Text noir

Every so often I get a text message that makes me think I'm in a spy movie, and someone is trying to communicate something vital to me in a confusing, obscure way.  I feel like if I were only smarter, I'd know what to do.

Over the weekend, I got this text:

 "Thanks for making that meal when my baby was born [3 years ago].  I'm sure it was delicious." 

 Odd, right?  I could only assume that she was in peril, and if I could rearrange the letters quickly, or otherwise solve the puzzle, I could save her.  I spent a few minutes studying the text.  What meal did I make?  Spaghetti?  Is she stuck in the spaghetti factory?  Trouble with a spaghetti strap?  Why is she even wearing a spaghetti strap?  Is she at a club somewhere?  Oh wait, maybe I made lasagna.  Which, if you look at that word, kind of spells signal, if you squint or put on those drunk glasses that R. keeps around.  Or, worse, it spells strangle.

When I thought the strangle thing, I took off the drunk glasses, picked up the phone, and called her.  I listened carefully to her answers to see she sounded like someone with a gun to her head -- someone who is forced to communicate in weird, mysterious phrases.  But she sounded more like the lovely friend she is.  In fact, she sounded like she just came across an un-mailed thank-you note from a few years back, which was a huge relief.

It made me want to say two things:

1) if I owe you a thank you note, please forgive me.

2)  We should all have a secret signal for if we're in distress.  I'm adopting the thank-you note thing, so if you get that text from me, call 9-1-1 or a film noir detective, and I'll do the same for you.

Does everyone need a service dog, or do I have the creepy super power?

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I got a new hard hat recently, and wore it around my office all afternoon, and no one noticed.  This followed an afternoon when I walked around trying to balance a little squash on my head for quite a while, and no one noticed that either.  I'd put a link to the squash post too, but blogger doesn't seem to want to find it for me.

I’m one of those people who, when asked which super-power I’d prefer, first chooses invisibility, and then gets talked into selecting flying. But I’ll confess that I’m reluctant about switching.  I switch because it’s generally held that invisibility is a creepy superpower. I’d like to suggest that perhaps it’s the lazy power, or the private one. I don’t want to spy on people in the shower; I just want to go about my awkward life without being watched.

But back to the story.  I started to wonder if possibly, invisibility is my superpower.  Maybe I’m more than the person who can hold hot things.  (Which, if you need me to spell it out, is the most boring super power ever.)

A week or so after the hard hat incident, I was in the bathroom with Ms. Clicky-Click, when she suggested I apply some make up. To make a long story short, I let her have her way with my eyebrows, and as one who knows little about cosmetics and their uses, I was pretty amazed by all that went into it.  There was drawing and combing and spraying and more drawing.  “Could you make me look really surprised?” I pleaded.  “Sure,” said the lovely Ms. Clicky-Click, as she drew dramatic brown arches slightly above where my nearly-invisible eyebrows are. 

I went around all day that way, and no one seemed to notice, but then again, what would they say?  “Wow, you sure look surprised today!”  Yeah.

So the next week, I was in the Permit Center helping someone, when her little tiny adorable 4-month old baby started crying.  I offered to carry the baby around (by the way, doesn’t it seem like baby should have two “b’s”?  Not that I don’t understand phonics, but really, something small and cute that ends in a “y” should just have more b’s.  At least I think so.)  So I walk around my workplace for half an hour, carrying this baby, and, repeat after me, no one says a word.  That’s odd, right?  Suddenly, in the middle of the work day at age 51, I show up with an infant? 

By now I’m pretty sure that I do have the super power I secretly want.  So the next day when I’m in the bathroom with the Lovely Ms. Clicky-Click as she is applying multiple products, I ask for a favor.

“Do you think I could wear a few of your hair extenders?”  A hair extender, in case you didn’t know, is a clump of human hair that’s been affixed to a fine-toothed comb.  You stab that comb into the skull of the wearer under their natural hair, and it just makes your natural hair appear to be longer.   Although that effect wouldn’t really happen if you, like me, have a pretty different hair color than the extension.  In my case, my hair is the color of, oh, maybe the matrix of peanut brittle (if it had some gray wisps going through it), while the tuft of hair is the color of a Barbie’s hair, yes that Barbie. These extensions are waist-length and bright, and nothing like my hair at all, and there are only two skinny wisps that she installs, so that it has an odd look, maybe that classic blunt scissors and thorazine disheveled style that I feel confident I can pull of any day of the week because the look goes so nicely with my shoes..

I leave the bathroom and walk around the office for a while, engaging people in conversation and flipping these long bits of bright blond hair around, and, repeat after me, no one seems to notice.

What do you think?  Do I actually have the creepy super power?

Don't know much about photography...

R. and I on a walk

 But it's so lovely around here that I took a few pictures. We've gotten 9 inches of snow here over the past few days, and more expected tonight. I'm not used to this weird, hard to control blogger interface. Bear with me...

Big trees

I know, you can't really see them, but trust me, there are four gorgeous Tundra swans in the middle of that picture.  They come back every year and just hang out here.

Mailbox snowman

It does feel a little like the apocalypse already happened, no?  These are the only colors left in the world.  Black, white, and shades of gray.

B If I could insert a caption, I'd say that in this manly neighborhood, people just handle it if a tree falls on a powerline and starts a fire.  It's what we do.  Who needs the fire department?  If the video works, you can sort of tell that someone is spraying this live electric line with a hand-held fire extinguisher.  (I didn't say we're smart up here.  No, I did not.)

Almost frozen

More post-apocalyptic beauty

This is where that Russian probe landed.

I've always liked this stump, and its especially compelling in the snow.

Scopes

Aries (3/21 – 4/19):  The other day, my boss was supposed to be on vacation but instead, he was in his little box doing whatever he does, which, like many of our jobs, involves moving papers from one place to another and watching a computer monitor.  "Oh, I'm sorry you're here," I commented.  Because that's the thing to say, right, when your boss comes in on his day off?  "I'm sorry you're here too, Betsy," was his reply.  I know.  The point, Aries, is don't read into stuff.  Just assume the best and don't think too hard.

Taurus (4/20 – 5/20): So Todd Palin has endorsed Newt.  Ohhh!,  I know!  That guy comes with a snowmobile, a dusty old union membership and a rock solid marriage, which is more than I have, so I guess I shouldn't be too quick to judge, right?  This week, celebrate the progress, Taurus.  This may be as good as it ever gets.

Gemini (5/21 – 6/21):  Is "be here now" really a proven strategy?  Doesn't it depend on where you are then, if you see where I'm going with this?  Sometimes, when you're in that place, is it okay to fantasize about being in the other place?  Another question I have, Gemini, is about a bracelet.  I have a dear friend with a bracelet with a charm on it, "BRH", that serves as a reminder to Be Right Here.  If I'm thinking about the bracelet, does that count as being here now?  Do you see why this is confusing? Be wherever you want to be this week, Gemini. 

Cancer 6/22 – 7/21: One of my co-workers discovered that his tennis standing is way better in a retirement community in California than it is here, which made him think that if he keeps going south, say, to Nicaragua, he'd be really really good, and if he got all the way to Antarctica, he would be an actual tennis pro.  It's all context, Cancer.  Everyone is so damn capable around here that it's hard to notice that you don't really have to head south to be awesome, although today that sounds kind of good.  Stick around.  I made bagels, and if you lived closer I would totally deliver them.

Leo (7/23 – 8/22): Do you ever long for sorghum syrup, and it just isn't available anywhere? I know.  You'll have to steady yourself with northern vices, Leo, like snow and maple syrup and liberalosity, if that's a word. 

Virgo (8/23 – 9/22): Did you ever have that e-mail conversation that starts out with commas, but by the third or fourth go around, they're using colons?  Yeah, not good.  It starts out, "Dear Betsy," but a few replies later, it's "Betsy:"  Yeah, I hate that too.  It feels like we're heading from colon towards metaphorical colonoscopy.  Let's all use commas this week, shall we, Virgo?

Libra (9/23 – 10/22): So, at my workplace, as part of the on-going effort to streamline, we've done away with the thing where we do an estimate, and tell you what your permit will cost.  Instead, we've created 685 new and distinct fixed fees, intended to cover every possible scenario except for a bunch that they haven't figured out yet.  They're calculated down to, for example, the number of fire plugs ($17.85 per plug that requires review), and there's stuff that's confusing, like surcharges and markups and administrative fees and counter service fees and stuff, but I want to be clear that fees have not increased, we're just streamlining and offering predictability.  Anyway, I sound a little bitter perhaps, because maybe I am, the way workers do when  there's a conflict between who thinks they're the dog and who thinks they're the tail, and it turns out we used to be pretty clear that we were the dogs but we've recently discovered that we're just a cog in the widget factory.  Anyway, Virgo, what does it all mean?  I guess it means that we might need to work especially hard not to become angry cogs in a the wheel of a widget factory, right?  Yes, that's right, Virgo.  (Does my voice sound a little tiny bit squeaky)

Scorpio (10/23 – 11/21):  Every few days I call my sister, and no matter what the question is, she always tells me the same answer:  Listen without judgement, and be curious, learn what's going on, keep your mouth shut, yadda yadda yadda.  It's always just the right advice, even though I'm not very good at implementing it myself.  Maybe you are, so I offer it here.

Sagittarius (11/22 – 12/21):  So wait, Huntsman is endorsing Romney?  From one rich mormon bro to another?  What about his flip-flopping monkey ad?  (Look quickly, because things are disappearing quickly.)  I think I liked him better when he was making obscure Nirvana jokes and just being a general weirdo than this.  So Sag, just be yourself this week.  That's how we like you best.

Capricorn (12/22 – 1/19): So, another interesting thing about my workplace is that they've determined that any permit that falls outside of six sigmas from the standard deviation of the average for that kind of permit is a fail, and if that happens, we need to further streamline.  The only problem I see with this is, well, first off, standard deviation of what, again?  Oh, and figuring out the standard deviation for the 685 different things is pretty daunting right there.  But anyway, my idea is to run the whole thing like the Apple Store, right?  We can wear the lab coats, and greet people at the door with an iPad, and there could be permits attached to the wall with cables that you could try out.  "May I interest you in a hazard tree permit?  Perhaps you have a tree that may fall soon?  That will be $340 plus the 5 percent surcharge, plus the administrative fee of $116 each time the permit crosses the counter, and that will be twice, once when you apply, and once when we give it to you.  Oh, you're thinking you'd rather just let the tree fall on the house and collect the insurance? Huh, imagine.  Well how about a conditional use permit to run a commercial business in a residential area? That will be $5,355 plus the aforementioned administrative fees.  Hmm, doesn't match your budget?  Well, we can offer a legal description on a lot for $107.  How does that sound?" Anyway, Capricorn, I guess I am a little bitter, because I tend to think customer service is about listening with compassion, being humble about the messed up bureaucracy, and creative about solutions, but it turns out that my boss has been right all along:  trained monkeys could do my job!

Aquarius (1/20 – 2/18):  I've been under my desk for the past few days, waiting patiently for that Russian probe to crash.  Turns out, it crashed several hours ago, and I didn't need to stay under there eating crackers and waiting.  Anyway, it's safe to come out now, Aquarius. 

Pisces (2/19 – 3/20):  Each week, my coworkers and I toss $5 into a pool and buy a bunch of lottery tickets, as I've mentioned before.  We've pretty effectively converted a bunch of cash into a few bits of paper, and each of us would like to get out of it, but there's that fear that if we're the only one who quits, there's a chance that we'll be stuck, face pressed against the window, watching the others drive off in a self-made parade with streamers and balloons in the unlikely event that they win.  Some things are terrible enough to consider that even if the odds are tiny, it's best to avoid it if possible.  Pisces, don't get all stuck in avoiding stuff this week.  Enjoy yourself.  BRH, as they say.

Confessions

Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth

I’m at a, “why bother” place right now with writing.  I’m trying to change that, but it’s slow and painstaking, which is a lie.  Slow and painstaking conjures up the painting, “Christina’s World”, right?  As if I’m dragging myself up a steep hill using my frail little arms.  It’s not that way at all.  It goes like this: I sit down at the computer to write, but instead, play solitaire and think about how I wish I would write. Then I check FB to see if there’s anything I’ve missed, and usually there is.  Someone has undoubtedly read something else on the internet that they think I should read, and so I do, or had a meal or a hassle that I should know about, or they say something cryptic that lures me into trying to figure it out the back story by researching (notice we’re avoiding the use of the word, “stalking”) them and their friends and their friend’s friends.  Or, Emily Bazelon will post something interesting, like that Rick Santorum’s wife, Karen, was living with an abortion provider when she met Rick, that compels me to further research.  (Wait, what does she look like? Is she the one with the huge round hair?  Oh, no, that’s Callista.  And does Anne Romney always look like a backstabber, or is it just that one picture?) And so on. 

I thought maybe if I posted something, anything, even this confessional little paragraph, it would be a start.  So there it is.

Occupy Holiday Parties

I have four holiday parties under my belt, and I thought I’d try to eke out another blog post by reporting on the whole conversation issue that I mentioned in the Scorpio horoscope the other day.  Here’s the deal:  many people dread the holiday party because conversations are so dull and lacking in depth.  We tend to blame the party, but in fact, my people, it’s responsibility of the people populating the parties to make them interesting, right?  If I were the party itself, I would feel so misunderstood. 

I have the theory that if we prepare conversationally with the same care we give to our food and clothing, we’d all be better off.  If everyone behaves as if they’re attending a conversation potluck, we’ll be lifted up.  Yes we will.  So, the rule is to have three topics that meet these simple criteria:

a) Interesting.  This sounds so basic, but how many times have you heard someone start to tell a story, and then get all stuck on some irrelevant detail.  “Last Tuesday…no, I think it was a Wednesday. [turns to husband]  Honey, wasn’t that a Wednesday that we went to the furniture store?  Or could it have been a Monday?  No, couldn’t be that, because I usually make chili on Monday, and I don’t recall that the beans were soaking… ”  Saddest thing ever. When someone kills a perfectly good story for no reason. 

b) Not too complicated.  If you have to develop four characters and explain a whole complex process at your workplace for us to join in, it’s not going to work.  If your topic is one that requires a white board, just skip it. 

c) Not too controversial.  I know, sometimes A and C seem to be in conflict, because interesting topics are often controversial, but keep in mind how awkward it will be if you accidentally insult everyone right off the bat, or, almost as bad, learn stuff that makes you lose faith in humanity.  For example, what if the person standing there, snarfing down the deviled egg is eager to vote for Newt?  So do this not just out of courtesy, although that’s a good reason, but it’s for your own protection too.  You don’t want to be that guy curled up in the fetal position, utterly hopeless.

Okay, the report:

Party #1, if you could call it that, was the year end event at work in which you’re badgered to contribute $5, a few people shop at Costco for stuff that isn’t normally consumed at 8 am like lasagna and Caesar salad, and they give out the “multiples of 5-year” awards, (only they forgot to order the actual paperweights, so we just got the paper itself, which may indeed fly about the office place.).  (I am tempted to segue into a commentary about really?  The only good thing anyone has ever done that’s award-worthy is show up for 5, 10, 15, and I’m not making this up, but 40 years? But in the interest of modeling item B, above, I’ll spare you.) At any rate, I used my three topics, and talked to a few people, and was rather proud.  Example:

Code Writer Man, (and I’m not talking computers):  Hey, Betsy, I think you might be right about 21A.24.045D 4.  It is a little ambiguous.

Me:  Uh, CDM, this is supposed to be a party.  See if we can talk about something else.  What have you got?

CDM:  [awkward silence.]

Me:  CDM, I came with three topics.  Did you?

CDM:  [look of disbelief] Uh. . .

Me:  Okay, then, I’ll start.  How about Pujols? [Note:  I know nothing about this topic myself.]

CDM:  Huh?

Now here’s where it gets a little interesting, because the Great Sandini stepped in from the sidelines, magnetized by the conversation, and contributed this:  “Yeah.  Bad deal for the Angels.  Batting average is 297.”

Anyway, this blog post is getting long and dull, exactly what we’re trying to avoid, so let’s breeze right by the rest of that gathering, during which I trotted out my other topics.  Without doing the blow by blow, I will let you know that after I mentioned the degrees of separation thing – how FaceBook has allowed researchers to confirm that we’re all connected by 4.7 degrees of separation rather than the 6 previously understood, The Great Sandini was able to share that his son went to college with Kevin Bacon’s son.  This went beyond my wildest expectations for conversation.   I’m not sure if you’d consider this success in the conversation game, but it’s the first time ever that the Great Sandini has contributed to a conversation that didn’t involve King County Code or SEPA, so all things considered, I think it went pretty well.

Party #2 was a lunchtime potluck in a cubicle with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, a small can of mixed nuts, and a gallon of apple juice. Anyway, I asked someone if she had come prepared with topics. 

Her:  Why yes!  Here I go.  So, I hear it’s snowing at the pass!  That’s good.  I was thinking about skiing this year.  Do you ski?  I’m considering learning to ski, what with all the snow.

Me:  Wait, this doesn’t even sound true.  For one thing, it hasn’t really snowed much in weeks.  For another, really?  Are you planning to take up skiing?

Her:  No, but it’s just a really good conversation topic. 

Okay, let’s just stop right there and say that these topics should actually be true.  The plan isn’t to just make stuff up.  Because I'm operating on the theory that we all like people and want to actually talk to them with the possibility of genuinely connecting, right?

I refreshed my topics and went to Party #3, which was lovely and populated with fun and kind people. R. asked about it the next day.  “How’d your topics work out?”

“Well, actually, they all happened to be about chickens, and it’s sort of hard to segue from idle chit chat to interesting items about poultry without coming out and just saying, hey, would anyone like me to drop some interesting items about chicken awkwardly into the conversation?  Luckily, there was a chicken coop outside, so if we were near the window, I could use that as a prop.”

“Yeah, I can see that.  So what’s your plan for tonight’s party?”

“I dunno.    What have you got?”

“Well, maybe you should stick with that degrees of separation thing. Anytime someone mentions Facebook, you can yell out ‘4.7!’ Or if chicken is on the menu, you could use that to your advantage.”

“Hmm, that might work,” I said, but I was a little skeptical.  I’m a little awkward, but I’m pretty sure just shouting out random associations isn’t the way to move the conversation along.  It’s not like a jeopardy party or anything.

Party #4 was a meal at a nice restaurant, me attending as the date of the coworker of the other attendees.  It went along pretty well until the person next to me asked about my job.  “Oh, my husband is a developer!  Maybe he knows you through work!”

“Yeah,” I say, chuckling uncomfortably, “this is where the party usually gets really awkward.”

“Ha ha,” said the others at the table, thinking I was being funny.

She turns to her husband, “Well, she works for the County!  Maybe you know her?”

He asks what I do, and I describe it a little vaguely and he comes back with, “So, what’s your title?”

That’s not normal, right?  Like, are we all going to go around the room and say our titles, or just me? I've never heard of that before at a party.  In fact, that's usually the question I hear directly before, “Give me your supervisor’s phone number.”  But I’m so obedient that when I could have just laughed and said, ‘no, ha ha, I was just kidding, I’m actually a nurse, I mean, a  teacher!  Yes, I’m a teacher.’ Instead, I told him my title, and he did that “Oh.” Where the tone says everything.

In the awkward silence that followed, I said, “Hey, I have some topics about chickens.  Is anyone interested in talking about chickens?”  But they didn’t get it, and who could blame them?  To explain it all would be a violation of Item B, above, so it truly wasn’t their fault, but it did give me permission to quietly shout out, “4.7!” when FB was mentioned a bit later.

I’m not sure what the take home in this post is, but if you figure it out, or more importantly, if you have any tips for me, let me know.

Best. Comment. Ever.

I got the best comment ever yesterday, and I thought it should be called out as an actual post because I haven't laughed so hard in a while.  If you have a blog, Anonymous, please let me know.  And her's the comment on the Ham in a Can post

Betsy, I see your ex-husband's girlfriend's dead customer's ham, and I raise you an ex-husband's girlfriend's dead brother's couch.

Here's the scenario: I'm at my former home, now my ex-husband and girlfriend's home, on some brief piece of business or other. He opens the garage door, from behind which I'd noticed a whirring sound. The garage is filled with belongings of the dead brother of his girlfriend (<--yes, the family friend he'd left me for). The brother had died alone in his house, and unfortunately the body had not been discovered for some time. I will spare you the grisly details, however, the whirring sound was an ozone generator meant to remove all smells from the furniture. My ex-husband gives me a brief tour of the belongings, and we stop in front of the leather couch. He bends down to take a whiff of it and says, "Hey, smell this couch." Which I do, gawd help me. As I am sniffing it, he asks "Does this couch still smell like dead guy?"

And it was at that moment, Betsy, that I realized two things: 1) I am entirely too accommodating and 2) by initiating that divorce, the former family friend/current girlfriend had actually done me an immense favor.

Thank you and your ham for reminding me of this stunning moment of clarity, which I will now attempt to re-bury for perpetuity.