Archives for April 2005

Texas sucks.* Or at least, their House does. 135 to SIX!  Unbelievable.

You know who hurt children? Bad people hurt children. Mean people hurt children.  Sexual orientation has nothing to do with it. A fucked-up person hurts a child, and the vast majority of child molesters are straight white men. Perhaps they shouldn’t be allowed to foster children.

Ooooh. The anger. There are no words.

* To my Dear Readers from Texas (Lisa! Susan! for example), this obviously doesn’t mean you. I love y’all. And the music is good out there. But you can take your House and shove their ignorant, bigoted selves right out a very high, very pink, very feathery boa’d window. That’s what I think.

I just slept for ten and a half hours. 

That does not happen. Not that I try not to, but I just can’t usually manage to sleep more than between five and seven hours (if I’m lucky) during my work week. If my eyes pop open in the early afternoon, and if one teeny-eeny little wiggly thought about writing or fiber or bills or god forbid ice cream sneaks into my brain, I’m up. No help for it. But today I gave myself permission, nothing to think or worry about, no place I had to be, no errands that were absolutely necessary, so I slept and slept. I did dream about ice cream, though, that’s the truth.

I’m just gonna show some pictures today. How’s that? I’m still quite sleepy and lazy, and hang on, my toes are cold. I need my slippers (Ann, you know the ones). Okay. I’m back. And dude, I found my extra emergency box of Girl Scout Tagalongs, so I’m all good.

Going back to that whole plane thing, here’s the driver, Lala’s dad:

He runs marathons, you know. Bunches of ’em. At least a dozen, I think. He said when I ran mine, "That’s so NEAT!" I think he’s neat. He and La’s mom were in town for the weekend, on business, so we got to eat lots of nice things, and I showed off by getting a big jerkfaced jerk ticketed for parking in a handicapped spot when there were lots of other open spaces around. And Big Jerk tried to cut RUDELY in front of me in line. And he elbowed his way in front of a guy with a cane who had parked in a normal spot. I tell you, it’s nice to know the cops every once in a while. La’s family thought I was hero. It was neat.)

Also neat (it’s fun to say, I like how it pulls the corners of my mouth back) is standing next to the plane, imagining that I’m off for a quick jaunt to New York for lunch with the Drafty Ladies, or that I’m jetting to Venice for the weekend before starting my whirlwind imaginary book tour. (Damn, note to self, Stephanie’s bookbookbook is IN at Diesel Bookstore, must pick it up — how proud are we of her, really?)

I must say, I have few brain cells left after that sleep. I’ve been puttering around on the computer, dashing between this blog entry and email and phone calls, and it’s taken me an hour to even get this down. Sigh. But it’s a lovely sunny afternoon, and the traffic is rushing well outside, and I love the way the light is falling across the floor. Wait, I’ll show you.

I love the instant gratification that is a camera-cell-phone sitting next to me on the couch.

What else did I do this weekend? Well, I worked a hell of a lot, but hopefully the working-on-the-weekend thing is played out for a little while. But I did have all of Monday off, and Lala and I took the dogs for a long, long ramble around the Albany Bulb. Have you ever been there? It’s this reclaimed spit of land out past the racetrack, hanging off into the Bay, and Monday was a gorgeous sunny day for it.

We sat on the beach and watched a golden dog run-run-run-run-run-run and run some more, chasing balls into the water that his baseball-capped owner tossed out for him. We drank our coffee and ate our morning buns (at the respectable four o’clock time, of course, the only time for a morning bun). We walked around the side of the Bulb, surrounded by water, viewing not only San Francisco and the Bay Bridge, but the Golden Gate and Marin, all the way around to Richmond. We are so LUCKY to live here. Day-um.

We headed around to the far side, picking our way over wet rocks to the dry land on the other edge, where we saw a huge hawk lumber from the ground into the air, a snake dangling from its beak. It hovered there, EATING in the air (I don’t know why that surprised me, but it did), and we watched until it got bashful and took refuge in a tree. Then we watched a smaller hawk take its place in the air, hanging on to wind currents so that it didn’t move at all, just stayed up as if by magic, as if hung by a string. (Lala carried wee Miss Idaho at this point. You don’t want to play around with hawks and chi-hooa-hooas. Even the trained ones can let you down.)

On the other side of the Bulb is art, the pirate-installed kind, the driftwood kind that used to line the Emeryville mudflats when I was a kid (the hippy ‘rents even took us out once to build one, one of my favorite memories).

That second is one of a series that I wish I could attribute, painted on warping plywood, set up in the sun and wind and salt, with a lovely who-cares-about-the-elements attitude.

Okay. That’s enough for now, I think. I’m chilly from not moving, and I want a bath and another cup of coffee. Then I’ll have time to spin a bit before work (only a 12 tonight). I wish you a lovely walk and a little sun and a great big hot cup of strong coffee (or tea, for Cari).

Okay, we didn’t fly away. We WERE on a private jet, flown by Lala’s really super cool dad (who also wears super cool sunglasses, like she does), but we were on the tarmac, and the door was open. But it was fun.

I still have no time to blog. Have to be in for a 14 hour shift for my Monday (had one full day off this week — it was nice) in about two hours, so I’m hurrying. I must go for a run or I might never run again.

But I’ll let MaryB in Richmond (not to be confused with MaryB in Seattle — for a while I thought she had two houses, far apart) blog for me today.

With her permission:

Hey, girl!

I wasn’t actually expecting to talk to a police dispatcher during
police dispatcher appreciation week, but then nobody *ever* expects to talk
to a police dispatcher.
A NON-EMERGENCY call.

My David was heading off to the Prom, wearing the most gorgeous tux on
earth and driving Richard’s 1949 Mercury….and smiling such that bugs
got in his teeth.  I’m following him to the date’s house, for the
traditional picture-taking session, then they will go off to dinner and I
will come home.

Except that the 1949 Mercury decided it wasn’t all that excited about
the Prom after all, and cut off.  On the busiest road in the area.  And,
did I mention the tux?
But the good news was that I was behind him.  I handed him *my* keys,
said "Go.  I’ll figure it out," and sent him on his way.  Not quite as
smiley, but then…stuff happens.

I found me a ride home, and at the suggestion of the friend who drove
me I called the non-emergency number to report the car and to beg them
not to tow it.  (You don’t just hook up and tow a 1949 Mercury…that
would just be wrong.) 

The guy I was talking to was really nice, and
assured me that nobody would ticket or tow it tonight. 
And then I said "And I hear that this is National Police Dispatcher
Appreciation Week, and for all you do let me just say ‘Thank you!’"  He
loved it!  I told him I have a friend who’s a dispatcher and she had
asked all her friends to remember to say something, if the opportunity
arose.  Then he said "Well, I’m sorry that the opportunity arose, but it
was nice of you to remember!"

So David is off to the prom in a Ford Focus wagon (with a stick shift,
though, so it’s not all bad).

Hard to know which is more
gorgeous:  the handsome 17 year old in the tux, or the handsome 56 year old in
the seafoam green paintjob!

I couldn’t wait to get home and let you know of my NPDAW festivity!
{{{}}}
Mary

Thanks, MaryB!

And quickly, here’s what my WONDERFUL family got me for our week of appreciation:

MWAH!

So busy! So busy! If I owe you an email, please forgive me. Meanwhile, we’re on the private jet:

https://rachaelherron.com/so_busy_so_busy/

Oh, my god, do you know about the new satellite function on Google Maps? Go look at your house. And then go somewhere else, from your house, and watch that blue line take you there (click and drag the map around). Amazing. Play here: http://maps.google.com (click the satellite button to the right).

This is my kind of fun.

And this, from Jon, is too funny. Not acceptable dispatch protocol, no. But funny.

I forgot one of the funniest moments of my spinning day: We were driving back home and an SUV climbed up behind Janine, trying to edge her out as the two lanes merged into one.

She said, "I may have an environmental bumper sticker, but I’m no pushover!"
So I said, "Yeah, and we have spinning wheels, dammit!"
Janine said, "Ever hear of Sleeping Beauty, buddy?"

https://rachaelherron.com/i_forgot_one_of/