May 05 2009
Front Row Seat
All this for me?
Whenever I know I have to get up early, it pretty much guarantees me a bad night’s sleep. I lie there thinking non-sleep inducing thoughts like “If I go to sleep right now, I can get five hours” and unhelpful things of that nature. Inside my head probably looks a lot like the outside, a jumbled chaos of boxes, things, and stuff, if you throw in a hamster wheel for them to keep bouncing around in.
Of course, the one time a girl can sleep is, you guessed it, right when the alarm goes off. It’s an enduring mystery. I had an early conference call, and it went on longer than I expected. I hardly had enough time to pretty myself up and get to BART, where I discovered there were delays, which in turn delayed Me. When I finally got to the office, there was unseasonable rain outside and a Cinco de Mayo festival in the lobby. Free Mexican food (though, sadly, no margaritas) in exchange for showing your photo ID, which I had fortunately and uncharacteristically remembered in my morning haste.
Clutching my vegetarian tamale, I dropped everything off in my office and proceeded to have a fairly productive day in spite of the rushed beginning. When I got on the bus on the way home, the driver said, “Girl, you done made my day with your beautiful self!” so my prettying must have been better than I thought. Or he was being nice (free compliment with every bus ride!).
So I was smiling my way down the street when I noticed the flashing lights that meant one of Oakland’s finest was paying me yet another visit. Possibly the bus driver had alerted them to my good hair day. I asked the cop who was standing on the remains of my lawn what was up, and he said that a guy two blocks away had apparently doused himself with gasoline and was threatening to set himself and the house on fire. His possession of a rifle was making reasoning with him a little on the challenging side.
Welcome home!