Giant Dwarf vs. Internet Cafe

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Are you fucking kidding me?  Here’s how my day goes today:  I wake up early, do my stupid physical therapy exercises which are not providing much improvement, go to Physical Therapy where I’m given even more exercises which may have minimal effect and then I go home, put on some make-up so I don’t look like a total slacker and then head to lunch with a former intern who was in need of a bit of support.

THEN…..I muster up all my strength and resolve to change clothes again and get the hell out of the house so I can work on a stupid presentation on child abuse that I never wanted to do in the first place but I’m doing it because I need to do things that make me look good at my job.  My intention was to go to the library, where people really want to get work done (or at least stay out of the sun until the shelter re-opens for the night) but I forgot it is President’s Day (!!!!) so I packed up my computer in my backpack and walked to the closest café.  I like this café, it has good coffee, but it is littered with pretentious assholes like me working on their computers and never leaving their tables. 

I order my coffee and even find a table near an outlet, which is a total bonus since my laptop is considered elderly at only 5 years old and the battery dies after about 10 minutes of use.  I plug in, enter the password for the wifi and…..it doesn’t work.  I try multiple variations of the password, finally get on, but now there’s some other kind of trouble, the kind I can only diagnose with a degree in IT or if I were 8 years old.  I am so freakin’ annoyed because the only thing I can do right now is to create a Word document, so that is why I am writing a blog entry because I need to do SOMETHING while I have this massive laptop plugged in in front of me with a giant cup of café au lait right next to it.

So I tried to make the best of it and do the research from my phone instead.  But as I started doing my google search, in came rapid fire texts from my husband and my work supervisor.  Had my laptop internet connection worked, my phone would have been safely hidden in my bag, allowing me to ignore any incoming missive until I deigned to look at it on my own volition.   So now I can’t even research on the tiny internet screen next to my giant laptop screen because everyone feels the need to contact me just at this moment.

I’m done.  You may not enjoy this Giant Dwarf entry but I needed to vent.  Hope you at least liked the photo.  And to Café Bolivar, THANKS FOR NOTHING!

Or should I say....¡GRACIAS POR NADA!

Giant Dwarf and the Great Kindle Mystery

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I blame my work schedule.  Really, I do.  It’s because I don’t work the same days every week and I get all discombobulated and can’t remember which day it is on any given day.  It’s because I don’t have a normal 9-5, Monday through Friday schedule and therefore cannot be a creature of routine.  That’s why.

That’s why I can’t find my Kindle.

There are a lot of other things to blame on my schedule, but let’s focus on this one.  I last saw my Kindle on Sunday – Superbowl Sunday, to be exact – which was my last day of work before today.  I was eating lunch in the breakroom, sometime around 12:30 in the afternoon, a good THREE HOURS before the Superbowl.  As is my habit when I “dine alone,” I bring a book and in this case it was my Kindle Paperwhite 2013 (which I highly recommend).  I remember being horrified that there was pre- pre-Superbowl coverage on the TV in the breakroom, and I remember checking my smart phone for lord knows what on Facebook and I remember that I didn’t actually read my Kindle at all during lunch.

And that’s the last time I remember seeing it.  I was so distracted by my perceived meaninglessness of the pre- pre-Superbowl programming that I can’t remember what happened to the Kindle after that.

But I didn’t yet register that.  I had the next two days off and spent my valuable time running errands with the Spazz and taking the Beast to the vet.  I woke up extra early this morning and was still late getting out the door (okay, obviously I do have some routine….I am routinely leaving home later than I should for work).  I ran to get my Kindle from it’s place on my night table and IT WASN’T THERE!

I did a quick toss-up of areas in my home frequented by the Kindle, then hustled out the door.  As soon as I got to work, I asked my coworker (who was there with me on Sunday) whether she had seen my Kindle.  She had not.  Desperate to continue reading my Lena Dunham memoir, I composed an email to the entire Emergency Department staff, asking if they had seen my Kindle.

Yes, I felt like an asshole.  Most staff-wide emails about lost items are for finding misplaced stethoscopes.  I’m looking for a Kindle.

No bites all day.  I go home and ask Spazz if he’s seen it.  He remembers the last time he saw it being several days before my last sighting, so that’s no help.  But Spazz and I proceed to search the apartment again, and he even goes down to the garage to search my car.

At this point I think it is gone forever, so I load the Kindle app on my smart phone and open Dunham’s book.  I go to the kitchen to do some dishes and at one point I turn around, and there’s the Kindle on the kitchen counter.  Now, I know it wasn’t there ten minutes ago, so I look at Spazz.  He looks at me with a smile on his face.

“Where was it?”

He is super-amused and very self-satisfied.  “It was on your night table.” 

“No it wasn’t!  I looked.”

Spazz took me into our bedroom to show me exactly where he found it.  Rather than it’s usual place on the lower right corner, I had, for some unknown reason, placed it under some items in the upper left corner.  So I am a creature of routine after all…..I didn’t even think to look for it there.  We are talking about a maybe 18 square inch surface, by the way.

Email to the Emergency Department staff the following day:

“Kindle found.  Crisis averted.  Thank you.”

Giant Dwarf vs Punxsutawney Phil

Punxsutawney Phil Sees Shadow, Predicts Six More Weeks of Winter

Well, sometimes writer's block sets in and you have to take suggestions from your audience.  So thanks, JL, for throwing this one at me.  The fact is, I've had a fascination with Groundhog Day since I was a kid.  My father's birthday and Groundhog Day fall within a few days of each other so that piqued my interest.  Also, as an animal lover, I was entranced by a groundhog who could predict the weather.

I was always a logical kid, but I also loved ritual and the yearly showing of the enormous rodent was fun to me.  I never understood the idea of his shadow being the predictor since I always figured they'd brought him out in broad daylight and of course he'd see a shadow.  Which made me always suspect that the whole thing was just a fun way to tell you that you were going to freeze your ass off for the next six weeks, no matter what.

It wasn't lost on me, either, that the whole thing took place in Pennsylvania, in the same state I lived in, but in a whole other world.  I'm sure the last thing my parents wanted to do was take a 270 mile road trip in the middle of winter to watch a just-awakened groundhog tell us all what we already knew.  But the idea that it was happening in my home state was another source of pride for me.

So Punxsutawney Phil was dragged out of his hole again today and predicted another six weeks of winter.  This means nothing to me now in Southern California.  It was a gorgeous 70 degrees today, which we enjoyed by eating our breakfast on our porch at our bistro table.

The closest thing I have to a groundhog here in LA is a 13 pound black cat who predicted a certain chill in feline-human relations today by hiding behind the couch for 8 hours straight.