Category: San Francisco

What it takes to rock my world

Last night during rush hour commute, a cable assembly on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge snapped, sending a 5,000 lb chunk of metal careening to the upper deck of the bridge.

A couple vehicles sustained some damage, and luckily, only one person was hurt. No fatalities.

This bit that broke off was part of a “fix” done over the Labor Day weekend. This is the famed S-curve I spoke of here.

As of today, Cal Trans is saying the bridge is closed “indefinitely”. Due to high winds, it may take several days for the welders to get the new piece in place.

Ugh. Since approximately 280,000 cars traverse that bridge every day, this is not a small matter.

This is, in fact, a very huge matter.

Thankfully, neither The Good Man nor I have to cross that bridge to get to work and back, so for us, you’d think, this is no big deal.

But you’d be wrong.

A major traffic hindrance like this changes the whole traffic pattern of the area. Since we live near the next bridge to the south, the San Mateo Bridge, that means much traffic will now be diverted our way so that folks can get back and forth across the Bay.

It will also affect the rest of the bridges and highways in the area. You’d be amazed the distance the ripple effect will have.

Which got me pondering how much we tend to rely on infrastructure, now, as a human race.

I mean hell, just go one day without electricity, and you remember all the little things you take for granted.

The Good Man recently had some major car troubles and was without his ride for about a week. Whoa, that really threw a kink into our lives.

Sometimes, you know…I think to myself, maybe a shotgun shack in the middle of the woods somewhere with a hole in the ground for sewer and a roaring fire, and my manual Underwood typewriter for jotting down my manifesto might not be such a bad idea.

Then I surf over to Zappos.com to look at adorable shoes and use my credit card to pay and have the UPS man put that box right in my hands and I think…

nah.

Source

Funky Tut*

*With all due homage to the Steve Martin classic. “He gave his life for tourism.”

This past weekend, while my best girlfriend was in town, the three of us (The Good Man, The Friend, and me) went over to San Francisco’s De Young museum to see the King Tut exhibition.

This marked a 30-year anniversary for the De Young, as they also showed King Tut artifacts back in 1979. I remember the hubbub about Tut back in the day (and listened to the Steve Martin song on the album owned by my big brother).

Of course, the Tut traveling show never made it anywhere near New Mexico, so I was pretty psyched to see it this go ’round.

In short, it was amazing. I would love you show you photographs, a drawing, a pencil sketch, my notes or ANYTHING from that visit, but all of that is prohibited. *sigh*

After the exhibit, the three of us headed over to the historic Japanese Tea Garden located next door to the De Young, and while sipping tea in quiet surroundings, we talked about the Tut exhibit and our impressions.

Here’s where my train of thought was headed…..

Ok, so this whole funerary thing…they create these surroundings to make it nice for the person in the afterlife. There are chairs and other furniture, cosmetics, hair care items (gotta look good), and clothing. Favored toys, games, and pets also included.

Basically, all the stuff the deceased liked so they would have a happy, restful afterlife.

And so, with this in mind, I determined my tomb would be, on the inner sanctum, a replica of the red couch, with a fine yet tubby statute of my Feline at my side, or rather, on my legs.

And cheesy poofs. Lots and lots of cheesy poofs (I’m thinking they can use carnelian to properly capture the vibrant orange cheesiness).

My friend pointed out that we had to work out my regal name. As the Egyptian royalty ascended to leadership, their name was changed.

As we learned in the exhibit, the naming convention is something like:

A personal identifier + a word like “life” or “peace” or whatever + name of your preferred god

Thus:

Tut + Ankh (means “life”) + Amun (the diety)

Tutankhamun

And so my name would have to be something like:

Ka + Ankh + Cheesy Poof (cuz I revere the Cheeto)

Kaankhcheesypoof

And yet, we also realized that sometimes, on the cartouche, the name is actually represented in the other direction.

Thus making my name

Poofcheeseyankhka

Ok.

Now we’re cooking.

Also, in the funerary tomb, there are these little figurines placed about. They are called shabti, and their whole gig is to be the servants for the deceased in the afterlife. So, like, if there is manual labor to be done, the shabti have to step up.

Well, I thought on it, and then was all like, “you know, I think my shabti should be all my bad bosses through the years….put those b*stards to work for ME!”

Like opening fresh bags of cheesy poofs and going on beer runs. Stuff like that.

The Good Man and The Friend were *way* in favor of this idea.

However, the more I thought on it, the more I realized I don’t really want all of those bad bosses to hang out with me for all eternity. The good bosses (there have been plenty) are welcome, but why would I want the yuck around? We want a happy afterlife.

So what I need instead is a jar like this one (that we saw at the exhibit).

See, the tiger on top represents Tut…so on mine it would be…uh…a sloth. Anyhow, so there the sloth lays, all smug looking, and then at the bottom would be carved heads of my former oppressors managers (see the photo, heads of Tut’s enemies are found at the foot of the jar).

Instead, my shabti can just be really cool but hardworking people who, like, want to shag glasses of lemonade and make guacamole and are willing to get up a game of softball every now and again.

Ok, so we’ve got a good start on this whole afterlife plan….

Now I need to find someone to begin carving images of me. I need to be depicted throughout the years. I’m thinking all this carving and painting and gilding might take a while.

That’s ok, I can wait. Also, I’d like them not to take my brain out through my nose if we can at all avoid it, mmmkay?

Perception is a funny thing

As one part of the work I do, I have the honor of managing a group of ten people who run a help desk. They do phone and email support for people both inside and outside the company.

If you’ve ever worked a help desk, or known someone who has, you know that it’s really not a very rewarding job.

And to do it well is a major feat.

The team I work with was so well put together by my predecessor that I could sometimes weep at how lucky I am to step into a help desk team that hums.

Sadly, most of the people who work the help desk are contractors, and sort of viewed as the “lowest form of life” around here. People treat my team like their personal admins. Like they are dumb. And often worse.

But these folks endure, provide great support, and I’m proud to heck to be affiliated with them.

When I arrived, once they sniffed me out and decided I was ok, they gave me a hoodie sweatshirt that had our team’s name and logo embroidered into it. The median age of the helpdesk is like 25 years old, so the hoodies make them happy.

The one they gave me is like three sizes too big and makes me look like the unibomber. So of course I rather enjoy wearing it over my work clothes on these cold San Francisco summer days. It’s toasty, and plus I like identifying as part of my team.

This afternoon, wearing my hoodie, I went down to the first floor for a fro-yo break. While I was waiting for the elevators, I found myself standing with a group of executives from the European company that just acquired my own.

Four men, all in *very* sharp suits, middle aged, Caucasian, rich.

They looked me over, saw my sweatshirt, and gave me that warm-eyed condescending smile you give your grandmother when she tells you to have another slice of her over-salted, undercooked apple pie.

So at first I got a little ticked. I was thinking, “I should tell those rich fat bastards that I’m a senior manager and they shouldn’t be so quick to judge! I bet those d’bags don’t do any real work! My team works their collective ass off and you sit up there on the twentieth floor deciding who gets to keep their job and who doesn’t, while you cash your bonus check and drink Cristal out of your Mercedes!”

In other words, as they were judging me, I was judging them right back. Judging them from the top of their perfectly coiffed heads, right down to the cuff of their perfectly creased dark blue pinstripe suit pants. Yup.

They may have been looking down at me, but I was looking down at them right back. And we were all wrong in our assessments.

That knife pleat cuts both ways, now doesn’t it?

: sniiiiiff : Oh yeah, that’s the stuff

Earlier today, in a meeting at work, one of my teammates was given a gift from our clients. It was a really nifty wool stadium blanket.

Another lady asked to look at it, and when it landed in her hands, she brought it to her nose and took a good deep smell.

Just writing that…I know you know that smell, right? Nothing else smells like wool.

I smiled, because I was across the table and I knew exactly what she was smelling. I thought to myself about my own memories of the smell of wool.

Usually winter, outside, snowy day in Albuquerque (the only time it would be cold enough to wear a wool sweater). That perfect storm of smells combined, wool, a snowy day, a bit of sweat and the dirt on my mittens (that got there from making a snowball to lob, offline, at my brother).

Yeah.

So then this got me thinking about the deep associations made from odors, both good and bad.

But I was thinking about good…about the smells I deeply love.

The first that immediately came to mind was leather. I mean, unless you are a PETA advocate, who doesn’t love the smell of good leather?

Just that smell can dredge up lots of happy memories.

Like…the combined smell of leather and saddle soap you get upon opening the door to a tack room. Especially when I was taking riding classes at NMSU, because that tack room had rows and rows of saddles, all smelling nice.

Or…back when we first started dating, The Good Man had this black hard-leather jacket. It’s now too big for him and I think he recently gave it away, but I can easily remember that smell. Hugging him really tight, sinking my face into the shoulder of that jacket and inhaling deeply, tattooing the scent of cute boy and leather deeply into every single cell of my being.

Yeah.

Or, or….how about the smell of a new baseball glove? So many kids will get a new glove and spend lots of time with that thing firmly over the face inhaling. Nothing like that smell.

But I seem to be stuck on leather…

What’s another good smell?

Oh, I know! So…up and down the peninsula here, they have tons of Eucalyptus trees. Early in the morning or very late at night (depending on what side of the nightclub you’re on), when you get the heavy damp fog, it makes those trees let go that very distinctive scent.

The moist, cool damp and Eucalyptus smell… when I travel somewhere else, and then come home, I always latch on to that smell first. It’s SO the Bay Area. Easily identifiable by anyone who has ever lived here.

Here’s an easy one for all the New Mexico folks…the smell of chiles roasting. Utterly identifiable…for miles. So reminiscent of home.

Summer rain on hot pavement. God I love that smell!

Sheets washed with Downy and dried on the clothesline. Haven’t done it in years, so who knows if it smells good anymore? Doesn’t matter, in my memories, it’s always fantastic. I think it helped being in NM because stuff dried really fast and didn’t pick up too much environmental yuck.

Home baked cinnamon rolls served on Christmas morning.

The soap and water smell of my husband just after he emerges from the shower. So delicious! (ok, that’s two about The Good Man, sorry!)

This is kind of funny, but how about the first time you noticed the distinctive smell of money? For me, it was after getting paid allowance for the first time with the kind of money that folded, not jingled. That dollar bill smelled like potential to me.

Aw, heck, I suppose I could go on all night this way.

I’m sure there’s some scientist who would explain how odors can make such vivid memories (like here), but I don’t need to know the science.

Right now, I’m sitting on the couch, watching a baseball game…thinking of how the yard smells on a nice July night like this. Garlic fries, hot dogs and marine layer.

Indelible.

Manual Process

The other day at work, one of the nice ladies I work with took ill. After much discussion, it was decided she needed to head home to rest and recoup, but she felt too woozy to drive.

One of her coworkers, who lives in the same neighborhood, offered to drive the lady home using the sick lady’s own car, and would then take public transit to her own place.

This was a very kind offer!

But when they got to the parking garage, a problem presented itself.

The car in question has a manual transmission, and the good Samaritan had zero idea what to do with all those pedals under the dash.

Turns out, no one in the office knew how to drive a stick (I wasn’t at work that day), so the sick lady ended up driving herself home…which is a shame.

See, I have a few personal arbitrary rules for the world. One of them is that everyone who knows how to drive should know how to drive a manual transmission.

I suppose this is one of those hand-me-downs from my parents. My dad was adamant on this same policy.

His reasoning for this was, “if you can drive a stick, you can drive any car in the world.” My pops was full of beans on a lot of his own personal arbitrary rules for the world (like father like daughter), but I have to back him up on this one.

When each of us three kids learned how to drive, we learned how to drive both an automatic and a stick, much to the groaning agony of the used four-speed everything manual car we all used to learn (if you click, it was like the one in front, only with purple stripes and no sun roof).

That car was pre-hydraulic clutch. I blame this for the freak strength of my left leg.

But I digress.

I realize that most of the cars on the roads today are automatic. I suppose it’s a good thing, it has made driving easier and more accessible for people. But it’s also a sad turn.

When I moved to the Bay Area, I had a 5-speed Jeep. God, I loved that truck. After moving here I fearlessly bombed all around San Francisco in that thing, up and down some of the craziest hills the City has to offer…

…not because I’m cool or daring or anything, mainly because I’m stupid and didn’t plan my routes better. In the first months of life here, the smell of my own burning clutch was like an old friend following me up and down SF roads.

And let me tell you this…if you are at a stop light on a street that just *happens* to also carry a streetcar, and if you *happen* to stop and don’t realize your back tire is on the streetcar rail…well, when the light turns and you hit the gas…the squeeeeing sound is unlike anything you’ve ever known as well as the smell of your tires AND your clutch as they hang on the foggy air. Yes! That is the smell of humiliation to a country mouse in the big town!

We’ll not discuss trying to parallel park on a hill with a manual transmission…

Ok, sure. One of the reasons that people don’t want to drive a stick is because of life’s little difficulties just like that.

Yeah, yeah…it can be utterly nerve wracking.

But I say, the problem solving and gut-it-out reflexes you have to go through to get that car rolling again are valuable life lessons!

Lessons we all can use.

Plus, if you ever want to buy a really fancy sports car, you are good to go.

Or…you know, “borrow” some farm equipment.

But once again…I digress…