Suzy Says

Well, things did not go exactly as planned.

“Picking up forgotten items at lunch” turned into “half hour call with lawyers”, and forgotten items remained in oblivion.

Had a hasty falafel dinner with our friend Clayton in the lower reaches of the Haight, then went to the airport. I was astonished at the traffic trying to get in the airport at 10:30 at night. Presumably the media had been notified of my rare appearance.

Left the car in the first place I could find. Turned out to be as far away as humanly possible from my gate. Car was near Terminal 1; I was leaving from Terminal 3. By the time I hauled Self and bags through the unholy trinity, I was feeling Terminal myself.

Arriving at Terminal 3, I discovered that my flight was delayed by an hour. And yes, I did get the clueless about shoeless people in front of me, as predicted. Not that it matters when you have an extra hour to kill.

I was horribly disappointed to learn that all the bars were closed, yet the halls and seats were full. Why schedule flights when travelers are denied the much-needed solace of a drink? In fact, you couldn’t even get a bottle of water, since everything was closed. This became more annoying as the delay lengthened to two hours and more.

Once aboard, I valiantly gave up my aisle seat to a young guy who had been travelling all day with his girlfriend but hadn’t been seated together. I let them cuddle up while I took a middle seat. Are you listening, karma?

By this time, I already knew that I had missed the connecting flight to Detroit. Leaving the plane around 8 am, I was met by some helpful folks telling me that I was rebooked on a flight at 4:50 this afternoon. I am trying to change that, but the throngs of people in America’s busiest airport make an improvement seem unlikely. I have cancelled my meetings for today.

At this point, the court proceedings will be the fun part of the trip. At least I have a bottle of water.

I know most of you spend most of your time wishing you were Me, but today you would much prefer to be You.

I promise.

Here’s my unenviable schedule for today:

• 6 am: Get up. (Check! Up at 5:30 to discover that cats have broken one of my Elvis movie poster glasses. Bonus: water all over the place!)
• Get ready. Pack up car. Try not to forget anything. Say goodbye to kitties, assuming they aren’t out playing in the sunshine, which they almost certainly will be.
• Leave by 8:00 am for 45 minute drive to the jobette.
• 12:00 pm: Purchase forgotten items at lunch.
• 4:00 pm: leave work for 4 hour drive to San Francisco.
• Dinner somewhere along the way. I have a $28 travel day meal allowance, so I guess this means Chez Panisse is out.
• Park car somewhere at SFO. Drag Self and Stuff into terminal. Suffer usual indignities of having the temerity to travel. I am betting that I will be behind a couple of oldsters who have been living under a rock in one of the square states and has somehow managed never to have heard about the enforced shoe removal rule.
• Festina lente, as our Latin forebears would have it, though they couldn’t possibly have imagined waiting for a midnight flight to a place you don’t want to go to in the first (or second, or third) place.
• Hope the bar is still open.
• Terrifying transport to O’Hare, the busiest airport in the entire US of A, arriving at the unsalubrious hour of 6:20 am.
• Change planes, which will probably include changing terminals with my terminally sleep-deprived self.
• Somehow manage to arrive in Detroit at 9:40 am. Couldn’t I have gotten to Europe in all that time? Or at least Hawaii?
• Drop bags off at hotel, resist urge to leap into Lake Ontario, and head to a meeting at our as yet unseen (to me) office near the ballpark. Needless to say, it’s the All Star Break, so the proximity to the ballpark is completely useless. I am even more certain that the American League will win than I was about the airport oldsters.
• Meet with our lawyers. I imagine this will take my mind right off the impending trip home and the crown that is awaiting me if I am (un)lucky enough to survive the trip. Bonus!

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

Well, I wrote a post a few days ago, and then I got paranoid and deleted it, and then I had second thoughts and thought I’d restore it, but it seems that when WordPress deletes something, it stays deleted.

Told you decision-making was not one of my strong suits.

Last Friday, my boss/partner called me to say that I have been subpoenaed to appear in front of the Grand Jury in Detroit in a couple of weeks. This is even scarier than that audit we went through a few years ago.

Also, it’s going to take forever to get there and I haven’t flown in so long that I can just feel my flying phobia in full bloom again. And then there’s the whole court thing.

Right now, I’m planning to work at the jobette on the Monday, drive to San Francisco after work, and take the red eye, arriving in Detroit early on Tuesday morning. I’m supposed to meet with our lawyers that day to be prepared for the Grand Jury on Wednesday. Then I’ll fly to San Francisco on Wednesday night, stay overnight, and drive home the next day.

That’s a lot of hassles and 6,000 miles just to tell people that I don’t know anything, because I don’t. I got paranoid and took the earlier post down because I was afraid that the Powers That Be might somehow find it and read it, even though I hadn’t said anything that could get me in trouble.

I think.

I told my good friend A about the whole thing, and she said to think of it as exciting and glamorous, and being part of a courtroom drama. Another friend said I should feel really special, since there aren’t many Grand Juries convened and your chances of being called to testify in front of one is about one in a million. It will be an experience, he said, but I think it’s one I’d rather not experience.

Too much has happened since I last posted, and none of it has been good.

Rob’s sister called him earlier this week to tell him that their Mother is gravely ill. The truth is that she is not expected to make it.

We made rushed arrangements to get him to Ottawa, hoping that he would be able to talk to her and at least that she would know he was there.

The ticket cost a zillion and one dollars, and Megan made several calls to the airline and the Canadian consulate to make sure that Rob could travel to Canada and back on his Permanent Resident Alien card (aka “Green Card”). Everyone said it would be fine.

Rob got a ride to Santa Rosa, then a bus to San Francisco, where he stayed at the Hotel Clayton. He got up at 2:00 am to catch a shuttle to the airport for his 6 am flight, which connected through Philadelphia. At the gate, he was told that he could not travel on his Green Card. Tired and stressed, he got pretty upset and left the airport.

He called Megan, and she calmed him down and told him to go back to the gate and ask to talk to a supervisor. He did this, and the supervisor said he was fine to travel on the card. They rebooked him on a 10 am flight. Megan called Rob’s sister to let her know of the delay.

When she called Rob to tell him she had spoken with his sister, an Asian lady answered the phone. It’s hard to say who was more confused by this encounter. Eventually, Megan was able to explain to the lady to bring the phone to the airline desk. She then called the SFO paging department, who obligingly paged Rob.

Unfortunately, by now Rob’s blood sugar had dropped. He kept looking for the white courtesy phone instead of getting something to eat or drinking a soda, so by the time he got to security, his blood sugar was at alarmingly low levels. They had to call an ambulance to get him cleared to travel.

Guess who didn’t make the 10 am flight?

On the bright side, he got his phone back.

Eventually, he was released from the hospital and made it through security for a 10 pm flight. Yes, he was at SFO all day and half the night, arriving at 4 am and not leaving until 10 pm.

He called Megan from Philadelphia, and when I went over this morning, he was on the phone with Megan, wishing her happy birthday and telling her that it was hot and humid in Ottawa. He was fine, other than being exhausted and having the cold Megan is just getting over. He hadn’t seen his Mother yet, so I will keep you posted on that. Good thoughts and prayers and what have you are all appreciated.

I had to work all day, so it’s been a pretty lousy birthday so far for my wonderful sister. I am hoping to redeem its crappitude with:

• A bottle of Skinny Girl White Cranberry Cosmos, which has been chilling all day;
• A card (which can be planted) and present (a gardening bench to make it easier on her poor knees); and
• A DVD of “One for the Money”, which we enjoyed so much at the movies this winter.

Hopefully that will redeem today a bit. I still say she is the best birthday present I ever had.

Also in the Not Working department is the Kindle Fire I received for Christmas. Sort of.

The device itself, as you can see, works fine. The problem is that my router is incapable of getting along with it. I tried to persuade it to see the error of its selfish ways, but to no avail.

A call to the Kindle customer service people revealed that this is a common problem with Kndles, even for people who live in civilization. As Meryl Streep said after swallowing the magic potion in “Death Becomes Her” – “NOW a warning?!”

I tried it out at Mark’s place and it connected instantly. Same goes for a cafe in the Hooterville Flats. So I gave in and ordered the router. Now to wait for it to be delivered…

But since waiting and patience are not in my nature, I took the Kindle to the jobette yesterday (where, yes, it felt an immediate connection to our router), and downloaded both of the Michael Connelly ebooks (well, estories) that are not available in any other form.

Once I get the new and hopefully improved router and get it set up, the hard part will begin: learning how to use it. Wish me luck!

And not the good kind…

Recently, my little iBook (or maybe MacBook, I was unable to answer that question and a host of others) has acquired the bad habit of blacking out suddenly, preferably when I’m in the middle of working or typing. Then I have to close the lid and reopen it, trying increasingly awkward angles until the screen appears.

For example, I can’t really see what I’m writing now.

On Saturday, it appeared to black out for good (or bad, because I had work due today), so I took it to the one repair place in the Big Town. They had a look and said it was one of two things, but they’d have to open it up and look around. Unfortunately, they were about to close, and today they already had five patients booked, so I will have to bring it in tomorrow and hope that it won’t require an expensive part being shipped here from civilization, or an overnight hospital stay.

So far, the theme of the new year seems to be “nothing works”. Let’s hope it makes some new ones and mends its wayward ways soon.

I can’t tell you how happy I was to see the Amerigas truck lurching its way slowly down the muddy, rutted dirt road that I joltingly call my driveway, heralded by Luna’s barking. “Hello, this is Luna*, your doorman.”

Normally, I’m not all that excited, especially because propane is one of, if not the only, utility you have to pay for ahead of time. They fill it up, charge you hundreds and hundreds of dollars, and you use it up at your convenience. Yes, they’ll let you pay off the exorbitant fee over a couple of months, but if you need another fill up before you’re done paying it off, you have to sell your soul or your jewelry or both to pay it off before they’ll even consider touching your tank. No matter how nice the landscaping is.

But, considering the fact that I’ve been trying to get Amerigas to get off their Ameriass since December 15, you’ll understand why their arrival about three weeks and a dozen phone calls later was a cause for joy in Hooterville.

The tank was at 40% then, and thinking ahead to the cooking marathons of Christmas, in addition to heating up my hippie hovel against the 32/0 degree cold, making hot water for washing dishes and Self, and the dryer for Jarrett’s five loads of laundry, I thought it would be good to stock up before the holidays.

Amerigas pointed out that I still owed them $165. I paid it on line the same day, and called them the next day to schedule a delivery. “The payment hasn’t posted yet, “ they said. “Well, it’s come out of my bank account,” I said. They suggested I call back that afternoon, which I did. Nope. Nothing posted. This time, the helpful person said that it could take five days on their end. Five business days. Try back next week!

So I did, armed with an email confirmation from Amerigas themselves saying they had received my hard-earned money. They still claimed they hadn’t received it yet, which was annoying, especially since I might have wanted to actually use my soul sometime. You never know.

I kept calling them, and finally we got to the stage in our relationship where they lied to me to keep me happy. “We’ll have someone out there this week.” “In a couple of days.” “Call me if he doesn’t turn up.” “He didn’t turn up?” Let’s put it this way: I no longer had to spell my last name.

While all this was going on, the propane level was, not surprisingly, dropping every day. Keep in mind that if the level falls below 20%, they have to pressure test the tank and yes, you have to pay for that too, even if it’s their fault for not coming the first 50 times you asked them.

Kids: this is what adult life is really like. You have been warned.

So, instead of having to pay for 40% of the tank’s capacity, I’ll have to pay for 60 or 65%, and considering that the last time I paid $425 for 40%, I’m afraid of what I’m going to have to pay this time.

Not the best way to start the new year, is it?

*Mark says I’m the only person Luna never barks at. I think it’s because I always pet her and fuss over her whenever I see her. It’s kind of like tipping her for her doorman services.

This year (well, last year), I seriously considered not sending out Christmas cards. I still haven’t reconstituted my lost address book, unless you count scraps of paper and flagged emails. I can’t really explain my reluctance to do so, other than innate slothitude and all the names I can no longer put in it.

In the end, I sent them out unfashionably late, spending about a zillion dollars on postage. It’s close to a dollar a pop for anywhere other than the US of A, and it adds up quickly.

Imagine my surprise and horror when they started to be returned. Well, the Canadian ones, anyway. They bore a sad red stamp telling me that the cards, at about 3.25 inches, were too small to be processed by Canada Post. Though apparently they were not too small to be sent back by the same means. Go figure.

Characteristically, the US approach was to hold the card hostage until the recipient paid a 20 cent ransom/extortion fee to redeem it. The cards are too small to go through the machine, so they have to be done by hand. Apparently American posties’ time is worth about 20 cents a second. Not for the first time, I think I’m in the wrong job.

So if any of you did not receive a Christmas card from me, it’s either being returned or being held in an undisclosed location. Maybe it’s a sign that I should just give up on the whole thing.

You may remember that the landline phone quit suddenly, walking out on me with no explanation or apology. In keeping with this theme, AT&T did not show up to fix it on the appointed date. Despite the fact that they presumably do know how to use a phone, they didn’t call me. After being on hold for 45 years minutes, I hung up in frustration.

I called them the next day and canceled the service.

After a couple of weeks, it became clear that cell phone only was not going to work for me. My phone is from one area code and living in another, and no amount of *228 is going to stop it from constantly searching for service, which means that the battery gets tired faster than a 100 year old running a marathon in mid-summer heat.

Cell phone service here is spotty at best, and there are various parts of the house which get no service, a definite drawback for a habitual pacer like Self. And there is essentially no service between Casa di Kitties and the village, several miles away.

And don’t get me started on the difficulties of being on a conference call on a cell phone. The sound is terrible, and it’s really hard for me to take notes while holding the phone with one hand. If use the headset I used to use on the landline, the sound is exponentially worse.

So, to my chagrin, I called AT&T back and asked them to restore the service. Unsurprisingly, my number hadn’t been taken, so I could get the old number back. Unsurprisingly, the repairman did not appear on the scheduled date. Another frustrating call and more than a month after the original problem reared its ugly head, and the repairman arrived! Two hours early!

He fixed it right up, telling me that the phone box is actually located several miles away and it was the longest connection he had ever seen. He was really nice, and I felt sorry that he had to drive all the way here from Santa Rosa, but I’m glad that I’m communicado again.

Ready!

You will (not) be amazed to learn that the phone phixers phailed to call me, or show up. At about 6:30, I called their repair number to ask for an update, and was on hold through the entire length of “Sick, Sad World” (also known as the news). After about 45 minutes, I hung up in frustration. Cell phones do not slam down in anger as satisfyingly as the heavy old fashioned dial phones of my youth.

AT&T called a couple of days ago to say that they had “remotely” checked the phone and it was fine. I told them it wasn’t, and spent some valuable time confirming the appointment with them. Possibly I should ask Santa to put a lump of coal in their stockings when he water skis out of here, along with a clear definition of “customer service”.

I think the decision has been made for me – by them! – and they are getting the axe ASAP. Spotty and sometimes non-existent cell phone service is looking pretty good to me right about now.

It’s a gloomy Christmas Eve here in Hooterville, and the trees are tossing their heads in a way that always makes me think “power outage”. It’s usually the wind toppling trees into power lines that causes it. We’re slated to get rain for the rest of the year, to add to our already impressive total of 24.71 inches for the season.

I really shouldn’t complain compared to muddy and floody SoCal, who bore the brunt of the last storm, and where Paul is spending Christmas with his only child, her husband, and their two children. Yay for grandchildren on Christmas Day! They live in beautiful Pasadena, and Paul described his drive down there as “hellish”, and he is not a man given to overstatement about anything. He might come back up here for a short visit before he returns to the sunny shores of Florida. I apologized for the bad weather while he was here, and he said, “I’m here for the company, not the weather.”

The dizziness has, sadly, not abated. It has made cooking a little unnerving. Kneeling to light the oven, and cocking my head to see where I was applying the match, made me frighteningly dizzy, as did reaching down a box of chicken broth from a high shelf. So looking up too far or leaning down too far are as bad as turning on my side in bed. Got it. Maybe I should try applying a couple of Christmas cocktails and see if they cancel it out.

Yesterday, Meg told me that Lu had this for about a month. It was a virus, so there was nothing to do but wait it out. Even if I wanted to spend $75 and half a day going to the clinic, they would probably just take my money and say the same thing. So I’ll wait it out, and be careful in the meantime. I’ve managed to be pretty much Calamity Suzy-free this year. I have an image to protect, as well as Self.

Other than that, I really don’t have much holiday stress. The presents are wrapped, as you see above. The tree is from Mexico and has a candle inside. It’s the best I can do this year. Megan and I will put the stockings together today and hope for the kitten best. I’ll tidy up the house a little this afternoon or tomorrow morning. We’ll have dinner around 6:30 or 7:00 on Christmas Day*, and since my brother is dealing with the ham, all I’ll have to do is make mashes potatoes, steam green beans, and make my famous cheese biscuits. Erica is bringing a Yule Log she made for dessert, so the most exhausting thing I’ll have to do as hostess is open wine and decant my grandmother’s ivory-handled silverware from its velvet-lined chest.

I think I can handle it.

*I have never understood people who have Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner at some ungodly hour in the afternoon.

Well, WordPress no longer allows me to upload photos. I must have overdone it with my new camera. It’s frustrating, though, because I have lots of cool things to show you and no way to do it. Just telling without showing…not so fun.

If you’re a WordPress genius or a computer genius, let me know!

As you know, I generally avoid the political and serious on this blog, but I’m so horrified by yesterday’s election that I have to make an exception.

Maybe it’s because I’ve lived most of my adult life in California. Maybe it’s because I had what I now realize were astoundingly liberal parents, who managed to give us all open minds while making sure we behaved and made our beds. But I find myself completely unable to understand what my fellow Americans were mostly thinking when they voted yesterday.

Our President inherited a huge mess, which had taken many years to create. The country was filled with optimism. When he couldn’t fix all the problems within six months, public opinion turned on him faster than I’ve ever seen it turn on any President. It was completely irrational, but apparently people accustomed to high speed internet and smart phones don’t have the dial up, land line patience it takes to work through problems and get them solved.

Don’t even get me started on the repulsiveness of the Tea Party taking their name from a watershed moment in American history and tarnishing it forever with their arrant ignorance and bigotry.

But what I really, really do not understand is Democrats voting Republican in this election. That’s like me saying “This bottle of wine is disappointing. I think I’ll drink milk instead. Even though I hate milk.” Can anyone explain this phenomenon to me?

The Proposition to legalize (or at least decriminalize) marijuana failed, as did one to charge a meager $18 a vehicle per year when visiting state parks. California has some of the most beautiful parks in the world, and Californians apparently don’t care enough to spend less than they do at Starbucks on any given month to preserve them. No, they’d rather fill state prisons with minor pot offenders and spend millions to build more prisons to hold more prisoners*. Nice going, Golden State.

On the bright side, David Eyster won as our county’s DA, ousting the despicable incumbent who got Aaron Vargas his unjust sentence. And Megabucks Whitman didn’t manage to buy the governorship of California, despite spending $140 million of her own money. Why wasn’t there a Proposition to limit the amount of personal money a candidate can spend on a campaign? I guess it’s not surprising that a country where only millionaires can attain elected office is so conservative and has so many tax breaks for the wealthy and superrich.

Not even the Giants parade this morning can cheer me up. My only hope is that the same idiots who voted the Republicans in this time will get as disenchanted with them as fast as they did the Democrats, and vote the other way in the next election. Stranger things have happened.

*The US has less than 5% of the world’s population, but nearly 25% of its prisoners.As of 2008, there were 751 people in jail or prison for each 100,000. 21% of these prisoners are drug offenders.

Yesterday, the shower only turned icy cold twice. And I wasn’t shaving my armpits or trying to rinse off conditioner (a near-impossible feat in cold water), so, you know, score!

As I stood away from the frigid trickle, choosing the cold air over the cold water, I tried not to think about all the water I was wasting waiting for it to get warm again, and instead wondered what the hell was up with it. This has been a problem ever since Mark overhauled the water system on the property. I mentioned it to him, and he said to call him when it happens. But even if I had a phone in my bathroom, I think I’d refrain for both our sakes.

Megan, Rob, the dogs and I carpooled greenly to town as my hair dried. I felt like a kid in the back seat, while Megan and Rob discussed car repairs and other grown-up topics in the front seat. Even though I’m older than they are. Schatzi curled up in her dainty fashion, while Star took up most of the seat and sprawled all over me. She is under the illusion that she is a lap dog. Also, I think the person who comes up with a way to train dogs not to lick you all the time would make a million billion dollars.

Megan and I checked out the local pool, which is new and fancy. It even has a bathing suit wringing machine in the ladies’ locker room. How’s that for modern science? Their pricing info runs to two pages, so I will have to study it carefully before I can figure out if I can afford it or not.

Although the library emailed me yesterday to tell me that I have several items waiting for me there, they were closed at the time, so I couldn’t pick them up. I imagine my annoyance at this is equalled by the librarians’, who have Friday and Monday off, but not Saturday.

Megan dropped Rob off and then me, while she went to hang out with Monica and talk about dogs. I unfortunately had to have a check-up, which meant wasting valuable hours of what’s left of my life, first in a waiting room equipped with hunting and fishing magazines, along with “American Cheerleader” (“Your best pep rally ever!”), which failed to cheer me in the slightest, and then in a hot little examining room. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wear one of those dignity-destroying little people wrappers.

One of my many high school boyfriends* had a father who was a doctor, and he told me that however many exam rooms they have is how many patients they book for that time, hence the endless waits at the doctor’s office. I’m not sure if that’s true, but I certainly had enough time to consider that and how you truly realize how downwardly mobile you are when you have to go to a clinic with all the other uninsured dregs of society. I looked back on my days of doctors, dentists and specialists with elegant offices and glossy magazines in their tasteful San Francisco waiting rooms and could barely hold back the tears.

One thing I have learned the hard and expensive way is that when you don’t have money, that means you have to pay more. Can’t pay the entire, enormous Amerigas bill? You get to pay additional service charges as you pay it off! Don’t have health insurance and can’t afford to get any? You get to pay $70 for sitting around the clinic surrounded by howling babies and homeless people. Yay! Because you make too much money to get a discount. You make too much money for anything like that, though mysteriously, not enough to pay all your bills and rent. Just another of life’s bitter little mysteries.

*I may have taken him to the curb prematurely. His parents had two Rolls Royces and invitations to every coronation from Queen Victoria onward. Also, he now works at NBC-Universal in London.

I’m taking a break from my regularly scheduled fluff to express my profound disappointment with yesterday’s verdict in the Johannes Meserle trial.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the case, Johannes Meserle killed Oscar Grant, an unarmed man, on the platform of my former BART station last New Year’s Day. Mr. Grant was on his stomach, helpless and handcuffed, when Mr. Meserle, then a BART policeman, shot him in the back.

Mr. Meserle has claimed that he thought he was Tasering Mr. Grant. Mr. Meserle is right-handed, and the gun was holstered on his right, the Taser on the left. And a trained police officer who can’t tell a Taser from a gun, especially when discharging the weapon, should not be on the force.

The whole incident was caught on tape, just like the Rodney King beating almost twenty years ago. And in both cases, the jurors seemed to be unable to come up with a verdict which served justice.

I guess the fact that Mr. Meserle was convicted of anything is a small victory. But it’s too small. He will be sentenced next month to five to fifteen years for “involuntary manslaughter”, though I agree with the District Attorney that his actions were nothing less than second degree murder. I find it especially heinous that it was an officer of the law committing this crime, and I also believe that there was a racial element at play, Mr. Meserle being white and Mr. Grant being African American. Racial epithets were used and caught on tape, as well as heard by eyewitnesses.

There were no African American jurors.

The justice system, like many things, mystifies me. How could Aaron Vargas, of whom I wrote recently in another break from fluffiness, been handed a sentence of nine years in San Quentin for killing the man who had sexually and emotionally abused and terrorized him since he was a young boy, while Mr. Meserle may serve as little as three years? It’s pretty clear which of these two men is a menace to society.

Dad was never that interested in the Royal Family. I was the one who dragged him to Buckingham Palace when some of the rooms were open to the public (he really enjoyed it, though), and I was on my own when it came to visiting Althorp, Princess Diana’s ancestral home.

Though he didn’t care about their scandals or public engagements, he didn’t want them ousted, either. But he also felt that the Queen could get by just fine without any of his money.

To keep Her Majesty’s regal paws off his dinero, he kept most of it in an offshore account. And to make sure that she didn’t get any after he was gone, the account was in both our names. That way, the money passed directly to me, neatly avoiding the taxman in the process. Because nothing adds to grief like subtracting nearly half of your inheritance.

After handing over my siblings’ portions, I kept mine there, where it steadily declined over many years, which is what happens when you withdraw a lot and never deposit. And then there’s currency fluctuation. I was hoping that the currency exchange would become more favorable over time, so I left it there.

About a month ago, I received a letter from them, saying that I had to provide them with a notarized copy of my passport and proof of income. Even though none of my income (which has such a brief stay in my local bank account that if you blink, you miss it) is there or ever has been, and the amount in the account is minuscule and has been there for many years.

As far as I was concerned, if they thought I was going to allow them to invade my privacy like that, not to mention the inconvenience of going all the way to town to copy the documents and have them notarized at my expense and then mailing them registered overseas, again at my expense, they were crazy as well as nosy.

I told them as much, and they told me that if they didn’t receive a written letter from me requesting that they close my account – no fax or email allowed – by the end of June, they’d put a block on my account so I’d have to submit all the documentation before receiving my money.

Nice.

I sent them an express mail letter which cost nearly $30, but couldn’t get them to confirm that they had received it. The USPS site said “received abroad, June 16, 6:11 pm” for days, without saying where and who had signed for it.

Finally, I realized that I could just transfer it on line. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, true, but it’s hard to think when you’re traumatized by bank bullshit. And only have two brain cells.

There’s about a dollar left in that account. I hope they enjoy it.

Like many/most/all? of my plans, this one kind of backfired on me.

I really wanted to get away. I haven’t had a vacation in literally years, and the last time I left the Golden State was to go to a conference in Florida two years ago, which was a fiasco all the way around. I can’t remember the last time I went anywhere just for fun.

San Francisco is the kind of place, like New York and London, where you take $100 out of the ATM and it vanishes within a few hours, even if you haven’t been shopping. So that was out, and I figured Santa Rosa might be a more reasonably-priced, yet fun alternative. It might have been, if I had stayed somewhere like the Hotel La Rose in the historic district instead of the Motel 6 in strip mall-freeway hell, but price is most definitely an object for me. An objectionable one, in fact.

At the Motel 6, there was not only no coffee maker in the room, there was none on the premises. Usually even the cheapest motels have bad coffee (and sometimes stale doughnuts, completing the free continental breakfast) in the lobby, but in this case, I’d have to drive two miles to the nearest Starbucks while uncaffeinated, a public hazard far more dangerous than talking on a cell phone while driving.

I asked for an extra pillow, the one provided being the approximate thickness and texture of twelve damp Kleenexes wadded together by an incompetent five year old, and was told that they had none. I was so stunned by this assertion that I just went back to my room, where the WiFi was once again not working. I called tech support no fewer than four times in the five hours I was there.

Being there was more depressing than being at the scene of the crime, so I packed up the car and checked out. I was able to get the WiFi charge reversed, but not the cost of the room, so that was a total waste of money as well as time. My sister thinks I should call the manager and complain, but I doubt it will do any good, and I’m willing to bet that he’s heard it all before. Multiple times.

To try and salvage something from the whole experience, I stopped off and picked up some Thai food at a place recommended by some friends. Another case of extreme take-out.

As I headed home in the setting sun, the Giants game on the radio and the rolling Sonoma hills glowing, I realized that wherever you go, you’re still there. You can’t escape your heartache with a change of scene.

My driveway, in all its puddled glory

Yesterday was one of those crappy days we all have, though that doesn’t make them any more enjoyable. Also, it never makes me feel better knowing that other people are having a crappy time, because, really, I only care about Me.

It was raining again, in blithe defiance of my eviction notice. Forty chilly degrees outside and fifty inside. It was one of those mornings where you have to psych yourself up to emerge from the warm cocoon of quilts into the cold morning air. Not for the first time, I considered how utterly lacking I am in the pioneer spirit and how Laura Ingalls Wilder would have smacked me upside the head if I had been one of her sisters.

After getting a load of dreary work out of the way, I decided to go to the local store to pick up a couple of missing items for tonight’s family dinner. I lurched sadly down the rough, deeply puddled driveway, contemplating the wear and tear on my car caused by the state of the road and the bushes scratching it when I ran into my brother. Not literally, fortunately: he saw me coming and backed up his red car so my red car could pass. We talked briefly through the rainy windows and he told me that he was shopping some of James’s junk piles for parts for the windmill he and Rob are hoping to build on the property.

At the store, I discovered that they did not have what I wanted. This posed a rural dilemma. I’d either have to drive to the next town in the pouring rain, or think of something else on the spot and buy it there. I opted for the drive, thinking it would be easier.

As usual, I was wrong.

I had to try two more places, and in doing so, it became obvious that I really should have remembered to change from my pale blue suede slides with no socks into more suitable footwear, as the puddles were deep and the passing cars splashed me as I trudged through the village. Will I ever figure out appropriate country footwear?

I finally tracked the final item down at the ridiculously named “workers’ collective”. By this time I was so grumpy that all sense of triumph was totally lost. Arriving damply home, I investigated the mail Rob had brought over, which consisted of the most boring edition of “Vanity Fair” ever (World Cup soccer guys on the cover in terrifying Speedos which, I’m afraid, may have made me gay) and a fill-in-the-blanks rejection note from my most recent job application. I guess that’s what I get for complaining about not getting any answers to my repeated pleas for employment.

A glance at the clock showed me that it was too early for a cocktail, so I just threw the nearest thing against the wall and burst into uncinematic tears. Putting away the hard-won groceries, I discovered that the salsa had leaked all over everything and that I had completely forgotten to get anything for that night’s dinner, being too focused on tomorrow’s (now today’s).

It was suddenly cocktail o’clock.

Despite my summary rejection last year, I’m still looking for a part-time job. I have to admit that I hoped that the Rejection Company would regret their foolish decision in hiring someone other than Me and beg to get me back. After all, whoever they hired couldn’t possible be as fabulous as Self, and surely this would have become apparent by now. But either they enjoy mediocrity, or they really don’t want to hire me, astonishing as that may be to any right-thinking person.

Office jobs are in short supply here in Hooterville. I’ve been applying for what few there are, and so far, they all seem to agree with the Rejection Company.

In the halcyon days when I hired people (and had no idea that I was living in the good old days), I always sent out a letter acknowledging the receipt of the resume and telling the applicant that we’d be in touch if we wanted to set up an interview. It was a form letter, but a letter nonetheless. Apparently, these were the good old days of job applications, too, since I have yet to receive any acknowledgment from anyone. For all I know, those dozens of resumes and emails have vanished into the ether or the mysteries of the US Mail. I have decided that this is all part of our society’s general degeneration into rudeness and ignorance, but that doesn’t help me pay the Amerigas bill.

The local paper’s want ads come out on Thursday morning, and here’s a quick sampling of today’s openings:

• Class A milk truck driver with tanker endorsement
  Milk scares me, and I can hardly stand driving a car.

• Ranch mechanic with diesel experience
  I should have skipped that whole college thing. Ranch mechanics make $35 an hour! I have no idea what they do, though. What’s diesel experience, anyway?

• Full time housekeeper for inn
  A dust bunny just rolled through my living room, like tumbleweed in an old Western.

• Campground worker for upscale RV park. Must have other income. NO DRUGS.
  Isn’t “upscale RV park” an oxymoron? Also, “must have other income” is slightly ominous. And drugs would be a necessity if I had to work at an upscale RV park.

Maybe it’s my magnetic personality, but my only debit/credit card has become demagnetized.

I learned this a few days ago in the Safeway, where the clerk tried swiping it through the magical grocery-buying machine repeatedly, at increasing speeds (apparently the machine is almost as impatient as I am), to no avail. She even tried covering it in a thin sheet of plastic, a trick which she claimed almost always works, but didn’t in my case. Lucky me.

She was reduced to entering the number in by hand (the horror!) as the line backed up behind me. I was like the truck from hell on the drive to Colusa, but at least I didn’t do it on purpose.

Fortunately for me, the only branch of my bank within 50 miles of my house is also located in the Safeway. I explained the problem, they tried the card themselves, the doubting Thomases, and eventually agreed with me that it does not in fact work. It will be a mere 4-6 weeks until I have a card that does. In the meantime, it’s inconvenient, since I can’t get cash unless I go to the bank/Safeway, a 40 minute drive each way, and slightly embarrassing, since I have to explain why it won’t work every time I buy something.

At the Feed & Pet, I told the story to the cashier, who was very nice about it. She told me that they have a customer whose card is cracked, and he always warns them not to break it when they run it through the machine. She said she always hopes it will break, because then he’d have to get a new one. Isn’t there an expiry date on those things?

On the last day of the year, I deposited the last paycheck of the year insouciantly.

Three days later, I gave my landlord the rent check. ‘Cause when I get paid, all I really do is put it other places. Rent. Amerigas. AT&T. The liquor bill. You know. It was nice almost knowing you, money!

My landlord returned from the bank (a forty minute drive each way) with a returned check. His bank wouldn’t cash it.

Embarrassed and mystified, I called my bank while he waited. After the requisite amount of pressing this button and that and being transferred hither and yon, I finally talked to an actual person (they do still exist, apparently) who told me that when my bank first presented the check to my boss’ bank, they wouldn’t confirm or deny that the funds were there. To protect their customers’ privacy, they said. So my bank slammed a ten day hold on it.

I explained all this to my landlord, who could not have been nicer about the whole thing. I’m not sure whether this lessened or added to the humiliation, especially in light of the fact that I broke the floor within ten days of moving in here, a scant three months ago. Dream tenant, that’s me.

I called the bank again, pointing out that I’ve had an account there for twenty years and that they could call the issuing bank and confirm that the money was there. They wouldn’t do it. Once it’s on hold, that’s it until the ten days are up.

I asked them what would happen if my boss canceled the check and put cash in my account. Well, in that case, I’d be charged a $35 returned check fee, and they might close my account completely for putting a bad check in. So much for valuing my loyalty and all that crap.

The next day, I got an email from them saying that the check was on hold. You don’t say! Really? I noted that this was several days after the whole mess started, so clearly they only sent me the email to cover their bankly butts after I started asking questions.

I think I need a new category for this kind of thing. Absurdities? Bureaucracy? Suggestions welcome.

Update: I had just answered Amber’s comment on the difficulty of changing her address at the bank when there was a knock at my door. It was my landlord with a letter from the bank. The letter was confirming my address change – and sent to my old/incorrect address. I have already called them three times to change the address, and received an email on January 22 confirming the address change. I think I’m going to go with Alison’s suggestion and file this one under “bullshit”.