekend.

Verve & I did manage to get out tonight after all to see a viewing of Antero Alli's, "Tragos." It was great, but there was a suspicion that it would have been even better if I had been in an altered state.

Dinner at Crepevine. Verve as usual, making the guys all tongue tied just by existing.

Bar hopping to hand out flyers for a benefit. Made it to Van Kleef and Radio before hanging out at Baggy's with Friends.

Night ends and next day begins with a strange, pleasurable and truely unexpected surprise!

Finally fell asleep with an icepack on my knee!

*Photo is from Antero Alli's, Tragos

What a Tuesday!

Originally posted Tuesday, October 20, 2009

How did my Tuesday go?

Not much sleep last night. No surprise there. Merph the marvelous snuggler made it very hard to get out of bed! She was all purry and cuddly this morning.

Dr. Appointment at NAHC. My doctor rocks, but I wish she had better news for me! My head is healing very slowly & again she reminds me how lucky I am to be alive. A little harder or a little different spot & I'd have been toast! Tip: Try your best to avoid someone slamming your head against ANYTHING, especially a solid door!

Some good news, however, I’ve lost more than 30 # in the last month which explains why my pants won’t stay up. The "Stress Diet!" It's a marvel!

Long wait at the pharmacy. but mission accomplished. At least I managed to get through a few more stories in F. Scott Fitzgerald's, "Tales of the Jazz age." Mixed reaction to what I'm reading so far.

Cheese enchilada w/ mole sauce for dinner! Leftovers for tomorrow. Yum!

Found out my sedate old bunnies are not so sedate & can still be naughty. Max & Dori escaped from their pen and nibbled this and that! They aren't too happy that I shrunk their pen! I'm sure I'll find more nibbled things I didn't see the first time!

Brushed of enough inertia to do a decent amount of housework & am ready to collapse! Whew!

Tonight’s ultimate question… Will Verve call me at the last minute to go out or will I put my jammies on & watch, "The Good Wife." So, nice to see Julianna Margulies on tv again. I wasn't expecting this show to hold my attention, but she's terrific!

Tonight's Ultimate Conclusion: Date with television & a few zzzs.

I have to say, the Penisula Humane Society is pretty awesome!

Originally posted Wednesday, October 7, 2009

I'm grieving the loss of my Jezebel. She survived lymphoma as a kitten and stayed healthy until this year. I was forced by circumstance to euthanize her today.

If you have an animal euthanized & can't afford to have your pet buried or cremated, they don't just dispose of the remains. They pay for a communal cremation at Pet's Rest in Colma where all the ashes are spread in a meadow that you can go visit! Until the remains are picked up by Pet's Rest, they are kept in a morgue PHS refers to as, "Heaven."

The staff was really kind & let me take all the time I needed. I took a long time, believe me! They were locking up when I left.

The process was kind of interesting. Unlike many vet hospitals they do not give a sedative first. They did it at my request, but afterward I realized it wasn't necessary.Because they didn't deliver the injections through a vein, there wasn't that sudden shock of death.

It took a long time. In Jezebel's case, about 40 minutes & they had to administer a second injection. This is very different than what I'm used to. It's time consuming, but an incredibly peaceful transition. I highly recommend it if you want to hold your animal in your lap and let go slowly.

It's been so long since I had to end the life of any of my own animals. I've regularly assisted with many animals I loved dearly that belonged to other people. I'm used to being stoic & supportive and grieving later in private. I'm still grieving over the loss of my dear friend, "Little," who is the cat I'm holding in my profile picture! I almost forgot how badly it rips your guts out when it's your baby!

I'm blessed despite the sadness. A friend insisted on paying for the cremation so I'll have the ashes at home! I guess it's true that there's always a rainbow somewhere, but the next few days will be extra tough. So many things I need to attend to, but I don't think I'll accomplish much!

www.peninsulahumanesociety.org/

FRUSTRATED ARTIST!

It's sooooo ironic that Ganesha is on my calender this month!

I don't usually blog about being depressed or serious personal poopie! I'd much rather

vent about the trivial, yet incredibly absurd stuff in my life in public. Tonight,

however, I'm feeling the need for some volcanic spewing so I'm just going to let off

some typographical steam! Most of you never get a chance to see my darker side. My

friends see me laughing most of the time. Despite that, some of you know that I've been

dealing with a lot of "CHALLENGES" in the past year; chronic pain issues, heavy

personal/family stuff, job issues,car problems, money problems. You name it; the stuff

of, unfortunately, MY life!

One of the things that has always kept me going were the creative outlets. For most of

my life I've been lucky enough to be successful creatively. I've made money selling art.

I used to do a lot of theater & little film parts. As a singer, I paid my rent with my

music for many years. Having an artistic venue for my emotions has been a great help

when times were tough. Now, I appear to be at a standstill creatively!Most of what's

blocking me has to do with those two devils, time and money!

I've started to do a little art again, but since my ex took or destroyed most of my

supplies a few years back, I'm really limited in the kind of projects I am doing. Would

you believe both my manuel & digital cameras are messed up too?I've done a little extra

work but I'm not in the union,and I have no agent or professional head shots, and my

stage work resume is OLD! I was doing a lot of writing on my laptop (The portability of

a laptop is really terrific for someone who has a lot of pain by the way!) until it

croaked on me!Of course I hadn't backed anything up either! It's all so ridiculous!

Mostly, I want to sing! It seems like everyone wants to hear something first and I don't

have a way to transfer any of my old recordings to MP3 files from cassette right now.

I've had people tell me they can do this for way too much money and a couple have

offered to do it for free, but then they flaked. You can't be too mad at someone for

flaking when they were oferring to do it for free can you? Andy even offered to give me

guitar lessons a couple years ago, but he's never had the time.

Again, only FREE is in my budget right now so I must wait!

Anyway, after a number of emails back & forth to musician ads all wanting me to email

them some recordings or see my "MYSPACE" music page, I want to scream, kick the virtual

dog, and bang my head against the wall. I'm sure it'll all work out & the creative block

will pass, but I hate those feeling so boxed in!

I know it sounds CRAZY, but it's times like these that I really envy those with the

self-destructive gene! I wish I could drown my sorrows in a bottle 'til I pass out,

swallow mass quantities of narcotics until I'm dizzy & numb, go out to a nasty singles

bar and have really angry sex with a stranger, or even go sing karaoke.....Aaaagh,

that's going too far! Those kind of things have never appealed to me though or at least

NOT when I'm depressed.

I wish I could say, I feel all better now, but at least I got it out!

Happy Friday night all!

Halloween/Samhain/Dio de las muertos

Wow! This is the first year in quite some time that I have done literally NOTHING to celebrate one of my favorite times of year! I missed Spiral Dance, the local Day of the Dead fun, avoided the kiddies begging for candy and didn't even do a Samhain ritual, solitary or otherwise, this year!
The only thing I did do is turn to my sweetie at midnight and say half-heartedly, "Happy New Year!"
I guess I half to admit that I am slipping into some sort of limbo here. Everyday feels like quicksand. It's not all bad. There's just not a lot happening. What is happening likespreading molasses. (Sigh)
Well, it's not written in stone. I can still do something about it.
Happily, I did not have many honored dead to honor this year. For me, it's all animals, Agamemnon( Aggie) & Katie. both cats & Winnie the Australian Shepard will be dearly missed!

If you have to ask......

Tonight, The Professor reveals he had a nice first date over the weekend.

Yippee! Cool! Happy for him & all that!

Keep in mind he doesn't know this girl well yet or much about her interests.

He asked me if I thought it would be appropriate to invite her to a party for their second date.

So far so good. Sounds lovely.

Then he tells me that this is the party where:

A) There will be a bunch of role playing gaming going on.

Well, I say, unless she's really intrested in that, it might be a bit overwhelming.

B) This is also a party where a bunch of naked swinger people cram into the hottub!

I suggested that might be a little off-putting for a second date.

He reluctantly agreed, adding that perhaps a second date was too soon to introduce her to all his friends anyway.

Sometimes it is really that funny around here!

Oakland CRIME WAVE Continues!

How many times have I been told, "Don't open your door to anyone you don't know!" How many times have I & other neighbors done it anyway? For a seemingly intelligent person, I often have dubious judgment. Oh, well it all turned out alright!

Pan-handlers & scam artists aren't always that clever, but they know how to grab a cliched story & run with it. Try to poke holes in it & they just come up with another line. Preying on the goodness in people, they count on your desire to want to help & to want to believe. When your gut tells you they are full of poopie your well meaning conscience says, "What if they're telling the truth, what if they really need help? I don't want to discriminate. I don't want to call someone a liar! I don't want to be mean!"

We set ourselves up by being night owls with our lights on.

Around 1230AM our doorbell rang. My first thought is that The Professor, my housemate, had lost his keys again, my second was that one of our neighbors might be in trouble! Our front door has a window in the top and I lifted the curtain to see who it was.

There on the porch was a twinkly-eyed old black man, fence-post thin, with teeth begging for a dentist, reeking of tobacco, casually dressed but in good clothes. "Can I help you?" I said suspiciously, through the door, of course. I kept thinking that he resembled a fellow we used to chase out of the cafe I used to work at because he was a pick-pocket!

"I'm really sorry to bother you," he said sincerely enough, "You're one of the only neighbors who still had their lights on."

I gave him my best puzzled, "who are you?" expression.

He introduced himself as "Mr. Charles Crawford," a neighbor a few houses down. When I tried to pinpoint exactly which house that would be he mumbled, "you know past the stucco house, mumble mumble, next to mumble mumble." He let his voice trail off in those key moments.

"Anyway, again, I'm very sorry to bother you, but I have a bit of a problem. I've just been at the grocery store, you know Albertsons, down the way and when I came home, I locked my keys in my truck and now I can't get in my house. All my groceries are just sitting on the sidewalk." (He points down the block. "I called a locksmith, but I don't have enough cash on me to pay them, do you think I could borrow $40.00 from you? I'd pay you right back."

*It dawned on me later that $40 is REALLY cheap for an after hours locksmith.

"I'm sorry," I said, "I'd really like to help you, but, where did you say you lived again?" I know most of my neighbors at least by their face and I was pretty sure this guy was just pan-handling. "I don't remember seeing you around the neighborhood!"

"Oh, that's because I mostly work nights. You know my next door neighbor, Mr. mumble mumble, you know mumble, don't you? He tried to help me break into the house, but we couldn't get the window open. my wife's working at Kaiser & she won't be home until morning.

"Oh, well, there you go," I suggested that his neighbor friend, "Mr. mumble mumble," could take him to Kaiser to get this wife's house keys. "Oh, she doesn't have keys to my truck." "no, but you could borrow her house keys & surely you must have an extra set of keys to your truck in your home!"

Here began a tit for tat dialog where I poked holes in his story while trying to signal my sweetie to call the cops!

Evidently, Mrs. Crawford worked in some special part of Kaiser where she couldn't leave her station to give him keys and he couldn't go in. And evidently, she wouldn't be able to give her keys to someone else to pass to him either. Evidently there is a top secret "mumble mumble ward" at Kaiser Oakland!

"Gee, that sounds really frustrating! I really wish I could help you, but I just don't have any cash. You know, I've lived here a long time and I know most of my neighbors, including the ones who live in the house it sounds like you're saying is YOUR house. DO you have your ID so I can just see your address?"

"oh, well, you see, you see, that's the thing, I don't have it on me, I put everything in my truck, went to put the shopping cart back, and realized everything was locked in the truck, my keys AND my wallet."

"Well, that really is a bummer," I said, "I thought you locked your keys in the truck AFTER you got home. I'm a little confused." Again, I said, "I'm really sorry, I can't be of more help. I just don't have any cash, Really."

I have to admit. I was sort of enjoying how long this had played out. It was fascinating!

"Hey, anything would help, even if you've got some pennies. The lady next door only had $3.oo, anything, really."

"Oh, really?" I said incredulously, "They gave you money, next door? Who exactly, gave you $3?"

My next door neighbors are no dummies. They'd have seen through him too. Everyone in the neighborhood knows them & they know everyone too so if he truely was a neighbor he'd have been sitting in their living room waiting for the tow truck. Besides, their dogs weren't barking which meant everyone was upstairs for the night.

"So, who did you say gave you $3?"

"You know, the lady...mumble mumble"

There sure seem to be a lot of people named, "mumble mumble" on my street!

At his point, I realized I was going to have to break it off & call the cops myself. Besides, it was getting boring.
I told him, "I'm sorry, but I just can't help you."

Then Andy, uncomfortable, and always full of kindness, slipped a $5 bill through the cracked window hoping to get rid of the guy. Our "neighbor" gushed about how he'd pay us back. He'd put it under our mat tomorrow. I told him, "Please don't. Just keep it"

Just then, I see two police cruisers coming up the block with their spotlights on. My "neighbor, Mr. Crawford," suddenly got very uncomfortable! I said through the cracked window, "Oh good, maybe these nice policeman can help you out!"

But, Mr. Crawford didn't seem to thrilled about having their help. He stopped on our walkway and bent over pretending to tie his shoes which conveniently put him behind a bush! He had his back to me & his eye on the cops. I leaned out the window so the cops could see me and pointed to him with both hands.

They pulled over and after a brief conversation & after checking the ID that was in his pants the whole time, cuffed him. Turns out he'd been knocking on doors all over the neighborhood and that a someone a few blocks away had called the police. He had a $5,000 misdemeanor warrant out for his arrest so they were happy to take him away. The policeman said he was harmless, and while appreciating that I'd kept him busy so they could catch him he had to chastise me for cracking the window. "He could have been carrying a weapon!"

Always ready to add a little unintentional amusement to any situation, our housemate, Professor Inappropriate, arrived home at that very moment. Upon seeing the two cruisers out front, he was certain some major crime had occurred! A home-invasion, a stolen car perhaps, a murder? Perhaps someone had stolen the crusty dishes from his room or (gasp!) his role-playing books!

"What's going on!" he demanded after slamming the door behind him, not for punctuation, but because he always slams the door! "What happened! Why are the cops here?" He blustered, without giving us a chance to answer, "What happened?"

When he finally left a pause, I couldn't resist, "Andy farted," I said with my most serious face, "And someone called Homeland Security!"

The Professor glared at me, then looked at Andy," What happened!"

So, since he has no patience & no sense of humor, we told him the condensed version. When we got to the point about the warrant, he shook his head, "Well that was stupid!"

"What do you mean?"

Well, if the guy had a warrant out for his arrest why was he out trying to scam people? He should be laying low, not committing more crime!"

We cracked up. "Are you serious? That's what criminals do. They don't think they'll get caught!"

Evidently he was serious. "Well if I had a warrant out for my arrest. I wouldn't be stupid enough to go out and commit more crimes!"

This from Mr. "I grew up in New York. I have street smarts! I can handle myself!" Andy & I just lost it at that point which sent him stomping off to his room!

If he'd answered the door, he'd have probably invited the con-artist in, offered him a brandy and worked out a loan with payment plan!

Oh No I didn't! Sometimes I let my inner bitch out!

Sometimes I feel guilty for being such a bitch, especially when I enjoy it!

First I have to say, that normally I am a kind person. I realize there are some people in this world who are just "special." They live in their own little universe and no amount of discussion or argument will challenge them to think differently. I feel this way for example, about right wing conservatives.
Even if the other person is rude or insensitive, hurling insults in return, although they might be witty insults, is just plain mean. Sometimes it's just better to think of them as sufferring from some sort of brain damage. You just have to overlook their flaws, smile, and pretend you don't speak english!

Our housemate is (Thank Goddess) not a right wing conservetive, but sometimes he comes off just as "wrong" & he has a penchant for doing it at all the wrong times.

While he usually has good taste in movies, in general, The Professer is not a big TV or movie person. He's a bookworm, a gamer & seems to fancy himself as a combination nerd/intellectual snob.

Often, we will be watching a movie he's not interested in, but he will come in & comment anyway. He'll either say something really insulting or something really vapid about what we are watching. Or having not bothered to watch it from the beginning come in in the middle and ask twenty questions about it. Usually he becomes bored with it rather quickly & goes to his room to read or do computer stuff. It's a bit like living with someone from another country who misses cultural references in jokes.

Here's an example: One night, we were watching the classic Cosby/Poitier comedy, "Uptown Saturday Night" in which the Poitier's character's wallet, which contained a winning lotto ticket, was stolen during a robbery at a nightclub. To complicate matters they'd BS'd their way into the exclusive club in the first place and lied to their wives about where they were!

They try getting the word from the street & even hire a fraud of a PI played by Richard Prior, but they can't go to the police for all the "obvious reasons," including not being able to trust "the man" of course. Now, it wouldn't be as funny, and the movie would be really short, if they didn't get into one convaluted mess after another, trying to avoid going to the police.

Naturally, The Professer comes in and watches for a few minutes and finding no humor in what he sees comments (just after Cosby says, "We can't go to the police!" ) "Why don't they just go to the cops?" and leaves the room. Aaaagh!

Once while we watching Jeff Corwin, the herpetologist, made famous by his Animal Planet & Discovery Channel specials, he corrected Jeff's pronunciation of a snake's scientifc name! Aaaagh!

Ok. Perhaps you have a small glimpse of our pain. This weekend, Andy & I went on a movie binge. After watching, 2 Michael Moore films, "Roger & Me," and "Bowling for Columbine," we had to set them off with some lighter fare!

Nothing cheers us up like a film full of fart jokes so we put on Eddy Murphy's, "The Nutty Professor I" & followed it up with, "The Nutty Professor II, The Klumps!" I love seeing Eddie play multiple characters & in these he plays the lead role & his whole family. It's silly fun & in childish bad taste.

So, in the midst of it all our hilarity, "Professer Inappropriate" wanders into the room with his big buddha belly loudly slurping what smelled & sounded like noodle soup & says in a tone laden with condescension & disgust, "Hmmm. So, I guess Eddie Murphy is playing all the FAT people."

There was a moment of silence and then I blurted out a zinger, "Yeah, except for YOU!"

Then I mumbled something of a sort of offhanded apology joke. After all, I am not exactly svelte either but gee, let he or she without a little extra padding cast the first stone, eh? It's not the first time he's made rude comments about other people including ME, being fat!

Anyway, he stomped off to his room which is what he usually does when I confront him about anything and we enjoyed the rest of the movie.

Still, I feel a bit guilty. I try to be a kind person, but there are some people who just bring out the MEAN in me.

I guess I should go give myself 20 lashes with a wet noodle & try to be a better person!