Suzy Says

There’s nothing like a Jessica post to get people talking! JFans will be delighted to hear that I’ll be seeing her (and, oh yes, her mother, too) at Thanksgiving, so I’ll almost certainly have more tales to tell. Note to Self: don’t forget to wear that necklace she likes.

For the Henry fans among you (and you know who you are), here are a few visual aids:

Not the paparazzi again. I’m trying to nap.

Man with a mission: Henry on his way to breakfast.

Room service: breakfast in Henry’s bachelor pad under the back porch.

Jessica may only be five years old, but she’s already learning about boys. And girls.

She changed her top while a friend was visiting, confidently predicting that when he saw the wardrobe change, “he’s gonna be all, like, whoa“. No girl over the age of five reading this will be surprised to hear that not only did he not say “whoa”, he didn’t even notice. Better get used to it, kid.

At school, Jessica has discovered that girls can be mean. I thought Mean Girls syndrome didn’t start until high school, or at least junior high. Kindergarten seems kind of young to me, but I’m behind the elementary school times. A girl cut in front of her in line, and Jessica naturally objected. Mean Girl refused to get behind Jessica, and Jessica refused to back down. Things escalated, and Mean Girl threatened to tell the teacher.

Jessica, realizing that Mean Girl wouldn’t actually dare to tell the teacher, since she’d have to admit she started it, immediately responded, “Go ahead. Be my guest.”

Clearly, this was not the way things were expected to go, so Mean Girl, having no Plan B or comeback (though undoubtedly she thought of one long after she got home and it was too late to use it) gave up and got in line.

The next time I need some advice, I know who to ask. A girl who can handle school buses and bullies with equal aplomb will know just what to do.

Last night, in the dark hours between moonset and sunrise, I was awakened by the unmistakable sound of cats fighting. Fearing for Henry, I peered into the darkness. I couldn’t see a thing. Unsettled, I went back to bed and read the new Michael Connelly until I felt ready to sleep again.

I woke up a couple of hours later with the wind howling. Palm leaves rattled, the windows shook in their 85 year old wooden frames. Going out to pick up the newspaper, I expected to be greeted by a full-blown winter storm. I was amazed to see the clear blue sky, the horizon an opalescent pink. It was as balmy as a summer day. The newspaper had blown across the street.

Paper in hand, I went to check on Henry. He came running out to meet me, saying good morning and leading me to his bowls. The water dish was full of dirt, and the little tent I got him to shelter in when it rains was collapsed against the fence instead of under the porch. Its faux sheepskin lining was nowhere to be seen.

On closer examination, the tent had deep bite and claw marks in the fabric, and was either blood- or dirt-stained. Henry, however, appears to be unscathed, and happily ate his breakfast as if nothing had happened. You should see the other guy, he seemed to be saying.

If I must have a cell phone, why can’t it be this one, with more than three carats of diamonds? And a handy little mini version that clips to one’s handbag, to avoid the annoyance of digging through all that money, lipsticks, boys’ phone numbers, etc., to find the ringing phone. Especially good post-manicure!

Priced around $25,000, this is definitely a Covet.

Who needs an iPhone when you can have a Dior phone?

Speaking of phones, my older, humbler one finally turned up somewhere in LAX. I got a call from TSA telling me they’d found it a couple of days ago. Wonder what it was up to during the past month? Since I already had a new (and cuter) phone, I decided to donate it.

The local librarians have begun to comment on how fast I read and how much. I picked up the most recent bounty, and the librarian asked me if I wanted all five books at once, and pointed out that I had just taken three out (which, to be fair, I had just returned).

When I was a kid in Maine, one of the privileges of being a lab kid was being able to take out as many books from the beautiful library as we wanted (other than the new ones, which were as limited to us as anyone else). That place was heaven on earth to me. I loved stepping through the double doors to the marble flooored foyer, and from there, into the library itself, with its glorious gallery above, and…all…those…books.

In that twilight place, no matter how the sun blazed outside, I met Mr. Shaw. Mr. Fitzgerald. Mr. Hemingway. Mssrs Chandler and Hammett. Miss Plath. Mssrs Zola, Baudelaire, de Montaigne. Misses Bronte. The Divine Jane. Mr. King. There was no end to the discoveries, the worlds that opened to me.

But the new ones were of less interest to me than the past.

In those days, I was discovering the incomparable E. Nesbit, Edward Eager, C.S. Lewis, E.L. Konigsberg, Zilpha Keatley Snyder. Of course, the worlds of A.A. Milne, Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Grahame, and John Masefield were already well known to and loved by me, and on my bookshelves (built by Dad* at home), but on occasion, then as now, a desire to read certain books and passages would overcome me, and I’d have the freedom to check them out and revel again, or restore my spirit, in the beautiful, familiar prose.

*Dad was streamed into Classics as a boy, but being tone deaf, was a terrible singer. His music master sent him to learn carpentry to spare his own aesthetic sense, and undoubtedly, those of Dad’s classmates. By the time the school figured it out, it was too late. And Dad built bookshelves in every house we ever lived in, including his last home with our beloved stepmother.

You all know I can find the cloud in every silver lining, so you probably won’t be surprised to learn that my emotions on the recent election are far from unmixed. Although I’m thrilled that Mr. Obama was elected (and to be a witness to history in the making), I’m equally disappointed that nearly half of my fellow Americans voted for John McCain. As Iggy Pop would say, what the hell? What the heck?

I’m also appalled that Proposition 8 passed. I am so disgusted with my fellow Californians for passing a law of intolerance and hatred. Shouldn’t the new Obama day usher in an era of tolerance and unity?

Our New First Family!

Yes, we can – and we did!

I can’t believe the day is finally here. I feel like a bride who has been planning a huge, elaborate ceremony for more than two years, and now the day has finally come that will change my life forever. It seems slightly unreal.

My wise friend Mike suggested that I write about my voting experience on this historic day. The problem is that I voted by mail weeks ago, so I don’t have a good story about valiantly waiting in line for hours in the rain (probably the best I can do is the anecdote about the Neil Young ticket). I don’t know why everyone doesn’t just mail in their ballots, to tell you the truth. So much easier, and more importantly in Suzy world, less boring and time consuming.

Of course, having nothing to write about has never stopped me before.

I was encouraged by the line to vote at the church at the foot of my street this morning, and the many people at intersections throughout Oakland, urging people to vote no on the hateful Proposition 8, which seeks to outlaw marriage for gay couples, and yes on Proposition 2, which seeks humane conditions (such as being able to actually stand up) for all California farm animals. I can’t believe we need a law for that one. The girl brandishing her Proposition 2 sign outside the gym was accompanied by her aged and patient beagle.

In the days before I figured out that I could mail in my vote, I did stand in line, most memorably to vote for Bill Clinton the first time. It was a bright, sunny day, like today, and I voted at the church around the corner from my apartment on Jackson Street in San Francisco. I still recall the joy in my heart as I cast my ballot, the feeling of being high on hope as I walked the few blocks home, sure of a brighter future for this great country.

Today, I feel hope, too, but also fear in the wake of the last “election” and the intolerance and hatred inherent in some of the propositions that somehow made it on the ballot. But I can’t believe the majority of my fellow Americans can honestly think this country can stand another four years of the mismanagement that has brought us to the sorry place we’re in now.

I meant to go to Reno this weekend. Not for the traditional divorce* (fun fact: the first Reno divorce was granted in 1906) or the traditional gambling (I may be the only person who’s been to Las Vegas and not gambled there), but for a little getaway. And to see the legendary Neil Young.

However…Saturday was dark, stormy and scary. As I write, it’s simply tipping it down, as my beloved stepmother used to say, and what tips down as rain here gets tipped down as snow there. With the reports of accidents, threats of road closures, and the memory of my things and stuff being stuck in the Reno snow for days last year, I decided to stay home, pet the kitties, and finish reading The Suspicions of Mr Whicher instead.

However…I still had that Neil Young ticket, and if I couldn’t bask in his glory, someone else should. I posted it on Craigslist without much hope, since it was the day of the event. About three that afternoon, the phone rang.

It was a young man from Santa Cruz, who was canvassing for Obama in Carson City, Nevada. This dedicated guy has done this every weekend for the past six weeks, driving all the way from Santa Cruz to Nevada, after working all week at his regular job.

Last night, he heard about the Neil Young show and had been desperately seeking tickets ever since. He was overcome with happiness at getting mine. I emailed it to him, he paid me via PayPal, and everyone was happy. I don’t know which of us was happier, to tell you the truth. I was so glad to be able to thank him for the great work he was doing, and knowing he would enjoy the show after a long, hard day of canvassing.

*John sent me the paperwork last week. It had been rejected by the courthouse clerk, but she wouldn’t say why. My boss, who has a law degree, and I looked through it all and found a couple of places we hadn’t signed and a couple of missing dates. So we fixed that, and John’s going to try again to file. Maybe a Reno divorce would have been easier!

This morning, I discovered that there are worse ways of being woken up than the alarm clock, the phone, or the eternally barking neighborhood dogs. June bit my toe! Really hard! And despite being swathed under blankets, it was both painful and surprising.

Really. Biting the toe that feeds you.

I hasten to add that this was not an attempt to wake me up to make breakfast. The kittens’ first vet gave me an excellent piece of advice, almost exactly a year ago, which was never to feed them when I first get up. So I always make coffee and read my email before giving them breakfast. They know they won’t get fed right away, so they let me sleep in on the days that clocks, phones, and dogs don’t wake me up.

So it wasn’t a “wake up and feed me” call.

I honestly think June has some kind of eating disorder or syndrome, like those people who eat soap. She has chewed the fabric covering the metal side supports right off my desk chair. She chews the ~shudder~ metal door stops built into the walls by the closets. Lately, she has taken to chewing CD cases, which, being plastic, shatter in a horrifying manner. I’m convinced that she’ll accidentally eat the shards and disaster will ensue. Granted, I pretty much always think disaster is around the corner, but still.

In an attempt to stave off potential catastrophe, I bought her some small dog sized chew things. She just batted them around. I gave her a demonstration (I’ll pause here while you finish laughing at the mental image), and even dipped them in chicken broth, but she just licked the broth off and then batted them into oblivion*, the place where cat toys and socks vanish, never to be seen again.

*That just reminded me of a book I loved as a child, “Attic of the Wind”, where a little girl visits the title place, where all lost things eventually end up.

It’s been in the 80s over the past few days, which both the kittens and I find a little on the toasty side. My sister thinks it’s the “last hurrah” before winter sets in, but the forecast says otherwise for now. To be fair, winter is harsher where she and my brother live (colder, with the occasional hard frost, lots more rain, frequent power outages and road closures) than in the Bay Area, so her dread is reasonable. Especially since she heats her house with a wood stove. I can tell you from personal experience how hard it is to keep the home fires burning.

The kittens and I decided to see if there were any breezes to be had on the back porch yesterday evening. Henry noticed our arrival, and strolled over and started clawing at the mat at the foot of the stairs that lead to the screen door of the porch. He has done this before, and it drives June and Audrey bananas. I think he knows it does, and likes pointing out that he gets to roam around wherever he likes, while they’re trapped inside.

He decided to take it a step further and actually walked up the stairs to the screen door. Hissing ensued, and there was a blur of claws and curses until I managed to move the girls from the door. I’m very fond of Henry, but who knows if he has rabies or worse? Also, I could just see the combined strength of the three cats tearing a hole in the door, with wholesale mayhem following.

Fortunately, disaster was averted. Henry sat aggravatingly on the lawn, having a post-fight bath, while the girls watched enviously. Good thing they can’t say what they’re thinking – sometimes.

The kittens wanted a pumpkin this year (last year, they were too young), so I duly got them a nice organic one, kitten-sized. Once I got it home, I couldn’t decide what to carve into it. At first, I thought I’d carve a couple of cats into it. I even did a drawing:

Which is cute, but I couldn’t figure out how to transfer the drawing to the pumpkin, which was beginning to seem smaller by the minute. If there’s a way to be technologically challenged, I’ll find it (right, Doc?).

When I was walking home from ambling some errands, it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe I could carve OBAMA into the pumpkin. In a stylized way, of course.

I’d give it an A for effort but maybe a C overall, since you can’t read the whole word at once due to the pumpkin’s small size. It was much harder to get all the glop out of the middle than I remembered. Not to mention stickier. Maybe my parents did it? My hands are still kind of pumpkin smelling, which is kind of gross. I keep meaning to ask B next door if there will be trick or treaters. I don’t want to be Mean Old Lady Suzy before it’s absolutely necessary.

Seen today: a chicken, or possibly a rooster, sitting in a palm tree.

Heard last night: a couple arguing as they walked down the sidewalk. Then an audible slap and a woman’s tears. I hesitated, then went out to see if she was all right. I found her sitting on my neighbor’s front lawn, weeping. I asked her if there was anything I could do to help, and she got up and ran off, sobbing and waving her hands in the air. I don’t know what else I could have done, but I’m haunted anyway.

There are few things the kittens enjoy more than a good box. Every time there’s an empty one, or one with things in it but the flaps open, they’re there.

Nearly a year after moving, the house is pretty much box-free. The kittens loved sitting up high on the box towers, which may explain why they never lifted a paw to help me unpack. (I think I’d make a very good cat.) The box pictured above is the only one left, and it’s smallish and perched on top of one of the CD shelves. It’s Audrey’s favorite spot, and if I haven’t seen her for a while, that’s usually where she is.

I have a theory that the devotion to boxes is because I was in the throes of packing almost as soon as I got the kittens, so boxes are one of their early childhood memories.

That, or they just like boxes.

I had jury duty on Wednesday. It was so much easier than it was in San Francisco. Here I just called on Tuesday night, was informed that they wouldn’t require my presence at 8:30 am (who doesn’t love to hear that?), but I should call between 11 and noon.

So I did, and they still didn’t want me for the 1:30 session, and thank you, that concluded my service for a year. Though relieved, I perversely immediately felt slightly insulted. They should have wanted me and given me a chance to attempt to reject them or appear to be undesirable.

Oddly, San Francisco requires five days of jury service, whereas Alameda County only asks one day or one trial. Given the crime rate in Oakland alone, I find that surprising.

Here I am in traffic on the 405 on Wednesday afternoon. There’s no driving like SoCal driving: everyone’s either cutting across five lanes without signaling at 85 mph or you’re sitting there like it’s a parking lot. Imagine my relief when I finally dropped the silver Impala off at Hertz.

After going through security and noticing that they had neglected to remove or question my half-finished bottle of Evian (the valets pressed a bottle on me every time I arrived or departed – all part of the service, like having the air conditioning on when they presented the car and the radio tuned to the baseball playoffs), I collapsed in the Red Carpet Room to await boarding. Digging through my silver handbag, I couldn’t find my cell phone. I know I had it in the car. Called Hertz, and they disclaimed all knowledge.

For someone who dislikes having a cell phone as much as I do, it was surprising how suddenly naked and helpless I felt without it, even more than I did going shoeless through the metal detectors. As soon as I got home, I called our IT person, and she got me a new one the next day. The new one is definitely improved, being both pretty and purple:

Question to all WordPress users: do you know how to do pop-up windows with pictures? Or do you have to embed them? The tech tard wants to know.

The kittens were glad to see me, milling around my feet and explaining how much they had missed me. Henry, on the other hand, was annoyed. He refused to even get off the bed in his cozy bachelor pad under the porch, and had hardly eaten any of the food I left. He wouldn’t even look at me, and refused to say a word.

The next day, he got his revenge by leaving a dead mouse beside his bowl, which sent me screaming into the house while he smiled smugly. That’ll learn ya.

My cheapness won out over my laziness last night. This may be as unprecedented as the turmoil in the global markets.

After perusing the room service menu and discovering that the cheapest bottle of wine was $46 a bottle (or $12 a glass), I ventured out of the fancy hotel (I may have forgotten how to open and close my own car door by now) in search of food and wine.

I picked up a pizza at the always-reliable Il Fornaio, and stopped at a liquor store on my way back to the hotel. I saw a bottle of Cloudy Bay, which I had often enjoyed with my father. On bringing it up to the cash, I learned that it was $32.

My father liked me even more than I thought.

I hastily returned the bottle to the cooler, and faced a situation unique in my traveling experience. I couldn’t find anything, uh, reasonable enough to buy. Usually I’m desperately looking for an acceptable bottle at corner stores when I’m on the road, but this is, after all, Pasadena, land of the tasteful mansion and manicured lawn. I finally settled on a bottle of Husch for a mere $13.

I have a feeling I’m not in Oakland anymore.

Well, here I am, enjoying Frette linens and Bulgari bath goodies. It’s called working.

I’m attending a conference at a historic hotel, the Langham, in Pasadena. Built in 1907 and formerly the Ritz-Carlton, it sits grandly beneath the San Gabriel Mountains.

It also has the best room service coffee I’ve ever had. It almost made up for whatever East Coast Idiot called me at 6:30 this morning, disturbing my much-needed beauty rest.

Getting here was, of course, an adventure. I got up early, even without the aid of an unwanted and unsolicited phone call. Called for a cab an hour before I needed it. It didn’t show up. Called again 10 minutes after it was due to arrive. I was told it was on its way. Several increasingly irate phone calls later, the cab finally showed up.

It was 9:10 and the plane left at 9:47.

I chucked bags and Self unceremoniously into the back seat of the cab, while the driver hung out in the street with the door open, blaming the cab company for his being late. I suggested that we GO, since I was almost certainly going to miss my flight. Visions of $150 change fees on a $200 ticket danced in my head as he finally turned on his GPS and started entering in the address.

Yes, I had drawn possibly the only cab driver who didn’t know how to get to the airport. Having only recently been there myself, I started directing him. And corrected him when he turned the wrong way (twice). And ran into the terminal, panted through Security (my obvious panic apparently not making me look one bit suspicious) and to the gate. A kindly lady asked, “Are you Susan?” as I wordlessly thrust my boarding pass at her. She smiled and told me not to worry, she was just going to page me and they wouldn’t leave without me.

I hustled onto the plane, which was approximately the size of my car, and as I sat down, the door slammed behind me. I was the cynosure of all eyes as I attempted to hide behind the latest issue of “Us” magazine.

Forty-five minutes later, I was at LAX, which was disappointingly free of celebrities. There went my hopes of being on TMZ. As I took the shuttle to the rental car place, it occurred to me that I spent longer waiting for the cab than flying to LA and picking up a brand new silver Impala (which is currently napping in valet parking. I love valet parking, even though they just took the car 50 feet away and there is endless tipping involved. It’s worth it just to have cute, smiling boys open the car door for you and close it after you as if it’s the most delightful thing in the world).

From what little I’ve seen of Pasadena, it is beautiful and full of houses that vary from enormous to mansion sized, in a tropical setting. It’s supposed to be 95 degrees today. Just right for lunch beside the turquoise pool.

Then back to work.

The good news: Kathleen’s flight was early; she had practically half a plane to herself; she’s making me an unbearably exquisite scarf of delicate red yarn which looks like lace; she was fine with the vise grip shower thing.

The bad news: the landlords did get in touch with their favored plumber, and he set three dates with me before actually showing up, ensuring that I missed dinner with Kathleen on Friday night and drinks afterwards. Not to mention having to cancel various and sundry meetings to accommodate his schedule.

The good news: Plumber Robert was charming when he finally showed up. The kittens loved him, and he has a much more successful Henry situation than I do: he has two brothers and a Henry who he eventually got to live in the house with the existing brothers. I know June would HATE it if Henry moved in, though I think Audrey would remain her unperturbed self.

When Plumber Robert came in, he immediately approved my posters for Vertigo, Rick Nelson, and Warhol’s Triple Elvis. In passing the coffee table, where I have the Vanity Fair with Marilyn on the cover, he picked up my phone and moved it , saying, “You can’t cover her face*. It’s not right.”

The bad news: There may be a leak behind the walls, which Robert is going to report to the landlords.

The good news: Shower is essentially fixed.

Depending on how you look at it: It rained for the first time in say, six months last night. It started around 11:00, when I was in bed, peacefully reading about John Stuart Mill in the New Yorker and wondering what he would have said about the election, when I heard Henry.
The bad news:

I got an umbrella and put on my sneakers and went out to investigate. He was under the porch with his cuddly bed, food and water. I talked to him a little and then went back in. He wouldn’t stop meowing. Went back out and gave him a couple of treats (the girls got some, too, of course). Still meowing. Opened the screen door to the back porch so he could come up and sleep on the little couch there if he wanted to. I called him to see if he’d come up. He kept meowing, but didn’t appear. He meowed for nearly two hours! I felt so terrible. Really hard to sleep last night. He seemed fine this morning.

*Which reminded me, inevitably, of Webster: “Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle. She died young”.