Life's Too Short To Eat Bad Chocolate

Partner bought boxes of chocolates to give as gifts to the neighbors and my folks. The boxes look fancy, with the sophisticated-sounding name "Haviland." However, also printed on the box in smaller letters is the name Necco. Anyone familiar with Valentine's Day candy is familiar with the name of Necco. That is the company - based in Massachusetts, by the way - which makes all those heart-shaped candies with little sayings printed on them. Now, anyone who has tasted those littles candies - or anyone who has tasted Necco wafers - will know that the company is not really known for its quality. After all, who among us has popped one of those hearts in our mouth and marveled at how wonderful they tasted? I'm willing to bet: no one. The only reason why anyone chooses to buy them is for the novelty of the sayings, not for the flavor of the confectionery.

With that in mind, we opened one of the smaller boxes of chocolates to try. Sure enough...bland. The chocolate does not taste special in any way, and the fillings taste like they're not made with any natural ingredients at all. My advice: avoid the Havilands. They are not worth the cheap price you pay. Better to pay more and get better chocolates, I'd say, especially if they're gifts.

If Necco wants to do itself a favor, they should spring for better ingredients and hire a confectioner who knows what s/he is doing.

Murder on the Bay Bridge

Partner and I went out last night to the Fox and had dinner with a couple of friends. One of them clearly had a cold (or at least showed signs of having a cold), but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Why would he be out if he knew he were contagious? Today, I feel a cold coming on. Damn him!

In the last few days I've been adding the images of cd covers to my iTunes. I used to have them all, but between my iPod dying awhile back and my computer dying more recently, I'd lost most of the images. Now I've got almost all of them done in my computer, but I'm missing a few that I just can't find doing a Google Images search. A couple of them I understand why: they're most likely bootleg editions of cd's that I bought in Japan. However, one is really puzzling to me. I have a compilation cd called "Sixties Girls" from a UK label called Crimson Productions, and for the life of me I just can't seem to find an image of it anywhere. Except for a couple of mentions I've found, it's like it doesn't even exist. This wouldn't be quite so vexing to me except for the fact that my iPod has the image, which means that I obviously found it before. Ugh!

Partner and I spent Thanksgiving week in California. As we usually do, we flew into Sacramento (a lovely, small airport) and rented a car. We spent the first part of the week at his cabin in the foothills of the Sierras. We did this so we could visit his ailing sister in Gridley, which is only about 45 minutes away. Other than that, we spent most of our time watching Firefly on dvd. Thanksgiving day we met up with his sister at their second-cousin's house not too far from the cabin. Even though the cousins live fairly close, they don't get to see Partner's sister very often; in fact, they hadn't seen Partner in 38 years! So, even though they were technically "family" for Partner, it was really as if they were strangers. I've told lots of people this already, but it felt as if we picked a house at random, walked in and told them we were there to celebrate Thanksgiving. All in all, the family was rather nice, and they provided us with good food and wine, so you won't hear any complaints from me. At least, not about that.

As soon as we finished eating, Partner and I drove down to San Francisco. I made Partner drive because he knows the city better, but I forgot that it takes almost 3 hours to get there. I felt bad about him driving all that way, but ultimately I'm glad it wasn't me. When we got to the Bay Bridge, they didn't have enough toll booths open for the number of cars trying to make it into the city. The worst part is, they had a terrible system for the traffic lanes, and by the time we made it through the tolls, I was ready to KILL.

Here's the sitch: some of the booths take cash, and above them is a green light. The booths that were closed had a red light, and the booths that just took the electronic payment had no light at all. We were on the right side of the highway as we approached the tolls, and ahead of us we could see one or two green lights on the far right, three red lights to the left of them, one green next to that, then a whole series of no lights in the middle, then one or two more greens on the far left. We obviously couldn't get to the left from where we were (even though that traffic appeared to be moving), and we didn't have the transponder to pay electronically. Instead of moving all the way to the far right, we somehow ended up in the line for that isolated green between the closed lanes and the speeding lanes for no cash. And that, as it turned out, was the worst lane of all.

What happens on the Bay Bridge is this: the non-cash lines are usually wide open, so people speed up to them and pass through. When there is a cash-only lane next to the non-cash lanes (which was the line we were in), ASSHOLES will speed down the non-cash lanes and then try to merge into the cash-only lane at the last minute. This causes problems for the people in the non-cash lanes because they suddenly have to slow down or stop while waiting for the ASSHOLES to merge. This also causes a problem for the people in the cash-only lane because they've been waiting in line like they should, only to be "cut off" by the ASSHOLES who skipped the line. It is so aggravating that some people who are waiting in line are tempted to leave the line and either drive across speeding traffic to get to the left, or they skip a few cars and merge back into the line they just left. This actually happened a few cars in front of us, except that when the car left our line, it collided with an approaching car that was speeding down the non-cash lane. It wasn't a bad accident, but it clearly showed what happens to people when they're stuck in a bad situation.

What was worse for us that night: because we were in a line that had the non-cash lanes to our left and closed lanes to our right, we had people skipping ahead on both sides and trying to merge into our lane. Partner is a patient man and didn't seem to notice, but I was a complete wreck. There were times when we weren't moving at all because people who came from behind us got in our line ahead of us. Believe me, if I had had a gun that night, there would've been some casualties! It was so bad, that I was thinking that I never wanted to visit San Francisco again; nothing in the city could be worth what we had to put up with that night. (Believe it or not, I can feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it, and it happened more than a week ago.)

I have to say, the rest of the long weekend in the city was nice, but it may have been all the Capt Morgan's Rum I had to drink to help forget about the bridge. A highlight was seeing my cousin and his fiancée at their new apartment and eating a home-made meal of salmon and rice. Except for the Thanksgiving dinner, that was about the only time we've gotten to eat a home-made meal while traveling. Another highlight was spending Saturday afternoon in Berkeley; yes, we had to brave the bridge again, but this time we only had to deal with blustery winds. And the afternoon activities made it totally worth it. After the winds blew through, San Francisco experienced beautiful, summer-like weather, so we were definitely spoiled the rest of our time there.

Since returning home, I've decided to give up drinking for awhile. The skin on my cheeks is really red, so I'm thinking it might be good to detox for a little bit. I'll have plenty of time to "retox" once we go to New Orleans for Xmas and New Years.

Lately Partner has had to deal with a troubling woman. In describing her to me, he said,"She looks like she got her pussy caught in a toaster." Brilliant!

Screenplay Away!

Clearly it does take me a long time in between posts, so I'm no longer surprised.

Actually, I haven't written in days because I am now earnestly working on a screenplay. I got the idea and started it months ago, but I hit a snag with the plot. Then, of course, was the whole drama with my computer. Luckily, I was able to copy what little I had produced on to my other laptop, so now that I've resolved the problem, I'm able to begin again. I don't have the screenplay format yet, but I'm barreling ahead just so I can get all the words out. Later I'll go back and put in more of the directions and in the proper format.

I'm not going to say what it's about, but I will say that it's a gay horror/comedy, or something like that...

Odds and Ends

I can't believe it's been so long since I last posted. So much going on...why haven't I written any of it down?

Before the rain kicked in a few weeks ago, we finished painting the outside of the house and built a trellis-type screen for the deck. Partner did a beautiful job, it's just too bad that we won't really be able to use the deck for a few months. He and I are similar that way: we eventually get around to doing what we want/need to, it just might take longer than it should. Now we've got a contractor working on a small extension to the house, and when he's finished with that he'll put in the new windows. Again, not the best timing (we should've hired him and got this done earlier in the year when it was warmer), but hopefully everything will be done before we go to CA for Thanksgiving.

Our big travel plans will be for Xmas - New Year's when we go to New Orleans. A few years ago we met a couple of guys who own a B&B down there, so we're staying with them. It should be a blast. Hopefully we'll get to see my family in February when everyone meets up in Orlando during the kids' spring break. It'll be wonderful to see Disney World through their eyes.

Lately I've lost one of my volunteer jobs. I was volunteering on Wednesdays at EarthShare to help out a friend, but that friend got unexpectedly fired. Needless to say I was conflicted: I wanted to be loyal to the friend and stop working, but I also believe in the mission and wanted to continue helping. I opted to stop, primarily because of the house painting and because going downtown was a bit of a pain. Mainly, though, it was because I found out the director wasn't treating me right. My friend took me out to lunch almost every time I was there, and I assumed that he was getting at least partially reimbursed; after all, my work helped the company, not just him. After he got fired I asked him point-blank if the director ever volunteered to help pay for my lunch, but he said no. I know it might sound a bit petty, but really it's a bigger issue: why didn't the director realize that she should make even a small gesture to thank someone who was donating his time and energy (and train fare) to help her out?

I always assumed that people who work for non-profit, charitable organizations must be that special kind of person who is nice, caring, generous and good-hearted. (I used to think that about public-school teachers too, but after having worked as a teacher, I realized that that was wrong.) I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised, then, when I learned that my assumption about non-profits was also wrong. The director of EarthShare, for example, not only never thought to say thank you to me by offering to buy lunch, but more importantly she fired my friend in a very discourteous way. Furthermore, while working at EarthShare, I learned that the local director for the United Way was also an ass. Who knew that the United Way would try to "muscle out" other charities? It sounds like the United Way mafia!

My other volunteer job is for the Feral Cat Coalition. I started by answering the phone one day a week and helping out in the clinic a couple of Fridays each month. I then agreed to help the volunteer coordinator by aiding her in scheduling the vets and techs for the clinics. A couple of weeks ago, she unexpectedly quit. (This actually followed a long-time volunteer who quit, but that was slightly less surprising since she was doing so much, burn-out was inevitable.) When we talked to her about why, she said it had somewhat to do with the other paid staff. Apparently, the director seems to be more concerned about raising money from the beautiful people of Portland than she does about making sure the volunteers (who run the clinics) are happy or respected. Again, I was conflicted because I work in the office and never had any trouble at all from the director, but I also like the volunteer coordinator and don't doubt that her opinion is valid. (I also heard horror stories about last year's charity ball, when the volunteers were treated very badly. Ugly.) And yet again, here is another person working for a non-profit, charitable organization whose behavior towards volunteers is at least questionable. So much for my idea about these people being saints!

With the volunteer coordinator stepping down, I've had to increase the number of vets/techs that I'm supposed to call in order to fill the clinics. I had no idea this job would take so much time! Getting vets and techs to agree to volunteer for the clinics is like - if you excuse the pun - herding cats. Quick example: yesterday morning I got an email from a vet asking if I received her email. I hadn't, so this email was a surprise. (Because this particular email went right to my inbox and even had her name correctly labeled, I assume that nothing went technically wrong with her previous email. I can only assume that I hadn't received it because something went wrong at her end...like maybe she never actually sent it.) Anyway, I replied to her that I hadn't received it. She wrote back last night saying that she could do a clinic on Nov 15th. I wrote back to her confirming that she was scheduled at such-and-such a time on that day. This morning she writes back saying she has a conflict on that day with one of her kid's activities and can't make it.

Huh? Didn't she know about that last night? Now I'm (sort of) sure everything she said was true, but it all seems vaguely suspicious and really just a waste of time.

I know I'm beating a dead horse, but I had really felt that people who volunteered to help an organization did so because they really wanted to help. It's just so unprofessional and discourteous when these same people can't be bothered to return an email or a phone message. I don't want to keep calling and become a pest; I'm not doing the organization or myself a service by doing that. Instead, I'd just like everyone to be courteous and professional. Is that too much to ask?

Red Sox Nation

In sports news: the Red Sox were swept from the play-offs. Good luck to any team trying to beat the dreaded Yanks. Say it with me, "Yankees suck! Yankees suck!" Thanks, I feel a bit better. In football news: the Pats lost. It was not a good weekend to be a Boston sports fan.

While I grew up playing sports - soccer, street hockey, a season of baseball, tennis, ping-pong, and a season of high school football - I was never a huge sports fan. I was never the kind of guy who could name players' stats, and I never had a poster of an athlete on my wall. I enjoy watching sports, but I don't know enough about any particular team, player or coach to support any other team but my "home" teams of New England. So even though I now live on the opposite coast, I still root for the Sox, Pats, Bruins and Celtics.

I care almost nothing for college- or high school-level sports and didn't while I was attending school, with the one exception being the ice hockey team of Boston College. It all started when a friend invited me to a hockey game while in my junior year. Up to that point I had been to several football games but had never attended a single other sports match. That year (1989-90) the BC Eagles were playing extremely well, and we were there amongst a sell-out crowd of boisterous (and probably drunk) co-eds all cheering on their team to victory. It was a great game, and it opened my eyes to how much fun I'd been missing by not attending those games. I don't think I made it to many more games that season, but I was there at every home game - and quite a few away games - during my senior year.

I was usually in attendance with my younger cousin Ray and his friend Jay. Jay was actually a year older than me and was originally friends with my older cousin, but Ray "inherited" him through their mutual love for sports. And, as it turned out, their mutual love for yelling highly-emotional and - at times - highly-inappropriate things at the games. I admit that my blood gets pumping when I watch sports, but the most I recall yelling was an extremely loud, "You got nothin!" at the opposing team. Ray, but Jay in particular, would yell things that embarrassed and sometimes even shocked me. The one example I can think of is when a player got hurt and was lying on the ice, Jay would yell, "Drag the body off the ice!" It was as if Jay had no sense of decorum, and nothing mattered but cheering the team on to a win...at any cost. In fact, if we called him on it, he would act as if we were at fault for being pussies. The other team was the ENEMY, and it was okay to wish - loudly - that they get hurt or worse. It was only a game? Not in Jay's book: it was life or death, and you were either with him or against him.

I bring this up, not because Jay was the exception, but because Jay's behavior foreshadowed what now seems to be the norm for life in America. We live in a country with two sides - the Republicans and the Democrats - and life is just one big sporting event. You are either on our side, or you're the ENEMY.

What if we have a problem that affects everyone like the environment or health care? Doesn't matter. If you're on the other side, I don't care what you have to say. In fact, I don't want you to even have the right to say it; I just want you to shut up. Anything you have to say will simply be wrong and probably hurtful to my side. "The Republicans suck! The Republicans suck!"

Politics has become sport, with the only losers being us, the public.

The house has officially been painted - or at least, the first coat. Partner had a plan to spackle the shingles which had been scraped to bare wood, but that didn't happen before the nice weather ended. If we get a couple of nice days in a row, he might still do it, but I'm betting that we're going to leave it the way it is through the winter. The colors look nice, and if you squint, it looks fine.

Painting the Dollhouse

Partner and I are finally getting home improvements started. This past week we officially hired a contractor who will replace all the windows and do a small addition on the back of the house. He will also put in some French doors so we can more easily get to the deck. This last improvement is part of Partner's master plan to make the deck into a nice place where we can host guests and not be embarrassed.

Most importantly, we have also started painting the outside of the house. Up till this week it's been a dingy yellow with peeling paint. Now it's a latte color (tan) with a soft, grayish-green trim around the windows and a dark brown/purple accent. (The actual name of the accent color is black bean, and it resembles that quite well; in the can it looks like a very dark purple - exactly like the liquid in a can of black beans. Once it dries, however, it's hard to tell if it's purple or brown.) Today I did the front door all in the accent color, so it really draws the eye - which is good considering the fact that the house looks like it has leprosy. Which is to say that, although Partner did an admirable job power-washing the walls and trying to remove the peeling paint, many of the shingles still have paint that is half hanging off. Where the peelings were taken off, those shingles still look kinda shabby under the one coat of tan. Our goal is to put primer on those shingles that are half-peeled then cover them with another coat of the tan. A couple of weeks ago I would've said that was a pipe dream, but considering all the hard work we've been doing lately, I'd say it's now a possibility. (Forgot to mention: we weren't able to do the best scraping job on the shingles because that dingy yellow paint is lead-based, and we don't want to release all that lead dust into the air. Partner has been doing a great job collecting all the shavings that have come off so far.) Tomorrow and Monday are supposed to be fairly nice days, so more painting for us!

I had a "two worlds collide" kind of moment this past week at EarthShare, the company I volunteer for. One of the gals who work in the office asked me - apropos of nothing - if I were a big Wonder Woman fan because there was going to be some kind of event happening at the Excalibur comic book store. I said, "No, but I bet I know the guy who's putting it on." Sure enough, a family acquaintance (not close enough to be called a "friend," really) Andy Mangels is running the show. Isn't it weird when two different parts of your life intersect like that? And by the way, who knew there were that many WW fans in Portland? And the most important question of all: why did Joss Whedon stop writing the script for the movie?

Speaking of Joss, we were at a friend's place the other night, and he showed us the unaired series finale of Dollhouse which came in the blue-ray dvd set. It was so good, I almost wish the series had ended just so more people could've gotten to see that episode. It was a great reminder at just how wonderful TV can be.