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the incident at the trashcans

We have this weird little area in front of the small condo building where we live. This weird little area is bordered by trees, looks like a courtyard, but is, in fact, the parking area, with a small kind of alcove in one corner for the trashcans. Now normally, you might expect to find something like this behind a building, but the back of our building overlooks a canyon. So, what are you gonna do? We just have this weird little area. It borders the sidewalk of our pretty palm-lined street where there are frequent passersby: moms with strollers, joggers, shoppers with Trader Joe’s bags.

And the occasional homeless person.

Like yesterday.

My Beloved and I are pulling up and I see him shuffling along the sidewalk, this homeless black man. He seems to be shuffling toward our courtyard/parking area where the trashcans are. Rather than pull into a parking space, we pull up to the curb to watch him, see what he is going to do. Sure enough. He drops his Santa-sized bag of cans, takes an empty trash bag, ambles over to the cans, begins to dig around. Now this is private property. It is obviously private property. These are not trashcans lining some back alley thoroughfare. No. These are clearly on someone’s property. What he starts to do is really more akin to walking up someone’s driveway to dig through their trash.

So MB gets out of the car and approaches him. Because of the distance, I strain a bit to hear, but I can piece together that he’s telling him nicely, politely, “Hey, dude. This is private property. You need to move along.”

Homeless guy ignores MB. Keeps digging.

MB moves closer, speaks to him again.

The guy doesn’t stop, doesn’t budge. Now remember, I am sitting in the car watching all of this. And now remember whose blog you’re reading. Which, as it follows, should then cause you to remember that, when under the spell of my own rising — let’s not forget righteous! — indignation, I am occasionally somewhat unmodulated in my behavior. In this state of mind, I am sometimes somewhat impetuous. Maybe I don’t think before I speak, sometimes.

So maybe I lean my head out the window of the car.

And maybe I yell — oh, something like, “You need to get the hell out of here!!!”

You know, as an example of something I might possibly do in a situation like this. And because I’ve now written myself into a corner, let’s just pretend that I actually did these things, okay?

MB throws me the warning face.

The what-in-God’s-name-are-you-doing-you-stupid-wench face.

Silly MB. As if he doesn’t know what I’m doing. I’m using my God-given gift of making things worse, is what I’m doing. Silly MB.

Homeless Guy yells at MB, “Get away from me with your racist ass!”

Uhm, what? The color of his skin had not been mentioned once.

MB is saying things to him, loudly now, basically chasing him towards the sidewalk. Once he’s grabbed his other Santa-sized bag of cans, Homeless Guy stands about 10 feet from the car, indignantly declaiming our racism to the entire neighborhood.

I break in. “Oh, please. This has nothing to do with what color you are! This has to do with the fact that you’re trespassing on private property!”

He looks my car up and down. “Oh, you think because you drive a black car, you ain’t a racist?”

I respond by asking if he’s retarded. (Another great idea …. courtesy of moi.)

MB towers over him and growls, “Move along now, pal. NOW!”

As he drags his bags down the sidewalk, Homeless Guy mutters, “White bitch.”

Yeeah.

See what I mean about that weird little area?

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appropriately, a valentine

If you are not watching 82-year-old Cloris Leachman dance up a comedic diva storm on “Dancing With The Stars,” then you are missing out big time, Peaches. You really are. Almost the only reason to watch the show, for me. Tonight, an epic, dramatic, Norma-Desmond-ish tango. At one point, she lifted one of her 82-year-old legs — straight up — and was dragged or twirled or whatever across the dance floor on the other leg. Good Lord. I don’t think I could even do that and I am at least 62 years younger than she is. The audience was on its feet for her at the end. She deserved it.

So what does this all mean, you ask? It means that I am basically in love with Cloris Leachman right now and no one could be more surprised than I at my new twittery crush on a member of the geriatric set. But how can I help it, I implore you? She is hilarious, inspiring, and a little pistol of a dancer. Okay. Really? I want her to be my gammie. My raunchy, raucous gammie. But with hot chocolate and cookies. Please, Cloris Leachman. I don’t have any gammies left and even when I did have them, well, I barely knew them and they weren’t nearly as fun as you, and I’m pretty sure that their four legs combined could not do what just one of your legs did tonight. And I don’t even know what the heck that means, I’m just so gobsmacked by you. What I’m saying, Cloris Leachman, is I have an opening in my life for someone just like you.

Be my little vixen gammie.

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quiet

I know I’ve been more quiet than usual on this blog lately. We are, collectively, in the midst of some perilous, scary times and some of us are going through perilous, scary times personally. That’s where we are. I mentioned our situation months ago on this blog and just don’t have the energy to get into it right now. If you read it then, you may remember; if you didn’t, well, I’m sorry you’re in the dark a bit.

Sometimes I put pressure on myself to stay mostly lighthearted on this blog. Not that I don’t write about anything else. I do. I know. But, actually, my “default” public setting is to find the humor in things or be silly or whimsical, blah, blah, hoodie blah. It’s a childhood thing. The only way I really got positive attention, so I guess I think it’s the only way people will “like” me. I mean, I’ve gotten emails from time to time from people complaining that I didn’t write a funny post about this or a funny run-down of that, and, well, uhm, sorry. Sometimes it just ain’t there, but there are people who expect it. And it’s always the people who never comment. Weird. They email me and I’m like, “Who ARE you?? I have no relationship with you at all.”

This may sound strange, but that kind of response — the jokey thing — is so kneejerk for me that I have some level of contempt for it. The deeper or more emotional things I write are agonizing and nearly impossible for me to get out. They hurt me — a lot — but I think they’re good for me. I have to think that or I’d never ever write them. I really don’t know why I’m talking about this now or how this is germaine to where I started here. Hm. Well. I guess it’s just that my “default” is failing me right now and I can’t find the words to talk about what’s really going on.

“We” are fine, MB and I. That’s not what I’m referring to. It’s everything else that’s happening to life around us. I actually started a post about it and I’m trying to finish it, but who knows? For me, it’s nearly impossible to write coherently about what I’m going through when I’m in the midst of it. At least, not without sounding like a whiny schlump.

So please bear with me. There are pressing things outside of cyber space. And if you’re the praying type, maybe you wouldn’t mind sending one heavenward for us. I’d appreciate it.

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another best thing in the world ever

Okay. So the title is contradictory. I know. “Best” is best. How can there be another best thing ever? There just is. A while back, I said that this was the best thing in the world ever. And it is. It’s just that this is, too. If your well of cheer is dry, this will fill it up. I guarantee it. I do.

“Little handpainted people, left in London to fend for themselves”:

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I am completely in love with the mind behind this whole thing. Genius.

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we interrupt this rampant cheeriness …..

…. to bring you “A Few Things Tracey Loves From Trader Joe’s.”

Proving, once again, that Trader Joe’s is the best grocery store ever. This in no way covers everything I love from Trader Joe’s. Just a few little things.

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~ Trader Joe’s Just Grilled Chicken Strips. In the frozen section. Easy-peasy and yummy. For when you’re in a hurry. Or lazy. Which, to clarify, I never am.

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~ Trader Joe’s Greek Style Yogurt, especially this Honey flavor. I’m eating it right now. I’m so glad you can’t see me because, in mere seconds, I plan on shoving my face into this-here container and licking out every little bit that’s left, thankyouverymuch. And if I were a skunk, this would kill me. (Well, no. I guess that’s only true with those narrow yogurt cups. So you’re safe shoving your snout into a Trader’s Joe’s Honey Yogurt, Pepe Le Pew! Woo hoo!)

~ Trader Joe’s Half ‘n’ Half. Good and cheap. We don’t need a picture, do we? It’s half ‘n’ half, for Petesake. It just makes me happy. The container is purple and white and looks kinda purty in my fridge. It’s the little things.

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~ Trader Joe’s Peppermint Jo-Jos. These are a seasonal item only, but coming soon, pippa! They’re like Oreos — with crushed candy canes in the filling. (This is not what they look like out of the box — they don’t have the crushed candy cane on the top. Just a picture I found of what one mom did to her Jo-Jos when she had to bring cookies to school and wanted them to look more homemade. Good for you, mom.) These are so so good and Trader Joe’s sells out of them fast. It seems to me that whenever I shop there around the holidays, every basket or cart in line has a box of Jo-Jo’s in it. It makes me happy — it’s like a box of Jo-Jo’s is a box of joy. Sometimes a cookie isn’t just a cookie, you know. Luckily, I know the manager of my TJ’s — because she used to come to The Beanhouse every day and TJ’s was right across the street — and if I ask, she puts a box on hold for me. She makes sure I get my joy. Isn’t that nice?

~ Trader Joe’s Dried Mango Slices. I think we’ve discussed these before. I don’t want to even post a picture — it’s too much temptation. And I don’t buy them often because I become too easily obsessed with them. They are sirens singing to me from the deadly rocks. You’ve been warned.

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~ Arabian Joe’s Middle Eastern Flatbread. I don’t know if the name is racist or not. But when you schmear some hummus or cream cheese on a slice and bite into its soft, chewy, almost nondescript perfection, you just won’t care.

~ By the way — and if you shop at TJ’s, you already know this — they frequently name their products like that. Middle Eastern Flatbread? Oh, that’s Arabian Joe’s Middle Eastern Flatbread, duh. Or whatever “duh” is in Arabic or Farsi or Urdu. Why, even now, in my cupboard, I have a jar of Trader Giotto’s Tuscan Marinara Sauce. So products have these regionally appropriate or possibly racist names: Trader Guiseppe’s. Trader Jose’s. Trader Yosef’s Technicolor Dreamcoat, etc. That’s just how they roll at Trader Joe’s.

~ Trader Joe’s Pinachios. This name vexes me. I don’t get it. I couldn’t find a picture of these. They are cookies — yes, again, with the cookies. I bought these for the first time yesterday because the taste-test dude passing them out forced them on me. Yes, forced. That’s what I said. I don’t really want to describe the whole ugly fracas, really. Just suffice to say that I lived to eat cookies again. Specifically, these …. these … Pinachios. They’re a butter creme cookie with white chocolate chips and pieces of pistachio, a delicious, coffee-dunkin’ combo of crunchy and chewy and mmmmm. I have no idea why they’re called Pinachios or the reason for the “n” in the name. Someone explain it to me. I mean, I get the whole reference to pistachios, but, Trader Joe’s, what’s with the “n”? You’re usually so clever with names, but this one? No. No. I think you’ve been smoking a little too much Trader Spicoli’s Cannabis. A cookie so delicious needs a much better name. Pinachios. Pinocchio. Pinochle. Come on, ya doobie smokers.

~ Hm. Well. Okay. This post slipped away from me a wee bit. Which is completely unprecedented.

Uhm. So. Shop at Trader Joe’s.

Yay.

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30 years ago today: psa 182

I still remember being able to see the billowing black smoke all the way from our house — 20 miles east of the crash. Now I live only a few miles away from where the crash happened and always feel uncomfortable if I’m near that area. I know people who saw the flash of the collision as it happened mid-air. I know people who say that area is haunted — who’ve seen weird things at night there. For anyone living in SD at the time, this is a story that seeped into your consciousness. It’s just there and you can’t make it go away — that weird power of shared but clouded memory, the myth and lore that build up around it.

You know, based on where they crashed, I’d say both planes were less than two minutes from landing safely at Lindbergh Field. They crashed in less than 20 seconds. They were that close to the ground.

So sad. So unnecessary.

(Disturbing photo in the link. Be forewarned.)

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had to do it

The post I wrote recently about a certain little relative of mine meeting a certain nominee for the Vice President of United States whose child just happens to possess the same disability as my little relative — how’s that for deliberately convoluted?? — is now password protected.

It was bound to happen. When I first posted it, oh, two weeks ago, I had not the slightest inkling that anyone beyond my regular readers would find it interesting. Really. I asked permission to post it from the only relatives who know about this blog (and who no longer read, btw, through mutual agreement, for those of you who know what I’m talking about here). I thought it was worth posting, but I did not in any way imagine it would get, like, a jillion hits in just a couple days. It literally FREAKED me out because privacy is an issue for me here. I have what I would call a modest following here at Thee Olde Pale and I’m okay with that for a variety of reasons. So I debated taking the post down — basically instantly — but my relatives were happy to have the story out. Thanked me, even, because they thought it was important. I don’t think I deserve that kind of credit or thanks, really. I was torn, but left it up for a while. After a couple of days, though, I shut the comments down. Stuff like that can really bring out the abusive cynical jerks and it began to feel like managing and/or deleting their offensive comments was becoming a full-time job. In the last few days, I’ve noticed that people have accessed the post through email — meaning the link is now being emailed all over the place, I guess. Gulp. Scary for me. Who knows whose email inbox it could end up in? I’ve done all the blocks I can think of on people who personally know me, so hopefully, I’m safe there. But there are always variables to fret about.

I shouldn’t have posted it, probably, but it was a spontaneous emotional decision. I’m happy people are moved by it; on the other hand, it’s risky for me. And not in some grand heroic way — please, not that at all — but in an impulsive, careless way.

So, if you want to read that post, email me for the password. And please be polite in doing so. I’ve had some wankers email me whining about having to ask for a password. That doesn’t exactly bewitch me, people. I refuse to give passwords to Rudy Rudesters. There’s been open access o’plenty for the past two weeks — and other, much larger blogs have posted the story, too — but now I need to clamp down a bit. If you’re new to the blog, just trust me when I say I have good reasons. I wasn’t wise with this whole thing. I admit it. Lesson learned.

I hope.