Pudding!

I really do somehow seem to attract both helpful coincidence and just plain bizarre.  Today, the Walrus and I took a day trip to a place that requires three different trains each way.  Normally, this kind of thing could take up to an hour, including waiting for trains at each transfer.  Both ways today took approximately half that each.  We'd enter a station, get to a platform, and a train would simply appear.

But the stranger thing is that on the last train, while we sat, tired and quiet from all the wandering around, listening to some college students discover for the first time that it is entertaining to try and figure out which Hogwarts school your friends would be, a young woman with bright purple hair, eyes red-rimmed not with fatigue or withdrawal but with copious amounts of red eyeshadow, and a box-top full of pudding cups came aboard, sat down across from us, and promptly offered me a pudding.

Of course I took a pudding!  Who doesn't want pudding?

Shovel

Another time that Walrus and I were off in another state, Owl came home to find a shovel leaning up against the fridge.

Yep.  Just a shovel.  And a dirty shovel, too; not even one she recognized.

Naturally, she texted me to ask about it, even though she'd been there more recently than I.

This time, as it happens, I had a guess as to what had happened, so my response was to ask whether or not we had a new screen door on the balcony.  She checked; there was.

A few weeks previous, our landlord had asked us to keep the balcony door shut in case of squirrels.  Normally, I'd simply agree; who wants wildlife in your kitchen?  But since the balcony had no screen door, this made getting a breeze in the disgusting summer weather we were having rather difficult.  He assured me he would get a new screen door in.  Each week or so thereafter, I'd given him a call asking him about the door.  Finally, I left a message saying that I wouldn't be able to get in touch because I would be out of cell range, and that he should call Owl about the door.  Apparently he took the first part of this to heart, but ignored the second.

Which doesn't exactly explain why there was a dirty shovel in the kitchen.  Clearly it was left by elves.

Flash back here to the bloody pillow story (see below).  As it happens, despite the fact that the landlord claimed he had not come in our house, upon returning home, Walrus and I learned that, the very same day we left, the landlord had slipped in the snow and injured his head such that his ear was bleeding and he seemed disoriented.  The landlord swore that he had gone straight to his floor, gone to bed for a bit, gone to the bathroom to wash up, and then been fine.  Checking this against the evidence- door had been open when my friend came to take care of the cat the first time, closest bedroom to the door had been lain in with a head injury, bathroom light was on- it seems likely that, whether or not he remembers it, the landlord was in fact our mysterious elf.

So, no surprise, the landlord, and/or his buddy, had come in the apartment without telling anyone, installed the new door, picked up a shovel from somewhere to clear some of the junk from the balcony to make doing so easier, and left the shovel wherever was convenient.  Oh, and left an empty six-pack Budweiser container near the balcony, too.

Naturally, he swears that his buddy did the installation with Owl present, handed her the shovel he found on the balcony, and never would ever drink on the job.  Riiiiight.

Pizza Elves

So, between then and now, I've gotten an entire graduate degree. I find myself once again with a moderate amount of brain to spare. Congratulations, dedicated readers! You have discovered posts no one thought would happen!

There has also been a swapping of housemates. Owl left for a time, and a classmate of mine, to be known as Jill, took the room. Some things to know about Jill: she is very self-sufficient, she is very self-contained, and she is very, well, normal. It was less like having a housemate and more like having a very quiet neighbor. Well, so says one who is used to living with good friends.

Another thing about Jill is that she has a gluten sensitivity. Not Celiac, apparently, so I don't really understand the details. But it was serious enough that she used and washed her own plates and utensils.

Which made it very confusing when, on returning from going out to dinner with Walrus, we discovered a box half-filled with pizza, very normal, gluten-filled pizza, sitting on our kitchen counter. At first, I assumed this was Walrus', and he assumed it was mine, even though neither of us likes the particular kind of pizza in the box, because it certainly couldn't be Jill's.

Upon discovering that it wasn't either of ours, we declared it to be courtesy of the pizza elves, perhaps as part payment for their cousins the bloody elves.

Later, of course, it was determined that Jill "sometimes just can't resist". I guess the sensitivity isn't so serious after all.

The Bloody Pillow

As it happened, all three of us who live together have been out of town for the weekend. My housemate Owl happened to get back earlier than the rest of us, and this is what she found:

Her door, at the landing of the first flight of stairs, was open; I can tell you from personal memory that it was closed when we left. The light to the bathroom next to her door was on; it had been off. In her room, she noticed her fake sword was missing. The books and stuffed animals on her bed had been moved neatly to the side, and there was dirt and drops of blood on her sheets and a pool of it staining her pillow.

There are, to my knowledge, six people with keys to our apartment. Walrus and I are here, in a state far away. Owl was obviously not there for the duration. Our friend Arisbe has one kind of by accident, but she's also in a different state. The two people both in the same city and having a key are the landlord and my friend who is taking care of my cat.

First order of business, we contacted those two. The landlord claims not to have been in our apartment since last I was there with him. My friend taking care of the cat said that Owl's door had been open every time he'd been there, though he hadn't gone far enough in to notice the blood and dirt. The cat was fine and nothing obvious had been messed up- no outer doors or windows open, no footprints in the house, nothing missing. The window between when we left and the first time he was there is approximately 18 hours.

Second order of business was to contact the police. They found nothing I hadn't already gathered; the blood pattern sounds like a nosebleed, and there was no sign of forced entry or robbery. Either all the cop shows are paying off, or these police folk aren't any better at their job in person than I am FROM MILES AWAY. According to Owl, the officer who came to look around thinks that Walrus and I somehow had a drunken revel (we don't drink) and forgot to clean up only Owl's room of all things. Did I mention that we are in a different state?

Walrus theorized that it was elves. When we told this to Owl, she said that this is what the police seemed to think, too.

Drat those elves.

Flash Circus

Dear gods, has it really been over a month since I wrote here? I suppose it has. My apologies.

Well, tonight something truly spectacular- in every sense of the word- happened. Every Monday, it is my custom to go out and practice spinning poi. No, not taro root goop found in Hawai'ian cuisine, the fire-dancing implements that are essentially wicks on chains. I've only gotten to actually burn a few times, but I do go practice whenever possible.

Normally, the place where people I know gather to spin is at University Campus X. This is a good distance from my home, but easily accessible by train, so not too inconvenient. Tonight, on my way to University Campus X, I happened by the main square near my home, and saw, to my surprise, people spinning.

What's this, I thought, and looked closer. I saw the shining bald head of someone I knew. I needed to investigate further!

When I arrived, I saw what seemed to be the entire spin jam crammed into the square. One of my friends found me and told me this story:

Originally, there was to be a professional circus performing in the square tonight, but for some reason, they didn't show up. One of the spin jam folks happened to be part of the circus/organizing for the circus/in some way connected, and called one of the more prominent spin jam vets. The spin jam was promptly packed up from University Campus X and brought straight away to my home square. Instant circus!

Well, it's extremely convenient for me! And great fun, too!

Street Fighters

Recently I was walking to a subway station in a very public, well lit, heavily populated area, when I spotted two men apparently fighting each other, very poorly. They would have each other at arm's length, almost in a stranglehold, and then sort of halfheartedly punch at each other, almost like a catfight. People were passing them by, barely giving them a glance.

I stopped, not wanting to succumb to bystander apathy, and seriously pondered calling the police. I mean, wtf, mates? But I couldn't decide just from what little I observed whether they were actually fighting, just poorly, or play-fighting, and I have so been there. I wouldn't want to get the cops called on me every time I mock-spar with a friend.

So I watched for a moment, trying to decide. They stopped for a second, and spoke to each other in calm tones in a language I didn't recognize, probably something subcontinental. They let each other catch his breath, then started again. I decided that if it WERE an actual fight, either no one would be injured and it would be fine, or it would escalate and someone else would have to handle it, because I was going home.

A little perturbed, I made my way past the fight and towards the subway when I heard a woman shriek on the other side of the street. I turned, my adrenaline pumping, only to realize that she was drunk off her behind and only hiding from her friend, who had poked her.

What on earth is with these people?

The Chanting Man, II

Several weeks after I encountered the chanting man, I was headed home on the last train with a friend of mine who shall be known as Polly. Polly and I rarely see each other, even though at the time we lived barely a block apart, so we were fairly engrossed in talking to one another. Most of the way home, I notice a faint chanting sound. I look around, and there behind me is the chanting man himself! I didn't mention him to Polly at the time, but I really wanted to see where he went.

He got off the train first, and we followed him up the stairs. He walked out of the station in the same direction we were going. By the time we got to the doors, however, he was gone. And there aren't any places on that street he could have gotten inside before we got there.

So I turned to Polly and said, That man, the dark skinned, black haired guy who was singing, did you see him?

And she said, I did! Where'd he go?

So I told her the story of the chanting man, part I. I have never seen him since.

The Chanting Man

One day, back when I had regular work hours and commuted back and forth just slightly off of rush hour, I found myself on a crowded train. Shocking, I'm sure.

As I stood there, facing out into the blackness of the subway tunnel over the heads of some anonymous ants, I heard a chanting voice, dark and deep, coming from behind me. I turned to look. A very out-of-place looking man, red skinned and black haired, was sitting on the other side of the car, eyes closed, singing in no language I recognized (and I recognize a good few). I smiled and went back to my book.

After a few stations, I realized that the chanting hadn't ceased, even when the doors opened, and I hadn't heard the chanting when I got onto the train. I turned again to look, and this time his eyes were open- and he was staring straight at me. His eyes were the same black as his hair. The chant changed slightly as I looked at him, then returned as I managed to look away.

Normally when something odd happens on a train, people will look, acknowledge, and then NOT-look, which isn't the same as ignoring. But no one else seemed to notice the man, no matter how loud he chanted. Even the people sitting right next to him didn't seem to notice. But I noticed, and he was looking at me.

This could have been creepy... maybe it should have been. But all I felt the entire time was a sense of content and purposefulness. As if this were something beneficial and directed at me.

Eventually, we got to my stop, and I exited the train. I noticed that the chanting stopped, turned slightly, and saw that the man had come off the train here, as well. Aha, I thought, maybe if I slow down, he will pass me and I can see where he goes.

But when I turned again a few steps later, he had vanished. There was no one remotely like him on the entire platform.

The Jew Card

Recently, my friend Junebug's purse was stolen. While this stinks in many, many ways, the worst part is the irreplaceable object: her Jew card.

A Jew card, you ask? What on earth is that? I didn't know either, so I asked.

When Junebug was in middle school, she was working on a project in a group with two other students. She and the other girl were both mostly-secular Jews, and the third was a devout Catholic boy. The girls were fascinated by the concept of a devout anything, and asked him many questions. At one point, it came up that he was, in fact, a "card-carrying" Catholic, and had a card in his wallet identifying him as Catholic in case he died and no one knew that he wanted Catholic rites. This became a subject of much hilarity. Thus, it comes as little surprise to me that on Junebug and her friend's next Hannukah they both received photo identifications, made by the little Catholic boy, declaring their religion and personal information. This treasured card never left Junebug's side.

In fact, it even came in handy once or twice; when Junebug went to visit our friend Chelonia (on whom more later) out in the vastness of the western US, Chelonia's friends decided to take them to a sex shop kind of in the middle of nowhere. Everyone out there has driver's licenses; it only makes sense, what with the lack of public transportation. But Junebug grew up in a place with the subway and a half-decent bus network, and never had learned to drive. Nor, in fact, did she have any form of official photo ID except her passport, and who carries around their passport when they don't have to? So when the sex shop workers asked the group of young college kids for their IDs to make sure they were over 18, Junebug didn't know what to do. Chelonia said, give me your wallet; I will find something. A few moments of searching later, she looked up with a huge grin on her face and said, I found it, but you're not going to like it, and handed the Jew card over to the sex shop employees.

Now, Junebug had already been mortified at holding the group up by not having a regular photo ID, and seeing the sex shop workers marvel at her Jew card (for all they knew, this was a thing carried by all Jews) made her want to just run away, but after a brief time the sex store employees handed it back to her and, being satisfied that her date of birth and picture matched reality, sent the whole group on its way in.

Hell of a thing to lose. I only hope she can get a replacement someday.

Convenience Magic

General consensus has declared that I have begun to develop a series of low-level magic spells, mainly relating to convenience.

My most practiced 'spell' is that of waitstaff summoning. When I need something at a restaurant, all I have to do is look around briefly or put something on my table ajar, and suddenly a waitstaff will appear. Some folks are more resistant to the pull of the summons than others; the other day, Walrus and a few friends and I were out to lunch, and we needed a drink refill. Our waitress was on the other side of the restaurant, talking to someone. After a few minutes of summoning, the MANAGER appeared at our table and eagerly asked if there was anything he could get us, and proceeded to wait our table for the rest of the meal. Walrus' theory is that my summoning had nearly reached critical mass, and the manager came to forestall whatever consequences that might have had.

The other similarly useful conjuration is the ability to find a parking space. It has a decent chance of working within a block of where I want to be, a good chance of working within two, and a very good chance within three. Even on busy days, or nights when only half the street is parkable, or in really crowded places.

Bones

I should start this story by telling any of you who might not know that the only nickname (or set of nicknames, I suppose) that have ever stuck to me center around cats. I am frequently known as Cat, Kitty, Koshka, Neko, and a host of other things that mean, well, cat. And no, I am not some ridiculous hardcore anthro fetishist, I am simply very catlike and have a great fondness for the creatures. This makes for a good deal of humor when there is a cat around or something that references cat behavior, for instance, when discussing the typical roleplaying merit of 'Catlike Reflexes', &c.

Now, on to the story.

A few weeks ago, Walrus and I and some friends were out to dinner. We had all been very hungry, so we ate pretty fast and then were very full. I'm sure you know the feeling: happy food-coma lethargy. Walrus had been eating ribs, and had a good portion left over, so he asked for a box. It is well established fact at this point that I love chewing on bones, and getting the marrow and such out where possible, and rib bones are pretty good for that. So when he got the box, he started putting his finished rib bones in the box as well as the ones that were still intact.

The waiter, seeing this as slightly odd behavior, stopped and asked, "Taking those bones for your dog?"

The Walrus replied, "No, cat, actually."

Worst Couple Ever

The other night, I happened to wind up on the last subway train home. Just before the busiest stop on my ride, the train stopped, mid-tunnel. This is not hugely unusual, and I was prepared for it, so I just kept reading my book.

Unfortunately for me, the people across from me on this relatively uncrowded train were not so prepared, and were evidently not having a great evening anyways.

They were a hetero couple, a standard looking blonde woman and a slightly metro man, late twenties or early thirties. The woman was holding a bouquet of flowers, mostly lilies, to which I happen to be terribly allergic. Since they sat down, the woman had been whining about what a horrible evening it was, and the man had been getting progressively more terse in his attempts to quiet her. I wasn't listening too closely, but at one point, I heard the woman say, "Fine. If you want to pay for it, open the doors and I will get out here." That's right, in the middle of the tunnel. The man replied, "Will it shut you up?" At this point, I was finally curious enough to look at them again, and was deeply perturbed to see the two of them, miserable expressions and all, snuggled up like the closest of lovers.

I looked up, sneezed, looked down, sneezed, and buried myself in my book until they got off at the next station.

Mr. Slimeball

It occurs to me that I have not yet taken the time to introduce you to the insanity that was my high school. I foresee that it will be the subject of many stories to come, so let me begin by painting for you a portrait of my first high school principal, Mr. Slimeball.

What I did not know going in to high school, although apparently my parents did, was that the newly appointed Slimeball was a devout follower of Louis Farrakhan. While I couldn't give a toss about his religious views, the fact was that he seemed to despise anyone not black, and this is something of a problem in a school which is 58% Hispanic and 2% white (with a few Asians mixed in), especially when, because of the fact that we were in a ghetto, that 2% are pretty much exclusively in the magnet program. The magnet program, by the way, was maybe half Caucasian, but that other 50% didn't stop us from being seen as exclusively white.

Naturally, there were conflicts from the start between my program and the principal. He would cut our funding, rearrange our teachers, and screw with our records. He put his mistress in a position of power over the magnet program, and she had no love for us either in her crazy little head. Her daughter was caught fucking some boy in a stairwell, and this lady's reaction was to get in a public screaming match with her daughter and chase her across the parking lot, beating her with a shoe. When a teacher should have been fired, Slimeball spent his oily words on keeping her around and making sure the Board, headed by his mama, wouldn't allow her to be removed. He did drive off one of the primary drivers of the program who should have been around for years to come.

It was well known that he would take every opportunity to use the funds the school received for him to spend on teacher workshops or conferences or whatever improvements he could get away with taking to vacation with his mistress. He wasn't always very bright about it, either, since one time the two of them stayed at the same hotel as a bunch of magnet kids on a field trip.

When he finally replaced his mistress as magnet counselor (maybe due to complaints, maybe he tired of her, maybe because his daughter was starting school and he didn't want to put his own daughter in her charge, or maybe his wife found out), the woman he got was even more of a racist nutjob. It all came to a crux when she sent an email, obviously meant only for Slimeball's eyes but mistakenly CCed to several of the magnet parents it was about, calling the magnet parents blue-eyed devils and using the most horrid grammar I've ever encountered (and I am a proofreader!). Incidentally, the people she called blue-eyed devils? Three Jews, a man from Africa, and a woman from China. They considered getting letter jackets.

I am skipping a number of things, but you get the idea of how he treated the magnet program. On to how he treated the Hispanic kids. You remember, the majority of the population of the school? He embezzled nearly all the funding for the ESL program, which in that neighborhood was an absolute necessity. He hired exclusively black underlings and gave them all the idea that because they were black and in power that they were superior. I don't know how many times I saw a black kid get away with something and blame it on a Hispanic kid with no retribution. He treated them with utter contempt, and encouraged it in those around him.

Naturally, the magnet parents opposed him every step of the way. They started by protesting to him, making it known that they saw what was going on. Eventually, they took it to the School Board, one of the largest in the country, and to the press. The biggest newspaper in a very big city ran a story on Slimeball the slimeball. And still, because his mama was on the board, he was never removed. In order to shut us up, the board decided to give the magnet program its own campus. Fine, we agreed, but what about the poor Hispanic kids? Well, what about them. Eventually Slimeball was promoted off the campus and into an administration position as 'punishment'. That's right, promoted.

At my graduation from the newly formed school, a tiny, underfunded affair practically designed to anger anyone with anger left to spend (in a church, presided by a board member who was firmly in Slimeball's pocket), the thing that, to my mind, was the absolute slimiest of all the slimy things I'd seen him do happened. Maybe because it directly involved me. As we waited for the ceremony to start, grumbling at our disgustingly patriotic graduation robes and absurd situation, who should show up but Mr. Slimeball himself. You could have cut the silence with a knife. Up he walks to me, and forcibly takes my hand, and shaking it, says, "Congratulations." And then he tried to chat with me. I washed my hand like an OCD hard case for a week.

Taking the Meter

Normally, I'm rather fond of my current gas/electricity company. They are much less of a hassle than any I've dealt with before, in general, not least because they make online payment exceedingly simple. But occasionally they pull out all the idiot-stops.

Several months ago, I received a letter saying that our gas meter was overdue to be inspected or changed or whatever it is they actually do. So I called to make an appointment, figuring that they don't really need me to be around because gas meters go on the outside of the house anyway, but I may as well schedule it for when I'm here in case something is wrong. I work out a time with them, and they say they'll be here within a four hour window. Fine.

About two days before they are supposed to come, they call to reschedule. Something has come up and the earliest they can reschedule the meter checking to is nearly a month later. That's silly, but fine; I can handle the day they want to come, although I may have to get my housemate to be in charge of idiot control.

About a week later, though, they call back AGAIN. They have to reschedule again, for some unspecified reason, and their date is yet another month later (a few days ago now). Fine, fine, as long as it's after I'm back from vacation, you silly whatsis.

Finally, the date they are supposed to show up arrives. I am faced with a mild conundrum; I have a four hour window in which to expect them, and I haven't yet showered. So I figure, okay, I'll just take a quick shower and by the time I get out, either they will have called and I can call them back, or they won't be here yet. Besides, they're supposed to call fifteen minutes before they get here, so unless they call the second I get in, I won't miss them.

Predictably, however, the second I step out of the shower, the doorbell rings. Hello, Mr. Gas Meterman. I step out to say hello and ask if there is anything he needs from me, which as far as I know there shouldn't be. Instead, I am cut off by a rant about how important it is that I answer the phone, and what if he had rung the wrong doorbell and gotten someone who hadn't taken their meds today and came out shooting, because that happened once you know.

After a few seconds of staring at him in annoyance and mild disbelief, I interrupt the flow of vaguely accented words to apologize briefly and ask if there is anything he needs from me.

Yes, he says, he needs to get into the basement. Wait, what? No one said anything about that. So I ask, isn't the meter outside? Well, apparently he needs to get to some 'appliances', mainly the furnace, to make sure that everything is relit after he messes with it. Well, I say, I didn't know that, and I can't get into the basement because that's my landlord's apartment. If you'll just wait a moment, I'll go get my phone so I can call him.

Only I don't get to say all of that, because as soon as I say I can't let him in, he goes on another tirade about how I should have made arrangements for this and where is my landlord can he talk to him and... At this point, I cut him off midsentence, because I couldn't figure out what else to do. If you will excuse me for just a moment, I said, I will go call my landlord and find out about this. Please wait here. He didn't shut up long enough for me to leave, so I left him standing there talking to the door while I called my landlord.

Here comes the interesting part, because as soon as I told my landlord what was going on, he says: What's the guy's name? Unsure how it matters, I find out and tell him. He goes, let me talk to him.

Turns out, my landlord knows the guy, and well enough to be able to shut him up and get something useful out of him. When I get the phone back, the meter guy goes and works on the outside of the house, like I thought he would, and I am assured that everything else is normal and needs no interference.

What a lot of bother over nothing!

The Place

Long ago in a land far, far away, I lived in an apartment complex. This apartment complex was fairly nice, and I enjoyed most of my time there insofar as one enjoys an apartment per se. You know, except when the gate was broken or the roof falling in. But it was pretty good overall; I even had power when the rest of the city was out.

Telling people how to get there, however, was always interesting. The name of this apartment complex, you see, was The Place. While at first glance this seems clever and slightly metaphysical, in practice it caused much confusion and hassle.

Me: It's The Place, right ahead of you when you come down the road.
Potential visitor: Okay. What's it called?
Me: The Place.
PV: The Palace?
Me: No. The Place.
PV: What place?!
Me: That's what it's called!

Time Travel

An odd thing happened today. When I checked my Facebucket account, I discovered a friend request and message from a woman I've never met... maybe.

As many of you know, my Facebucket is under a name which is not mine; it was an experiment to see if it would work to change my name, and even though it has failed I haven't ever gotten around to changing it back. When combined with my own last name, it is very distinctive; even our Google Overlords (all hail) only know of one person by that name.

The message I received went something like this:

Bonjour! There can't possibly be two people by that name; are you the one I met in Paris in the early 1980s with a mania for punctuation?

Well, as I was born in the early 1980s, it seems to me that this could not be. But I do love both French and punctuation. So I wrote back to this woman, letting her know of the odd coincidence.

But really, what's in a name, or for that matter, a date? The Walrus theorized that, since there are no coincidences, I must have traveled back in time; I haven't met this woman yet- but I will!

Western Spaghetti

Apologies, Dear Readers, for the unscheduled break for... technical difficulties. Right. That was it. It totally wasn't because I was busy and forgot until I was nearly asleep for the last week or so.

In any case, let me tell you of a strange thing which happened today.

Today, as happens every so often, the Walrus' parents came to visit. When they do this, they like to take us out to dinner. A fairly normal problem with this habit is that we can't think of anywhere to go. So tonight, a steak place was suggested, and we decided to ask the giant brain of humanity: the internet.

The internet thought of a couple of places, the closer of which was a restaurant which shall be known as The Corral. Given the name and the many reviews saying that it was good, we had a reasonable expectation of getting some good steak. So off we drove to the Corral.

We entered the Corral and were met with a bizarre sight: a sports bar-like atmosphere at the entrance with Western decor on the brick walls, but bright lights and fancy place settings on the tables. The empty tables. There was one guy at the bar, and one small family in the restaurant itself. Over the speakers came the sounds of a light-rock radio station. But it had gotten good reviews, so we decided to stick it out.

In confusion, we sat and looked at our menus. The menu contained two steak products: steak tips and a sirloin. Instead of the anticipated cow feast, we found ourselves presented with a very typical Italian menu. After much hemming and hawing, we again decided that we would stick it out- we were too hungry to find another place.

Our waitress, although clearly an established member of the small staff, was very inexperienced and slow. There was one other waitress, but she spent all her time chatting with the family that was already seated.

The Walrus brought up the fact that there was a sign outside saying the ownership had recently changed. How long ago were those reviews? Before they decided to have an Italian restaurant in a steak joint, apparently!

Meanwhile, in between getting our appetizers and ordering our main courses (yes), someone hit the jukebox with a country western song. Right over top of the light-rock radio and the hockey game on TV. After a few minutes of acoustic bombardment, we finally caught a waitress and asked her to get one or the other turned off. Eventually it did.

At one point, right behind me, I heard our waitress sing (off key and not in time with the jukebox song anyways), "Rock the beat!"

By this point, we have decided that we've definitely lost our hats* and run into a surrealist restaurant. Perhaps they should rename it the Frosty Chicken**!



* http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20031017
Also, a nod to the spaghetti western tradition of hats taking bullets for the hero.

** See story to come.

Nice Hat

There came a point, not far one direction or the other in time from that fateful September, at which I was returning to this country from studying in Europe. It was summer, and I had needed a large hat in order not to burn horribly while I puttered about the European countryside. This meant that I was wearing the hat while going through customs; large hats are somewhat inconvenient to pack.

At the customs desk at the end of the line, there was a young man in his twenties or so looking bored as bored can be. I handed him my passport with some moderate trepidation (I always feel slightly nervous when dealing in Official Papers). He took it, looking me straight in the eye, then glancing up at the hat, then back to me. He took his stamp, opened the passport to the appropriate page without looking, stamped, and said, "Nice hat," somewhat derisively.

He then handed my passport back and moved on to the next person with equal boredom.

Hurricane

Several years ago, back in my hometown of Hell, a rather large hurricane came through. Everyone was stampeding grocery stores and outdoor goods places like a herd of spooked wildebeest with a penchant for stakeouts. Dutifully (prompted by my mother) I picked up some bottled water and canned food; I then got a couple of plastic tarps and nailed them over the giant windows in my apartment (which I thought was more likely to be useful).

The hurricane was supposed to hit from late afternoon/evening to early the next morning. I went out on the walkways of my second floor apartment during the early afternoon to watch the storm roll in. Then, as the rain started, I went back into my apartment and double checked all the plugs, the pipes, the windows. Then I settled in bed with a good book and read until I finally fell asleep to the sound of pouring rain and lashing winds.

About five in the morning, my cell phone rang. It was still pitch black, and the rain was beating at my windows with greater fury than I had ever seen. I answered the phone groggily.

"Are you all right?!" my mother asked. "It's supposed to be worst where you are!"

I took stock. Myself, undamaged but for interrupted sleep. My windows, intact. My roof, intact. My power, still on, although the clocks were flashing. "Yes, Mom, I'm fine. Are you okay?"

Apparently, about an hour earlier, the tree behind her house had started creaking mightily, and she decided it was safer to hide in the closet than her bedroom, which was rather close to said tree. She'd been up listening to the radio since, and got the idea into her head that I was in terrible danger. After reassuring her a couple more times and making sure she was okay, I went back to sleep.

When the storm cleared, it was obvious that I'd escaped any real damage. I took down the tarps; the windows hadn't cracked. My car was fine; my home was fine; my power was on. The water didn't work, but I'd planned for a day or so of that. As it turns out, I was among 4% of the entire city that still had power, and pretty much the only person I knew in town who hadn't suffered so much as a broken window or a flooded car. My mother's tree fell, but fortunately it fell in the direction it could do the least possible damage: into the pool. I ended up having three (sometimes four) friends over in an extended slumber party to keep them out of the heat.

But the funniest part? I slept through a freaking hurricane. G'night, folks.

Travels and Tribulations

Yesterday, the Walrus and I were taking the train home from a place so far that we were scheduled to be aboard said train for approximately eight hours. We had a very nice vacation; thanks for asking.

The first absolutely ridiculous thing was that the main announcer on the train was a woman who clearly did not know that her microphone was set to 11. The rest of us cringed every time an announcement was made as we tried desperately to not need that analgesic yet again. At one point, the conductor came on at normal volume and said, "Conductor to mid-train, do you read me?" to which the very loud woman replied, "I hear you just fine, but apparently you're not hearing me." The irony was not lost on our poor ringing ears.

About halfway through the trip home, we encountered one of the larger stops along the way. The train stopped just short of the station, and then the very loud woman began again. "Attention all passengers, please clear the aisle; the conductor needs to come through, and the faster he can get by the faster we can get this figured out." A few minutes went by. "Attention all passengers, please take your seats. We will be backing up the train and you must be seated for us to move." The train began to inch slowly backwards.

About ten minutes of backwards crawl later, the conductor came on. "I'm sorry folks; there's a disabled train ahead of us at the station, and we're backing up to switch to another track. We'll be out of here as soon as we can." Everyone's frowns lessened slightly and we waited some more. About five minutes passed, and yet another voice came on and announced, "It seems there's a disabled train on our track. Thanks for your patience while we back up and switch to another track." Hmm, thought I, the right hand knows not what the left does. Another five minutes of backing, and suddenly the loud woman came on. "I think what's going on is that there's a disabled train at the station. We're backing up to find another track. I repeat, there's a disabled train, and we're backing up to find another track."

Another ten minutes or so went by before we managed, evidently, to switch tracks and get into the station. The ticket takers walked through the train explaining that we had just gotten around a disabled train, and that we would shortly reach the station.

Getting back to our city (an hour late), the Walrus and I then proceeded to get on the local subway. The time there said 12:15. This being clearly wrong, we thought it must have simply been forgotten during the change of DST. We were tired, went home, and collapsed. When I awoke this morning, however, it occurred to me that this could not possibly have been the case; if they had forgotten to switch the time, it would have been 10:15. Some silly station worker must have switched the clocks twice!