Yeah. Had a big one today. Been looming out there since January.
Funny how May seems *so* far away in January.
And then without looking, it’s May 24th and you are NOT finished with your project.
Ugh.
Anyhow, it was a race across the finish line…but thankfully, I did cross the ol’ finish line.
And now:
Back to our regularly scheduled bloggy goodness tomorrow.
And yet, it is.
Was reading an article today in the online version of the San Francisco Chronicle, the SFGate with the headline of “Flushed jail items cause S.F. court flooding.”
The article talks about how inmates at the San Francisco Hall of Justice managed to flush two orange jumpsuits and a bed sheet down the toilet, thus causing a major backup of raw sewage into the courtrooms.
Workers got the mess cleaned up last night only to have it flood again in the morning.
Just. Ew. Talk about a crappy day at work.
Sorry. No really, I actually am sorry. I’ve been on a pun kick lately. But that’s not the funny part.
The funny part comes toward the end of the article.
Here, I’ll quote it directly:
“…the last major problem occurred in the mid-1990s and prompted the city to purchase grinders, known as ‘muffin monsters,’ that are installed on sewage pipes.”
Giggle. *snort* Chuckle. Guffaw.
Muffin monsters?
Ok really. Honestly?
How am I not supposed to laugh at that?
I immediately dashed into the other room to share my new phrase with The Good Man.
Thus proving once more that I am the intellectual equivalent of a twelve-year-old boy.
But come ON. Muffin monsters?
Ok, ok, they really exist and that’s really what the manufacturer calls them.
They look like this:
That’s all well and good, but I don’t care who you are, that’s still funny!
*giggle snort*
I’ve been a proud holder of a driver’s license for, oh say, about twenty-five years.
I first learned to drive our automatic transmission, four-wheel drive, 1972 Chevy Blazer on the hard packed dirt roads around Logan, New Mexico. Population 1,002.
Those roads were wide, empty of other cars, and easy to navigate.
Ya wanna park? Sure. Pull up somewhere near the house. That’ll work.
Then I got a more formal education from the ubiquitous McGinnis School of Driving. Don’t know if it is still the same now, but back then, every high school kid in Albuquerque learned to drive from McGinnis.
We got the usual lessons. Hands and 10 and 2. Back up in a straight line. Parallel park between the orange cones.
That parallel parking one…I didn’t need that much in Albuquerque.
I needed it A LOT more once I moved to the Bay Area.
Parallel parking in San Francisco is like a sport. People will actually spectate the event. Comment on your technique. And point and laugh as you make six runs at that freaking small spot that you’ve just spent over an hour searching for.
These are things that Mr. McGinnis didn’t teach.
That “spent an hour looking for a spot” is what got me thinking. Last night, The Good Man and I had an event up in the great City of San Francisco. It was to be held in the part of the City they call the Marina.
Now…we were feeling pretty good about our odds of parking (another thing McGinnis didn’t teach, thinking ahead to where you’ll park) because where we were headed has a pretty ample parking area. It’s a big wide street with a line of parking spaces down the middle (Fillmore, for my SF readers). Plus, it was a Tuesday night.
Lots of spaces and a weeknight? High potential! Score!
However….
Luck was not on our side. An accident on 280 and backed up traffic for a hometown baseball game left us running late as it was. And when we got to the Marina…there wasn’t a spot to be had.
So we did what we had to do. We began the slow circle around and around and around. Trolling for a spot.
McGinnis didn’t teach me that.
Then the consideration of an ever so slightly empty spot at the curb. Can I fit my car in that? What are the odds the people living there will call the cops because my bumper is hanging in their driveway? Am I leaking over into the red zone? What are the odds I’ll get a ticket?
Mr. McGinnis also did not teach me that.
And then, while panic growing and growing as we are now a half hour late for our event, the sheer ecstasy of actually FINALLY finding a spot. A big spot! A good spot! A spot we didn’t even have to fend off other drivers to get into!
Yes! Sweet mystery of life at last I’ve found you!
Oh the relief. The weeping. The joy.
McGinnis School of Driving definitely did *not* teach me that.
I had to learn that all on my own.
I’m pretty lucky these days because The Good Man, a longtime San Francisco dweller by way of a Brooklyn upbringing isn’t a’feared of these sorts of things. He’ll plunge into the wackiest of driving, parking and navigating situations with ease and aplomb. Most of the time, like last night, he’s got the wheel and I don’t have to worry about it.
Because me, I learned to drive on empty dirt roads.
What the hell are all these cars doing around here!?!?!
(Don’t think I haven’t TOTALLY whipped in front of a Trolley Car to get to a good parking spot. Because I have.)
How’s my day? HOW’S MY DAY!?!??!
This, this is how my day is going:
This is what happens when you take the lovely rubberized cover off your iPhone and then go to a meeting and, whoops, drop it face down on a beautiful gray granite floor.
I have many, many curse words yet to go today.
By the by…the phone still works. Just not really inclined to run my finger across the screen…..
….that living in the Land of Schwarzenegger, in the area of the Bay, there came to be a fish. A small fish. A fish who was filled with faith and hope.
A fish purchased under the accursed impulse-purchase vexation.
The fish was of the Betta clan, and was given the name of Benito, meaning “blessing” or “blessed one” in the Spanish culture (and meaning tiny little dictator in the Italian tradition).
And so it was that Benito came to live in the house of The Good Man and true to his name, blessed us all.
Benito swam and ate of the bloodworm. And it was good.
Until it wasn’t good.
And forsooth, Benito ceased to eat, and lay on the floor of the tank, flat on his side, and took on a gray pallor.
Which only raised memories of Frank, also of the Betta clan, who came before Benito and expired so painfully.
And so it was that The Girl wept, felt necessary to rend her garments, gnashed her teeth and howled to the heavens, “Why! Why must I have the curse of killing helpless fish?”
Then The Girl resigned herself to the knowledge gained that she was not meant for fish ownership.
Another matchbox coffin was prepared, and sadness befell the house of The Good Man.
In the last, desperate hours, The Good Man proclaimed, “he who believeth in the bettas shall never die.”
Thusly, The Good Man brought his mighty hand down and created freshly treated water and added the miracle of the antibiotic powder.
The limp body of Benito of the Betta clan was deposited into the fresh, medicated water and hope was not held out.
In the break of the morn, The Good Man, in his grace, went to the tankside of Benito of Betta, and proclaimed, “Yea, tho I believe this crazy fish is hungry!”
And chopped up pieces of bloodworm were deposited in the tank, and verily Benito of Betta did eat.
“No %$&#ing way!” came the cry from The Girl, who stared in disbelief at the miracle The Good Man had wrought.
“Yeah, don’t get your hopes up,” The Good Man admonished, but despite his downplaying the whole thing, The Girl did ignore him and did in fact get her hopes up.
And forsooth! Benito of Betta did continue to eat. And became more upright, and began to flap his fins in a normal manner.
And Benito of Betta was thusly nicknamed the Lazarus Fish, having risen from the dead.
So it is that some two weeks from coming to the house of The Good Man, Benito of Betta continues to live and eat and could almost be described as thriving.
And with the focus on a new, recovering fish, The Girl finds the sadness over the loss of Frank is beginning to ease.
With the help of The Good Man, guardian of the broken pets, The Girl may in fact learn to be a suitable owner of small helpless fish.
And for the moment, it was good again.
But don’t get your hopes up.
P.S. Margaret, female of the Betta clan, and The Good Man’s fish, continues to thrive quite nicely, thankyouverymuch.
