You're Doing It Wrong

Remember my story about using a gift card and needing help to do a return? This was all the stuff it took to mail me a new gift card for the balance. Sometimes the presentation for gift cards blows my mind. I guess I can understand that there are high maintenance people that think handing off a simple gift card seems too pitiful. But to me it seems wasteful to have to have a box and a envelope and another envelope and padding and another envelope. That seems like trying too hard.

I watched a movie called Gone Baby Gone this week which I recommend. It’s a good movie anyway but it’s a complex story. I don’t want to be spoiler-y so I will be vague. It does a good job of creating questions about what is doing the right thing. Also, it’s good movie to study characterization. Everything is shown by the way people act and how they speak. I’m still thinking about it days later.

I was downtown at Noon and saw flashing lights and heard drumming and I assumed it was another stupid protest.

Nope! It was Portland’s Christmas tree on its way to the Courthouse Square.

There was a band and a baton twirler and a few random vehicles and a guy dressed up like a pig. (Your guess is as good as mine.)

And look who else?

I know it’s blurry. That’s my specialty.

The internet tells me it’s a 75 foot Douglas Fir.

I had no idea there was a Christmas tree parade. I miss all this stuff because I hide in my office.

Everyone is doing it wrong. I am overwhelmed by the number of people/entities I am dealing with right now that are doing it all wrong. I don’t understand how they could be in business and not have a clue how wrong they are doing it. I have jetted off numerous helpful notes intended to assist these people and entities in identifying their doing it wrongness. No doubt they are sorting through my nuggets of wisdom and quickly implementing fixes so that I can do more productive things with my time.

I don’t want to explain it all now because it will get me all worked up or else it would be inappropriate. But here are a few of the companies that I am schooling right now: Apple, Fred Meyer, Paypal, LexisNexis and [redacted].

When things start working better, you will have me to thank.

Meanwhile, I’ve been noticing lately that in movies and TV shows where a person gets bad news or a big shock and they often drop either a vase filled with flowers or a mug or sometimes a glass. Do people really drop things because of surprising news? Whenever you see a person carrying a giant vase you know bad news is on the way because it’s going to make a great slow motion shot when it crashes to the floor. When it’s a drink it’s usually either a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. You never see anyone drop a mug of root beer or a brandy snifter. Well sometimes the Mom has poured the kid a glass of milk. Dropping the glass of milk conveys oodles of dramatic information.

Leaf on the roof of the bus stop.

I’m starting a list of subjects that go volatile in online discussions.

Not the obvious things like politics, sports, MAC v PC, or XBox v Playstation.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon a rager about juicers. Meaning a kitchen gadget that squishes up produce and turns it into liquid.

I think the thread had about 300 comments on it. I couldn’t believe how intense people were about juicers. When people are all frothy-mouthed and dogmatic it makes me want to burn their house down. See? Now nobody gets a juicer. I can’t imagine caring that much about what juicers total strangers are buying.

Go buy any juicer you want or don’t buy one at all. You have my blessing.

One of our neighbors was doing a school fundraiser selling boxes fruit.

We eat tons of fruit and thought this was terrific so we bought 2 boxes of apples and 1 box of pears. About the same time there’s a business associate who sends us a box of apples and that arrived. We shared some and apples last a long time so that’s no problem. Plus I want to try this recipe for apple-peanut butter pie.

However, one thing you should know about pears is they are super needy. They go from zero to ripe in a day and they all get ripe at the same time.

We’ve both been eating a couple of pears a day. We went to a party last night and I brought a pear crisp. We’re starting to lose them now. I composted a half dozen yesterday. You can see a bloopy one in the photo.

The smart thing would have been to can some but I was out of town last weekend and there’s no way I could have pulled it off on a weeknight this past week. This weekend I only have about a half day that’s not scheduled and I can’t bring myself to devote that to canning.

Lesson learned for next time.

The weather was warm and windy. The sky was bright blue and you could see things, mountains, tall buildings, in the distance.

If you’ve ever been to LA you know this is not business as usual.

We went south and drove through brown hills on a two lane road and then came upon a giant tower that said Harrah’s. This is the Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians casino. I linked to the Tribe’s website and not Harrah’s because I was little bit horrified. I’ve been in at least 20 Indian casinos and this is the first one that was devoid of even a hint of the people who own it.

But let the gambling begin! We met the rest of our friends here and went to town. I’m not much of a gambler but I donated a chunk of change for the cause and watched my friends play.

Those machines are amazing. The Sex in the City game had this whole bit where you pick a purse and then shop in Charlotte’s closet and then open a box of shoes and then you get diamonds for your bracelet. All these things are points adding up. Whoever invents this stuff is a genius.

We spent the rest of the weekend at Antje’s house. Pool! Even more sunshine. I slathered my pasty skin with 70 SPF and flopped out on the lounge cushion with a stack of People magazines. It was heaven. We had a number of terrific meals and watched Magic Mike with the extra extended dance scenes. I had some questions about the story but I guess that wasn’t the point. It was super fun catching up. My favorite people are the ones you can go years without seeing and then when you get together it’s like no time has passed.

On the trip back home it was still clear so I could see all the islands. And we drove past Disneyland and the old tire company that’s now an outlet mall.

Walker dropped me off at the airport and I was early enough I decided to sit out front and enjoy a last bit of sunshine.

I met the most charming 86 year old man from Oregon who was waiting for a ride. When I first said hello he told me that he was having a trouble hearing because his dog had chewed up his hearing aid. He told me he’d been married 54 years but his wife died of cancer. He’d never lived on his own and wanted to find someone new.

He phoned his father (yes, I stuck a finger in my ear to unclog it to make sure I heard correctly) to ask why he’d never tried to remarry and the father pointed out that he was 95 when his wife died so it didn’t seem important. My new friend put the word out and met someone and has been married to his 2nd wife for 8 years. His father died when he was 102.

When I finally was settled in my airport gate the airport music was like college juke box. Tons of ’80s songs that I haven’t heard in forever: Pretenders, The Cure, English Beat, Romantics, Steve Winwood, Banarama: is there a Pandora station called Burbank Airport? I was blissed out when I left.

Last weekend I went to southern California for a get together with some college friends and it was completely magical.

The get together was San Diego area but I flew into Burbank (LA area) (These geographic generalizations are for my loyal reader who might not be familiar with California) so I could have extra visiting time with one of my friends. I haven’t seen any of these friends for 6 or more years.

Burbank is a dinky airport. The plan was for Walker to park close by and I’d text when I arrived and she’d drive up to get me.

At Burbank they mean business. A driver is permitted a brief pause to let people in or out but beyond that and there’s a guy with a whistle and a white glove in your face.

Turned out the airport road was closed because the presidential motorcade was coming through. I had to walk from the terminal to find my ride. When I got to Hollywood Way they wouldn’t let us cross because the motorcade was coming right then. This white Porsche somehow managed to be driving on the closed road and the cops all waved at him (or her) so he made a screaming 180 and took off right when the motorcycle cops started zooming by. We all thought he was busted but he turned down a side street and no one followed him.

“We” is me and all the other people dragging our luggage out of the airport and waiting on the corner for our rides.

The motorcycle cops came in regular intervals and would stop a various points. One stopped right in front of us. Straight out of central casting – he would play the jolly cop would would help the little girl get her cat out of the tree.

Finally the motorcade came and it was about 20 cars with flashing lights driving crazy fast. White and black SUVs plus a couple of sort-of popemobile things.

Then it was gone. “Have a nice evening,” Jolly Motorcycle Cop said and he zoomed off. It was so smooth. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing.

Then they opened the street back up and the other cops waved at all the cars to get the traffic going again. I crossed the street and Walker was right there and I jumped in her car.

I said, “I just got here and already it’s so exciting.”

Part 2 tomorrow!