things are looking up.

my friend dan and I attended a raw-food menu testing/tasting event last night. as we were sitting there, a man in his 40s approached and asked if he could sit with us. we said sure.

at some point in the conversation the topic turned to pets - our new friend was saying something about how a woman he used to date was so attached to her dogs, she had to take them with her wherever she went. when the two of them went on vacation together, he had to find hotels that allowed dogs.

at some point in the conversation, I mentioned that I have three dogs (I have, however, very little desire to take them on vacation with me).

later on, as dan and I were leaving together, dan - who I think thought that I was interested in this man (I wasn't) - goes to me: "I like how you told him you have only three dogs."

"what?" I responded.

"you told him you have only three dogs. but you have five dogs, don't you?"

FIVE dogs??? I have no idea where on earth dan got this idea. jesus christ, I may be a nut, but I'm not insane.

I get these in my inbox each day. This one particularly inspired me...

From The Daily Om:

When a door opens, walk through it. Trust that the door has opened for a reason and you have been guided to it. Sometimes we have a tendency to overanalyze or agonize over the decision, but it is quicker to simply go through the door and discover what’s there as that’s the only way to know. Even if it doesn’t seem right at first, opening this door may lead to another door that will take us where we need to go.( Read more... )

yesterday as I sat waiting for the ferry to peanut island my friend kris, who was going to snorkel across so he wouldn't have to pay the $10 ferry fee, came over to me at the bench to tell me something when the man I happened to be sitting next to on the bench recognized kris' voice and turned and said, "oh, hey kris." turns out this man, evans, and kris have known each other for years.

as we sat together on the ferry evans and I discovered we have yet another friend in common - sharon, whose wedding I will be a bridesmaid in next spring. evans and sharon's old roommate went to college together.

small world, indeed!

today I had another small-world moment when my friend lori and I were walking in downtown lake worth on the way to see Food, Inc. (which we ultimately decided not to see because the theater employee told us the film includes graphic scenes of animals being killed). as we were rushing to the theater we practically ran right into a man I went out with two weekends ago (who lives nowhere near lake worth) who I decided not to see again because of how bitterly he complained about his ex-wife.

I had already forgotten the man's name, so when I introduced him to my friend I just said, "this is my friend lori" and waited for him to say his name for her. he could tell that I had forgotten his name and looked very offended, and he made it a point to pause and give me a "look" before introducing himself to lori. a small moment, to be sure, yet telling - a bit ungracious and surly for my taste, thank you very much!

although a member of CouchSurfing.com (now CouchSurfing.org, for some reason) for several years, I have yet to accept a traveler into my home, because of my whole hangup with the letting-strange-people-into-my-house thing.

recently, though, I got an enthusiastic and friendly request for a free couch to crash on from a young polish girl who is in the U.S. for one year and planning a visit to west palm beach.

because my brother lived in poland for four years and I visited him there, and coincidentally one of my best friends did peace corps in poland, I feel enough of a kinship with poland and all things polish to make me consider accepting this girl's request. which makes absolutely no sense logically, but humans aren't known for making decisions based on pure logic anyway, now, are they?

anyway, after I got this gal's e-mail, I called my brother.

here are some highlights from that conversation.

matt: (after I told him what couchsurfing was and explained that it was a way to meet people): what, they're aren't enough twitters and myspaces around?

me: we can all get together and tear it up, poland-style.
matt: no, that would involve several arrests before we reach that level.

me: we could all get together and do polish things.
matt: like what? not get jokes?


Matt and me, Krakow 2002, with Zywiec [zhiv-YITZ], the beer that cost 50 cents a glass.

This chow/shepherd mix (left) up for adoption in PBC is a dead ringer for my Kiki. The shelter dog is just taller/longer. is.gd/Zm33

ok .... so I got my hair cut again today, even shorter. I basically have no hair on my head. I look like a man. despite that, when I went out with my lady friends this evening, it was proven to me that apparently neither hair nor boobs are required to get hit on, LOL.

one man reached out and grabbed my hand as I walked by and said: "hello! I like you." then he kissed my hand.

at another place, a big burly black man gave me a big hug as I walked out of the bathroom. "I LOVE your hair!" he said.

then, at a dance club we all decided to go to kind of on a whim, the bouncer waved me and one of my friends in and motioned for the cashier not to charge us the cover after I smiled at him and asked him if he was going to "take care of us."

finally, a tall, hot Arab guy spotted me on the dance floor at said club, cut through the crowd to get to me and started dancing with me. but he wanted to dance in a way that was a bit more intimate than I wanted to, wtf. he kept grabbing me and grabbing at me. um. buh-bye!

btw I absolutely love this song and the video is fantastic.

have you ever really wanted to do something, but the only thing keeping you from going ahead with it is that you don't want to be That Person?

more than anything, really, you don't want to be That Person. the thought of being That Person is horrifying. the desire not to be That Person keeps you in line. the type of person who is That Person is everything that you are against. even if you secretly long sometimes to be That Person.

I guess that not wanting to be That Person is the impulse civilization is built on. so it's all for the greater good. 50 years from now, when we're all slurping baby food while sitting around in diapers, we'll be glad we were not That Person. the fuzziness of memory will erase how difficult and boring it was, at times, to resist being That Person. we can be proud of the upstanding senior citizens we will have become; we can look back with pride. we've lived right. our flesh will melt back into the earth as upstanding, proud flesh. our names will be clean. we will go down in history as not having been That Person. and that, perhaps, is worth something.

someone should do a master's thesis or something about this, with That Person worked into the title, if they haven't already.

is it safe for two women, ages 19 and 23, to go by themselves to a crowded public beach during the day? assuming there is no evidence of or particular reason to believe it is a crime-ridden area?

( Read more... )

my sister tonya: "tiffini, do you want half my sweet potato? you eat green and .... orange things."

**********

at sloan's ice cream shop:

me to my nieces: "girls, do you want to see something funny about the bathrooms here?" (referring to how the transparent window becomes opaque when you lock the door.)

my niece ashley (without a second's hesitation): "what, you pee in a cone?"

**********

my mom, telling one of her endless supply of completely random stories: "thirty-five years ago, my friend shirley and I went down to the fontainebleau hotel and were snooping around. we saw a door to a room open. the door said b.b. king. we went in. there was no one there. but we heard someone in the bathroom. we ran out of there!"

my niece ashley: "you should have hidden under the bed!"

**********
my mom, again completely out of nowhere: "remember back in ives (our old neighborhood), that woman at the end of the street with all those kids? I remember I saw her one day, pregnant again, and I blurted out 'why don't you stop having babies?' I never was able to keep my mouth shut."

**********
my sister tonya: "mom, remember that time the old woman on our street died and they had a yard sale, and you bought her shoes? I just thought that was SO morbid. to buy dead shoes!"

luckily, the pic that appeared in the newspaper ad had me very, very dark, in the shadows - which I'm grateful for.

I happened to get a couple of reminders today of one of my old jobs, the job that was so awful - with such unbelievably bad working conditions, grotesquely unfair treatment and laughable management - that the only way my co-workers and I could bear it was to constantly make fun of everyone and everything.

my co-workers and I made up cruel nicknames for the people we didn't like (which was almost everyone) and spent a huge chunk of our time e-mailing each other sarcastic riffs on them. we had so many elaborate inside jokes, they could have made up a novel, all strung together.

as a result, much of my time on that job was spent laughing my ass off. the job itself was a dead-end joke, but there was almost never a shift that wasn't fun in spite of it, because of the evilly hilarious people who were suffering alongside me. every once in a while one of my old co-workers will bust out one of our inside jokes from the old days on facebook, giving me a giggle but also reminding me with a bit of a shock of how different everything was back then.

these days, the misery is gone - I'm one of those sickening people who actually loves what I do for a living, and I'm lucky to work in a good environment now, surrounded by people who have a clue and treat others with respect and dignity (for the most part). oh, there's still plenty of b.s. to go around, but it's light years away from what I once endured.

still, although I don't at all miss the oppression, I sometimes miss the camaraderie that came with being oppressed. :)

wow! my fingernails are once again growing at a near-bionic pace. must be all the green juice I've been drinking lately. wonder what else all the minerals are doing for me. go vegetables!

today I met some cool old people. this afternoon I went to a birthday gathering at a downtown lake worth restaurant, where I met a handful of new people, including ruthie, who's in her late 60s or 70s and sports bright purple toenail polish. she just returned from a trip to holland and belgium. she's been many places in her life. she talked of her travels to morocco, france, italy, switzerland.

after a couple of hours at the birthday gathering, I left to attend a potluck. I ended up knocking on the wrong door and was greeted - after about a 5-minute wait - by an elderly lady in a wheelchair. I felt bad and apologized profusely for bothering her. "oh, you are not a bother at all!" she said. "you are beautiful!"

the potluck, which I did eventually find, was held at the home of a friend of a friend of a friend. and the house actually belongs to an elderly man who rents out a room to this third-removed friend. al, who is in his 70s, mingled seamlessly with the gaggle of 20- to 40-somethings who were at his home for the potluck.

with his 14-year-old chihuahua, lola, sitting on his lap, al told stories of his world travels, his artist friends, and his french wife, who died 6 years ago after their 40+ year marriage. he showed off his snapshots of wine-soaked dinners at french mansions, his ebony masks from his trips to africa, his ivory carvings. he's lived in the little house for over 50 years. he speaks french and I chatted with him a little in french, and I later talked to lola in french a bit, which seemed to amuse him.

as everyone was cleaning up and getting ready to leave, he stood in his little galley kitchen rinsing off a cake platter. "this was fun," he said. "my wife and I used to have people over for dinner all the time. please come again anytime. this is the first time I've had a dinner party since she passed away." I had to blink back tears.

there's something about the combination of being single and childless, living in a hot climate, and living in a downtown area close to everything that has a tendency to make life wonderfully fun and free.

most of my friends, and the places we like to go, are within a 10-minute drive. I'm always able to dart here and there at a moment's notice after throwing on a T-shirt and flip-flops. no pre-planning is necessary. there are no logistical ordeals. nothing is weighing me down (other than some very cute doggies who need love, food and walks).

I LOVE that freedom and I'm so grateful for it. life is good!

off to a birthday celebration and then to a potluck!

Four of my Facebook friends have lost their pets in the past week. Another friend has a dog at death's door. And my Honey is going downhill rapidly. What is going on???

*******

Unrelated to pets, things are often not what they seem.

*******

Unrelated to pets and to things not being what they seem, a conflict this week with a friend has reminded me that I can be kind of arrogant sometimes.

********

Unrelated to pets, things not being what they seem, and conflicts that highlight my foibles, do you ever get the eerie feeling that you should have met someone years and years earlier? Especially when you just missed each other at a ridiculous number of crossroads? Do you ever feel like the universe is sometimes gently snickering at you behind your back? Not to be cruel, but just because the universe likes a good practical joke as much as the next person?

Discuss.

tonight as I was walking the dogs I came across a landlord standing on the sidewalk in front of his "FOR RENT" house, trying to sell a young college-student-ish man on the property.

they both stopped talking as I approached, perhaps stunned by the sheer volume of dog I was steering, and turned to stare.

then I realized the landlord was staring not at my dogs, but at my chest (at what, I don't know).

"... and GREAT neighbors!" he said in a goofy, exaggerated way to his prospective tenant.

I ignored him but smiled at the young kid, always happy to have anyone who's not a prostitute, alcoholic or drug addict move onto my street.

btw I know you can't tell by looking at someone whether or not they are a prostitute, alcoholic or drug addict OK yeah I am a horrible stereotyper but it did make a rather nice ending to my tiny anecdote, didn't it?

Angelica and I went to Boynton to get manicures and pedicures. The reason we went all the way down there was because I had to swing by Total Wine to get something for our upcoming wine-tasting, and ABC Liquor, which I can see from my house, wasn't going to cut it anymore.

I'd called around to find a salon that was open in that area on Easter Sunday, which wasn't easy. Finally I found a place, Victoria Salon on Boynton Beach Boulevard.

I will not go to expensive places to get my nails done, but the level of customer service Angelica and I experienced at this cut-rate shop in a sleepy strip mall was impressive. My man scrutinized my every toe and fingertip as if each were a work of art that he was carefully putting the finishing touches on. And I don't even get nail polish, I just get my nails buffed shiny. Angelica walked out with sparkly red on her fingers and toes. It was cheap, the place was really clean, and we once again had pretty hands and feet.

While I was waiting for Angelica to dry I walked down to a pizza store to get an iced tea. Thanks to the yummy smell in this pizza shop, Vito's Pizza, I found myself ordering a personal-size pizza for myself to eat later, LOL (no cheese, of course!). The employee said it would take 12 minutes to cook, and he let me leave with my unpaid-for ice tea. The pizza, which I ate later at home, was really delicious and the men who worked in the store were very nice.

Finally Angelica and I went to Total Wine. OMG, it was like Disney for adults. I had never seen so much wine in one place. The store takes up a whole city block. Once again, I was surprised to find something open on Easter Sunday. And I was also again pleasantly surprised to find a clerk so friendly and eager to help Angelica and me. I handed him the printout of the e-mail instructing me what kind of wine to get, which was pretty detailed (it had to be a specific type of wine from a very specific region, and it had to cost at least $15). This clerk not only hunted and hunted all over the entire store for this wine, but he seemed happy to do so. He didn't try to steer me to expensive wines. And he let me and Angelica taste a wine and even asked for my ID, ROFL. As we left, he gave us his card and urged us to return our wines if we weren't happy with them.

Could it be customer service is returning? Or did Angelica and I happen across three flukes in a row?

from our story of the day...

Thomas would come home from work and watch hours of uneventful footage (though she did catch her dogs jumping on the sofa). She stopped watching the footage for a while.

But on Wednesday morning, she logged onto the system from her office at Kaiser University in Fort Lauderdale.

"It was the strangest feeling," said Thomas, 53. "I had a feeling something wasn't right. When I went on, I saw a person standing in my house."

how on earth to do you explain why this happens? it happens to me a lot. I'll get a feeling about something, and it turns out I'm right. like a tingly spidey sense. my mom has the same thing. (I grew up thinking it was normal for adults to know who was going to be on the phone when it rang, before picking up.)

as I walked into work this morning the breaking news reporter, who goes to first appearance at the courthouse each day, was sprinting into the building. he dashed ahead of me into the front door, crossed the lobby within seconds, slammed open the stairwell door and sprinted up the stairs to the newsroom.

"must be a big story," I commented to the security guard sitting at his station in the lobby, as I traced the reporter's path in a much more leisurely fashion.

"yeaaaaah, must be," the security guard responded in a thoughtful drawl. he paused for a few beats, then he added: "either that, or he's on something."