I did it for my mom, mostly

Two of my mom's favorite things were the Rose Parade, as previously mentioned, and all things Royal. She loved Diana, particularly, but she loved the whole British Royal family, as well as the royals of other nations, too. Mom subscribed to Royalty magazine, a UK affair that came in big glossy splendor each month. We'd look through it each month and discuss the fashions, what that wacky Sarah Ferguson was up to, how handsome Prince Felipe of Spain was, how beautiful Diana was, and how that cad, Charles, had done her wrong. Mom and I got up at the crack of dawn for Diana's wedding to Charles, and then again for the wedding of Prince Andrew and Fergie*. Which is why I felt compelled to stay up all night to watch the wedding of Prince William and the lovely Kate Middleton.** I know if Mom were with us today we'd have been on the phone with each other swooning over the simple yet elegant gown of the bride and her maid of honor, guffawing over some of those hats (I'm looking at you Princess Bea), and generally getting all misty. Plus, who doesn't love a good wedding?


*During the Andy/ Fergie wedding, Mom and I were cuddled on the sofa in the living room sipping coffee when my brother, Roy, came downstairs to head out to work. He looked at us on the sofa, looked at the TV, and shook his head muttering something about "crazy." It was classic.

**Am I the only one bothered by the fact that her name is Catherine with a C, but they call her Kate with a K? I mean, Cate Blanchett manages to make the C work for her.

It's been a WTF kind of day

Besides the usual things, like work related things, on three consecutive trips to the ladies the following things happened:

1. Two youngish women (late teens?) entered the ladies' room with me, one of them with a baby approximately 6-9 months old. When I was washing my hands, the woman with the baby was washing the baby's feet and legs in the sink. It hadn't appeared dirty when she entered and she had been at the sink the whole time.
2. All of the stalls were occupied except one, which was clogged. I had to pee desperately. I wiggled and danced, and nearly wet myself waiting for someone--ANYONE--to finish and get out of there. Instead, I waited while all three women repeated flushed the toilets in tandem. I counted 4 times before I said "screw it" and went in the clogged stall.
3. Someone vomited in the bathroom sink and didn't attempt to wash it down the drain.

This, added to the fact that I'm back on coffee after giving it up for Lent and am feeling particularly bitchy, has made me want to carry a weapon. I think I'll use the men's room on my way out tonight.

Today I feel...

...smug.

I have one of those magnetic charts in my office with the different faces (exhausted, confused, ecstatic, guilty, etc) and the frame that reads "Today I feel..." I usually leave it on exhausted or overwhelmed, but today I moved it. Here's why:

I rarely take the freeway, but for some reason I found myself turning onto the 101 this morning and it was too late to stop. Traffic wasn't so bad, or at least no worse than usual. The tricky part, and my least favorite section of the freeway, is the exit from the 101 to the 110. (see photo for non-Angelinos).

What you can't really see in this photo is the automotive ballet that is performed every day in that red rectangular section of the 110. As cars are coming off the 101 freeway, they either merge across 4 lanes to the left to continue onto to the 110, or stay to the right and exit at 3rd, 4th, 6th, or Wilshire. AT THE SAME TIME, cars already on the 110 are merging across 4-6 lanes to get to the exits on the right. It's really a miracle that more accidents don't occur on these freeways since this is not the only section in which nerves are tested and sheer luck keeps cars from colliding.

So, I was merging left onto the 110 and was safely in my lane when a mini van decided it didn't want to take the 6th Street exit after all, and swung back onto the 110, crossing the median section and causing me to brake hard and swerve slightly (out of reflex) before realizing I couldn't get into the next lane as there was a Highway Patrol Car in that lane.

"Crap!," I thought, "Now I'm going to get pulled over for unsafe driving." The CHP officer pulled up and looked over at me. I gave him my best harried-woman- on-her-way-to-work look, and guess what? He pulled forward, merged in front of me and pulled over the a-hole who cut me off. That never happens. So, yes, today I feel smug. Take that, a-hole driver who cut me off this morning. I hope you think twice before making bad maneuvers on a busy freeway during morning rush hour.

Ballyhoo too

My sister lives about an hour or so north(ish) from Chicago, and usually when I'm visiting her we'll have "Sisters Day," in which we take the train into the city, have lunch, shop, get into trouble with security guards at that fountain thing with the jumbotron screen...you know, the usual. One year, Katie had a gift certificate for Ticketmaster, so we decided to see a show. As it was spur of the moment, all the good plays were sold out. It was a week too early for The Nutcracker and she wanted to save Blue Man Group for a family outing. We settled on one that looked interesting, "The Last Night of Ballyhoo." It was playing at the Mercury Theatre in about an hour. Cool! We bought the tickets and began looking for the Mercury Theatre. Where is that blasted theatre?? Finally, we discovered that it was not in the general theatre district, as we had been led to believe, but rather out of town a bit...here's a map.

That red square is downtown. Readers familiar with the Chicagoland area will realize that's kind of far away, but not unreasonable. After all, I'm not one to shy away from public transportation. So, Katie and I hopped on the L (brown line, I believe) and got there just in time. Our tickets were row A and we joked about being in the front row...and we were...in the front row. In fact, had we been any closer to the stage, my knees would have been touching it. I've had more legroom on a 747, that's how close to the stage we were. Plus, we were the only ones in that row. And to make matters worse, the action on stage moved very close to the front of the stage. There's one scene in which a piece of scenery rolls out to look like a train compartment and I swear the actors had about two feet between the scenery and my lap. It was fairly ridiculous. Oh, and the rest of the theatre patrons were all senior citizens, like a field trip from a nursing home.

Well, anyone who knows me knows you can't take me anywhere, and my sister is cut from the same cloth...hilarity ensued. We tried, really we did, to suppress our giggles. Unfortunately, the production was not good and the situation got more absurd by the minute. At intermission, we just left. The entire train ride back downtown we giggled ourselves silly about how the actors were going to come back and wonder what happened to the two women in the front row.

I related this story to my friend Denise last night as we enjoyed a glass of wine* before heading over to the Kirk Douglas Theatre for a wonderful production of "The Cripple of Inishmaan." She noted that our seats were also Row A, and I giggled at the prospect of another knee-crushing performance. Fortunately, there was considerably more room this time, although it was still close, as evidenced by this photo I snapped surreptitiously while turning off my cell phone.

But the play was great and we didn't mind the front row at all, although there was a moment with smashed eggs that made me think we'd stumbled into a Gallagher show.

*We stopped here for wine. I recommend it mainly for the hotbed of handsomeness. Seriously, it was like a casting agent had scoured the city for "handsome, older Frenchmen" and plopped them all right here. Check out the wine list. We had ourselves a full body mouthful...then giggled because we're 12. But, really, the wine was delish. We want to go back for dinner some day.

Or better yet, just don't sing in public unless you're a professional or at a karaoke bar where bad singing is expected

There's this off-site employee who comes to the office about once a week to pick up and drop off paperwork. She has a very annoying voice. I know, my voice ain't exactly a choir of angels, but this voice is like nails on a chalkboard.

Today she came in singing (over and over and over): "Take meeeeee to the other side." After the third time, I vaguely recognized the tune--The Doors' "Break on Through." Over and over she sang, just that one line, in a voice like Minnie Mouse with a 2-pack-a-day habit.

Now, one of my pet peeves is people who don't know the lyrics and obnoxiously sing the wrong ones. Learn the lyrics (I mean, they're all right there on the Internet) or hum, or if we're in the car, turn up the volume. So, after 20 minutes (I wish I were exaggerating) of "Take meeeee to the other side," I wrote the following to my friend "I want to shove a grenade in her mouth. Is that wrong?"

My friend said "not at all."

11 kinds of crazy--because variety is the spice of life

Yesterday I tweeted--"It's 11 kinds of crazy in the city today. Y'all be safe, okay?" And then I nearly got run over by a car in the parking lot at the Farmer's Market. I totally cussed the driver out and gave him my best Hoffman (I'm walking here!).

But anyway, I'm here to illustrate one of the kinds of crazy on display yesterday. Someone shot at one of our office windows!

Poor Celina, who sits in front of that window, was ducking and covering all day long. We're sure it happened in the middle of the night or something, this being not the best neighborhood in LA.

We found the bullet, too.

Actually, that kind of looks like stigmata. I assure you, it's a crumpled bullet. We called the crack security team at our office building, who filled out a report. They called the police, who arrived in their sharp navy blue uniforms, with the shiny badges and.....Oh, I'm back. (I do love a good uniform) The popo took a report and the bullet. Maintenance showed up and said the windows are custom and it will take a year...okay a week...to fix the window. Yeah!

I may be a bit over-extended

I have a list of projects a mile long and all of them have deadlines that I'm thinking will not be met. Things I have started/ need to finish:

I have an Easter present for my sister, which is pretty much done; just needs some blocking and such. Then, there's a Mitered Crosses Blanket for Joann's birthday--Joann's birthday is April 12th. That's next Tuesday. Doesn't look promising.

And then, there's The Fiction Project--This was my Crazy talking (I have really got to get that girl in check). You have a theme, a moleskin, and free reign to fill it as you please with writing. I didn't get the notice early enough. I signed up on March 31st and the deadline is May 1st, so I pretty much have one month to fill it with fiction of my own creation. I haven't received the moleskin yet, so I'm writing on plain paper and I'll transfer it to the journal. I'm really nervous about this one, although my inner Muse (Crazy's good sister), got me writing the other night and I actually outlined a story to the end.

And then, there's a 2nd Mitered Crosses Blanket--yep, I liked the first one so much, I had to start a second in different colors.

And then, there's Maude (and then there's Maude). Side note--I've been watching some Maude on Antenna TV (5.2), and the other day they made a WPT vs. CPT joke. What?!? Then, Maude and Florida Evans* (you know, the mom from Good Times) got into a fight with their respective husbands about women being treated like property. Maude's man said, "You're always asking me to possess you." and Maude replied, "Walter Finley, I have never said that standing up and you know it." Damn, Maude. I'd forgotten how controversial that show was.

Oh, Socks!--I'm at the decrease row, but I've misplaced the directions. I know I saved them to my computer somewhere, but I haven't found them yet. So, the socks are on hold.

I've yet to figure out how to add a day of requirement somewhere in the middle of the week. Would one of you Quantum Physics types get on that? It would be like the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts, but you'd be able to add a day when you needed it.

*for those of you too young to remember, or with foggy memories, Florida was Maude's housekeeper.