It's my first day at my (latest) newest job. I'm an executive assistant for a guy I've worked for twice before in the past 15 years. I hope that this one sticks. He's a great boss, and an intensely odd fellow. I absolutely adore him.
We once had a screaming match over whether or not he should have told me that Joe Dimaggio* was a patient at our hospital BEFORE he checked out. Our conversation was at top volume, held in the middle of the office, and went something like this.

Me: You should have told me. I would have prostrated myself on his floor and begged for an autograph.

Boss: No. He's a fucking Yankee pig.

Me: Hall of Fame Yankee pig. Joltin' Joe? Married to Marilyn? American icon? Worth prostrating for an autograph.

Boss: No. Fucking Yankee pig. And a real asshole.

Me: FUCKING HALL OF FAME YANKEE PIG!!!!

Well, it went on like that at some length. How could you NOT want to work for a man who has no respect for one of the greatest of all baseball players ever, just because he played for the (Evil) New York Yankees.

The boss and I agree that the designated hitter rule is an abomination and only National League play is real baseball.

Anyway. I'm back on the train in the morning. There will be photos, of course, of unpardonable sins against sartorial reason, and other crimes, like putting on foundation while in public. But I'm so in love with the Overheard In New York site, that I may start putting up actual eavesdropped conversations.

It's late. I put in a ten-hour day, and I'm making dinner while I write this, so in the immortal words of S. Pepys, and so, to bed.

*face lift.

I'm the happiest girly in the world these past couple of days, because my favorite human in the world (except of course for the RLA) has been visiting us from the wilds of Gallofornia. This would be our friend Paul, the genius behind my mermaid costume.
Paulie and I have been designing a web site for him, talking trash, drinking like fish and eating like pigs. We also worked out this morning with Nic Cage. It was muy swell. I know that the description of fun with Paulie sounds an awful lot like the fun I have with The Coolest Person In The World (TM), but that could just be a coinkydink. Or it could be indicative of my ideas of fun.

Anyway, it's been a lot more fun than I had last week, when in the space of four hours, I was (almost) in two car accidents. The first was after the RLA and I had lunch at the Ale House. Some random woman in a VW came barreling out from between two parked cars and nearly t-boned me. I stood on the brakes, and we avoided impact. She turned in front of us and proceeded to the stop sign at the end of the parking row.

And then, without rhyme or reason, she backed up. I was right behind her. I leaned on the horn, and I watched in horror and disbelief as she continued to back straight into me. I was right behind her. I was clearly in her rear view mirror. I wasn't on her bumper, I was a good few feet behind her and she, without so much as a glance in her mirrors or out her windows, threw her car into reverse and plowed into me, all the while my horn was bleating.

She jumped out of her car and said "I didn't mean to hit you!" No shit. I should fucking hope you didn't mean to do it, asshat. "I didn't see you," she continued. Really? I sort of guessed that from the fact that you ran directly into my front bumper with your rear bumper. That and when you came racing through the lot, turning between cars instead of at intersections and nearly t-boned me. Yeah. That was a clue that you aren't a particularly observant driver. Asshat.

There was no damage to Zelda Bleu, and so off I drove to work. Where I was almost involved in a head on collision as some moron decided to pass a car coming toward me. He passed, and in order not to hit me head on, turned left across my lane and into a driveway on my right. Once more, I found myself standing on the brakes and screaming "HOLY SHIT".

And then I got to work, and had a lovely day straightening up the stock and trying not to apply discipline to undisciplined and unaccompanied children.

It's been a busy few days here at the Casita de Zapatos. The RLA put up a ceiling fan/light fixture in my studio, and for the first time in 12 years I can work after dark or work during the day without fainting from the heat.
I have accepted a new job, working as the personal assistant to a man I've worked for twice before in the past 15 years. This means no more mall stories (thank the gods) but it also means a return to public transit, a mixed blessing at best. On the one hand, there will be plenty of "overheard on the train" stories. On the other hand, there will be more photos of women putting on makeup and doing other things best done in private.

An aside: I think that "on the one hand, on the other hand" has to be the phrase I speak most often... well, that and "what the fuck are you looking at?" I always considered putting the latter on my tombstone, but maybe something could be done with the former, as in "On the one hand, I'm dead. On the other hand, I don't have to listen to politicians anymore."

Anyway. I also finished all three thousand pages of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. What a great read. A hard read, and a dense one, but also brilliantly written and wonderfully funny. I've now moved on to a Harry Flashman knock-off series about a cad in the US military during the turn of the last century. It isn't nearly as well written as either Fraser or Stephenson, but it's a breeze to read, and keeps me busy until I can find the next ten-pounder to slog through.

The RLA reads constantly, but mostly sci-fi, not that there's anything wrong with that. I have read about a bajillion sci-fi books my own self, it's just that I'm on an historical novel kick that seems to have started several years ago with my finally making it through Marcel Proust's Rememberance of Things Past (all million plus words of it.)

There is just something magical about being able to be transported to another time and place through the power of imagination.

Yesterday, Miss Jojo learned to swim. She is a veritable merdog. She'd been watching the Noble Dog Nails as he did laps and chased the tennis ball around the pool, but was loathe to actually get more than a paw in the water. All of a sudden yesterday, she put first one front paw, and then the other on the top step of the pool. Then her whole head went under water and she snapped away at the wet. Then, without warning, she launched herself off the steps and proceeded to do doggie laps. She can do the side stroke, the dog paddle and something that could be a backstroke. We had to bribe her with cookies to get her out of the pool. We've got a monster on our hands.

Finally, to George in Tennessee, the rumblings on my horizon which you found ominous, were merely the sounds of the job coming to fruition and my increased hours at the gym with the Marquis de Steve.

And by here, I mean on Earth in the 21st century. I need new friends, because my old ones are fighting for the honor of shredding my last nerve and exploiting my last drop of human kindness and tolerance.
The old adage "you're only as old as you feel" seems to friend number one a challenge to see if, before he reaches the age of 60, he can make his heart and head feel older than Methuselah. He is drinking himself to death, and let me tell you, it isn't as romantic an image as he would like to believe.

When we were younger, it was an interesting conceit on his part to be a dissolute blade of the Belle Epoque. Now it is merely tiresome. Cognac doesn't make for as entertaining a drunk as absinthe may have done, and neither drunk is entertaining on this side of the glass.

Our long-standing Thursday night dates have become an ordeal that neither the RLA nor I anticipate with anything other than loathing and pity. Interventions have not worked. How do we ditch someone we used to love, and who, despite his pitiable state, still, in his own pathetic fashion, loves us?

Friend number two. Ah, friend number two. She is a workaholic in denial of her addiction. If, in fact, it isn't addiction, then it is a sorry example of the Peter Principle, and she is overworking in order to compensate for the fact that she can't do her work in a 40 hour week. She has no life, except work and her children. Unfortunately, two children have flown the nest, and the last one is a fledgling, eager to get her feathers and go.

When that happens, what will happen to my friend? There will be nothing to distract her from her lack of a personal life except more work, and, I am afraid, that old demon gin, to which she shows a particular fondness.

Friend number three has a place in the dictionary, right next to the words enabler and co-dependent. I can't listen to her anymore, either. Wrong choices about almost everything to do with her kids lead to more wrong choices and tragic consequences.

As I tell so many others, you can't fix anyone except yourself. My fix is coming, and I am sorry to see it on the horizon. But I can't take any more of any of my friends self-destructive behaviors when I have my own to tend to.

Still, even in the driest desert, some flowers bloom, and last night I went to a lovely flowering: young April was ordained a priest in the Episcopal church, and the RLA and I were priveleged to be at the ceremony.

I love ceremony and rite, and this was particularly lovely. Love being the operative word. She is a woman full of love, and the church was full of people who love her. I promised TL (the prettiest man in the room, always, but particularly last night) that I would blog about it (and about him) so here it is.

The sermon given likened April to McGiver, a charismatic fellow of infinite ability to conjure salvation from a paper clip and a need. I ask you, when was the last time you heard McGiver's name mentioned in church? And why not? The world needs more McGivers, and that was the gist of the sermon: that our friend is a McGiver, able to pull the rabbit of hope from the world's top hat of despair.

She is, and in the mood I've been in, it was a reminder I needed to hear.

So the other day I held a party and (almost) nobody came. First time that ever happened to me in the history of my throwing parties. Granted, the theme was a little obscure: Shahruhk Khan Day, and the kitchen play involved Indian cuisine, but really. All most folks had to do was show up, eat and watch some Bollywood. How hard could that have been?

* the recipe calls for letting the eggplant weep out its bitter juices.... yeah, ok, right, it was a stretch, title-wise, but cut me some slack.
But RJ came through, and the two of us had a wonderful time, cooking up a storm and weeping our way through all three-plus hours of Kutch Kutch Hota Hai, arguably one of Shahruhk's more romantic fil-ums. Sigh. That Shahruhk, he is SUCH a hottie.

RJ made paneer, and Publix had fresh peas and lovely eggplants, so the menu included motter paneer, lamb with coconut and peas, eggplant a la "the imam wept", kir, mango lassis, motter paneer samosas, and plain old rice.

Here's a couple of photos of our endeavors, kitchen-wise





In other ramblings, my tat is finally healing up. Note to self: don't wear anything with straps that rub a fresh tattoo, it makes for a big mess, and a miserable healing experience.

Things I'm not allowed to say to customers, but wish I could: Hey, stupid, the i-pods all sound the same, even if they are different colors. You don't need to listen to all of them, one will do.

I'm amazed at how many different ways there are to (mis)use a cell phone. I have grown accustomed to seeing people treat them like walkie-talkies, first holding it up to an ear, and then repositioning it to in front of their mouths, like the mic isn't multi-directional, but the variety of positions is astonishing.

One woman kept holding the mouthpiece at right angles to her ear when she was trying to listen. Imagine the cell phone was a q-tip and she was digging in her ear... that's how she was holding her phone. The mouth end poking into her ear. And just how did that help her hear?

Another man was flipping his phone around so that he was trying to listen to the back side.

Ah well, technology is difficult, eh?

And, yes. This entry was created on my mac. Sigh. I love this machine.

I fought the urge as long as I could but finally had to cave in to the baser longings of my heart. I bought a new Powerbook. This should be the last entry using the Sony Vaio.
When the hospital took away my Mac, I felt like a converso during the Spanish Inquisition. Yes, you could make me denounce my religion in order to stay alive, but you could never make me love the new one, or even practice it with the fullness of my heart.

Now that I've been liberated from the toxic waste dump of county employment, I decided to take the paltry remains of my severence package (most of which has gone to paying the COBRA bills) and buy myself a new laptop.

It arrived yesterday, and today I'm loading up software and cooing over it like the newborn it is.

In other news, Miss Frances Langford died. She was the local celebrity in my home town, and many are the dinners my family had at the old Outrigger.



I once got Susan Hayward's autograph there. She smiled and asked me if my father had told me to ask for it, because I was way too young to know who she was. But she was beautiful and gracious, and I still have the autograph, on the back of the blue valet parking stub. Unlike the celebrities of today, you could read her signature, too.