ghosts – Page 2 – Oh Fair New Mexico

How many of you who sit and judge me…

…have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?

Sorry Mr. Owens. I don’t judge you. Never did. But I’m here to pass a little judgment on your hometown.

On this last road trip through the Golden State, I had occasion to stop off in Bakersfield. As a matter of fact, we needed petrol, and Buck Owen’s Blvd. off of Highway 99 seemed as good an exit as any to take.

At the bottom of the freeway ramp, there stood Buck Owen’s Crystal Palace. And not much more. We weren’t of a mind to visit the palace, tho it was interesting to see. But the gas/food/lodging situation in that area was sketchy to say the least.

It was all just…weird.

I’m a big fan of Buck Owens and think he’s about the most talented musician I ever knew, along with a great self-deprecating sense of humor.

I can’t help but think his old hometown hasn’t quite done him the justice he deserves. The place to go to remember him is a weird neighborhood filled with strange businesses.

Who knows, I may be missing something…

Then again, it is California’s Central Valley. A David Lynch movie waiting to happen…

Belated Dia de los Muertos

Yes, I know it passed me by last week. I usually at least TRY to think of those who have passed on, but didn’t. See, November 2 marks the anniversary of the day The Cute Boy™ and I met. And it’s a day so filled with joy and happiness that it’s hard to be sorrowful.

Yet, feeling that sorrow every year is important. Circle of life, no joy without pain and all that.

I was too caught up in NaNoWriMo and celebrating love that I forgot to think about death. Not so bad a trade off, I suppose, in the long run.

My NaNoWriMo progress limps along. I wrote nary a word for the first four days (yikes) and am now some 8,000 words off the pace. But I calculated 50,000 words over 25 days and that’s 2,000 words a day. Still do-able. I’ve got 1500 so far today, so progress has (finally!) begun.

But back to those muertos.

Today I remember the lives of those I’ve lost. All four of my grandparents, my father, and my best friend from high school. Of them, my high school friend is the one I can say truly didn’t get a chance to live her life. My grandparents and my father lived good long lives, saw their children into adulthood and were ok when the time came to pass. The loss of my friend still gives me pain. She was too young. Such is the nature of life.

But here, when the veil between our world and theirs is thinner, easier to access, I think of those I’ve lost with a heart full of love.

I remember.

Ghost busted

Aw durn. Some Halloween debunking.

Back in June I posted about the ghosty caught on film at the courthouse in Santa Fe.

I have to admit, watching the video I was pretty bought in. It was *weird*.

So sadly, last night, while surfing about I found this article on Yahoo.

Way to de-ghost my holiday!

Damn it!

Turns out it was a ladybug. Probably.

Debunked? Or no?

You decide……

Muah ha ha ha ha ha ha!

The debunking vid:

The original vid:

When it’s time to put your electronic device down

Had a pretty good laugh today reading an AP story about cell phone users feeling “phantom vibrations”.

The Cute Boy™ and I have talked about this one before. My life, unfortunately, revolves around the wireless industry, and I’m constantly surrounded by < obscenity deleted >* cell phones.

If you have to be tethered to one of the damn things like I do, then you’ve probably had this phenomenon. Or….if you’ve ever had a hot date and you are waiting desperately for them to call, that’s also a fine time for you to lunge for your pocket only to realize it wasn’t your phone, it was you.

Lately I’m also getting phantom ringing. There are so many ding dang devices in the world, and they all beep, whine, tweet, chirp and whatever, that I think it must be my phone. I mean, the galdurn thing has a bunch of functions I don’t even know how to use. A few weeks back, The Cute Boy™ and I were in the car. A new chirp emitted from somewhere in the car. It was an unfamiliar sound. We looked at each other. “What was that?” I asked. “I don’t know,” he replied.

I mean….how bad is it when there are so many electronic sounds in the air that you can no longer accurately identify the source?

It makes it worse that here at work all employees now carry the same phone. Which means they make the same set of noises. It’s kind of funny in a crowded meeting when one phone chirps and twenty people lunge for it. Funny in a “holy crap is this what we’ve become” kind of not-so-funny way.

So, yes, I admit it, I’m a “phantom vibrate” person**…and a phantom ring too. Today I took off for a meeting across campus at work and (*gasp*), forgot my phone back in the office. And while in the meeting, someone’s phone rang. And even though I KNEW I didn’t have my phone, I still reached into my pocket…to find, my keys. Well there you have it, the downfall of civilization.

By the by…does anyone else have a microwave that nudges you when it’s done? I mean, I can pop a bowl of soup in there for a couple minutes, then be doing something else. I *hear* the end beep. Then every minute or so, it beeps again. I really, really hate that. My life…managed by a microwave…and an iPhone…and the beeps and bells in my car…and let’s not even start on the strange noises my computer makes.

Remember when a phone just rang, and made that “shuk-shuk-shuk” noise when you dialed?

*Self censored in the interest of keeping this blog to a reasonable length. The string of curse words that I use to describe cell phones is both lengthy and sufficiently blue enough to make a sailor blush.

**Heh..when I first wrote that sentence, I said “I’m a ‘phantom vibrator’…” That’s a WHOLE other blog, no?

The more things change

The more they stay the same…or so the saying goes.

Is that really true? It seems anymore that everything just changes. And changes. And changes.

Am I becoming my folks? Lamenting for days gone by. “Better days.” “It didn’t used to be like this.”

Is it an inevitable side effect of passing years?

Somewhere along the way in my tenure here in the Bay Area, just over ten years now, I crossed a line, passed a barrier, ticked off a marker. I had finally lived here long enough that I could pine for “how it used to be.”

Yesterday evening I had occasion to drive The Cute Boy™ to San Francisco. He’s laid up with a bum ankle (don’t ask). So Cute Boy is now Gimpy McGimperson on two crutches. He had some business in our fine City, so I took him there and decided to bide my time and wait for him to be done, más o menos, three hours all in.

So while waiting I decided to visit an old haunt in North Beach, a place I’ve waxed ecstastic about in these very pages. A lovely family owned restaurant called Sodini’s. Owned by the venerable Mark Sodini, when I first moved, a hay-seed-in-my-hair girl from New Mexico, Sodini’s was one of the few places I knew how to get to in that big mean city.

Back in those days I was trying to catch the eye of a local musician (it ended badly, don’t ask) who played at the bar across the street. So I’d go to Sodini’s for dinner and some liquid courage. It’s always a bit weird being a girl going to a restaurant or bar alone, but any trepidation I had quickly dissolved in the kind presence of the good people of Sodini’s. These folks couldn’t have been more cordial, and kind, and they took good care of me, looked out for me, and became my friends.

So it was a melancholy bit of business to sit, once more, by myself on a barstool, drinking a well made drink and tucked into a gorgeous Caprese.

My eyes wandered to the strangely quiet Green street out the windows, and my retinas were burned by a neon sign blaring FAX, COPIES, PHOTOS. I said to Mark, “What’s with the copy place? Didn’t that used to be a frame shop?” He laughed and said “Yeah, but it’s been a copy place for about two years.”

Two years? How do two years slip past without me knowing it?

Then I looked over at the old North Beach Video shop. It’s now an upscale restaurant (I don’t even remember the name) and the video store moved into a much smaller space next door.

I started getting depressed. “My neighborhood is vanishing!” I thought, nervously sipping my drink and spooning in Minestrone for comfort. That sort of demoralized anxiety was setting in, until I really stopped, took a breath, and looked around.

There was Mark at the end of the bar playing liar’s dice with Leo. I met Leo not long after I’d moved, on a night much the same. Leo owns Vesuvio, the bar next door to City Lights. If you are familiar with the Beat Generation writers, then those names mean something to you.

Leo has lived in North Beach for a long time. I can’t quote how many years, but I’m guessing somewheres between forty and sixty. On that night way back then, Leo told me stories of North Beach. Told me how he used to own a coffee bar (in the first popular incarnation of coffee bars in America) and that he once paid Janis Joplin twenty bucks to play all night. I asked him questions about her with wide-eyed wonder, and he remembered her fondly, remembering her as “a little odd”. He told me about Jefferson Airplane. And Grace Slick (who’s long been a hero of mine). Told me they were good kids and he enjoyed them, but they drank too much.

This was amazing to me. A living history book. And last night, there he was again, taking everyone’s dice and beating ’em all, like usual.

As I continued to gaze around the restaurant, I spotted a favorite waitress and the guy who used to work the door at the Grant & Green. And Mark said “You need another, Karen?” and I nodded. And he served it right up because he takes good care of his customers.

And I relaxed. And smiled. And let out a little bit of the whole lotta stress I’ve got working me.

Because everything might change. This world moves too fast. Everything looks different when you turn around and look again. And in this fast pace world, sometimes you just know that certain places will remain enough the same to keep you sane, and that’s good enough for me.

(Don’t even get me started on my fair New Mexico and what the hell has happened to my beautiful Albuquerque. Oy! Guess it’s time to move somewhere new where I don’t remember what it “used to be,” and leave before I cross that same line again. Ah well, I love New Mexico. I love the Bay Area. And most of all, I love The Cute Boy™, and that is something that, good lord willing and the creeks don’t rise, will always be there, growing a little stronger every day)