Beans for Breakfast

There are a lot of crows hanging out in the park across the street these days. There are always a few around, but there’re more than usual, a few dozen at least.

Every few months in the building’s board of directors meeting minutes, there’s an item that says something along the lines of, X board member suggested that we remind Tom not to feed the birds near the building. The bird droppings cause damage to the garden. When confronted at house meetings, Tom always says that he now crosses the street to feed the birds. It’s true, I see him every couple of weeks headed for the park, scattering bird feed, chomping on a big cigar.

Seva & I once tried to predict an earthquake based on crow behavior. I told him that a crow had been stalking me for several blocks – it would fly out ahead of me & wait in a tree or powerline half a block away, wait for me to pass, cackle, then fly ahead of me again. He said that, the day before, a crow had taken a swipe at him – it flew down & grazed his hair. This, we decided, was a sure sign of impending earthquake (didn’t happen, of course).

Letter found plastered to the sidewalk, on Denny:

Jill,
This is the note that I am writing to you in advance but might give to you if I ever hapen to see you and remember. The setting is the DMV in Burlington on N. Ave and the point of this is to say that this place is very weird. One day you might be in a DMV and when you do you will realize that it is very weird. No questions about it. Strangely damp but very clean. The color-quordination is surprisingly on key. Strange scent though slightly plastic. Not very clean though. The new chairs and fresh painted walls give it the apearance of throughly scrubed surfaces. How lovely I fear I may go crazy if I stay here any longer. OH, it’s hapening . . . . it’s hapening . . . the crazy bliss I will find in insanity. OH such lucky bliss.

dont get me wrong. I love red carpets but this is just way too much. Out of hand aligator scales. So write your take on the situation right here on this pink slip of paper. Yep. That one, you know you see it. Don’t tell me you don’t. I want it all. All the info. give me the stats, the works. Hold nothing back.

Go to Struat.com & vote on “Which NFL playoff team has the best chance of winning the World Series?”

??

Would you hire someone who says: “I’d like to expand my understanding of work in a technical capacity in a low-key environment that will allow me to expand my understanding.” It’s from my resumé, whoops.

Should I believe the Inverness bus tour guide who says, The stairs that lead straight into the river were there for people who couldn’t pay the toll when there was only one bridge in town.

Somehow I’d been skeptical ever since, instead of admitting that he’d forgotten its name, the Haggis driver said that a castle we were passing by was called Castle Greyskull. Strangely I wasn’t as skeptical about his Loch Ness Monster sighting.

And a tangent regarding the Inverness tour: As I was getting on the bus, I noticed a banner in the £-Busters window that may have been in bad taste. The slogan printed on the banner: “Big Clearance On Now!”

There have been at least three broken glass incidents in the last couple of months & I’m still finding little bits of glass occasionally – though they keep getting smaller & smaller. I catch them out of the corner of my eye sparkling on the floor & lean in to investigate. I haven’t had the misfortune of finding any with my bare feet.

Chris P asks: “Where does the truth end and the story begin?”

12/12 – True, but 2 corrections:
Capitol Hill is spelled with an “o”.
The part about buying donuts has been shortened for length. The donuts had just been delivered. They hadn’t been shelved yet & I had to seek permission to pick through the delivery carts.

12/10 – 100%: Gaelic speaking, Pokémon playing Boy Scouts. Say it with me.

12/9 afternoon – True enough: It happened way back when-ish. I had to fill in a couple of gaps in my memory.

12/9 early – True & fresh. But not as clear or precise as “Gaelic speaking, Pokémon playing Boy Scouts”. (Maybe I’ll get some search engine hits with that phrase.)

12/7 – The proof is in the pudding.

12/6 – He’s for real. The dates are probably off.

12/3 – 100% dream.

12/1 – Real.

11/30 – True, but don’t tell mom.

Back on schedule tomorrow.

We’re going to work to monitor a big system rollover early one balmy Sunday morning. Victoria drives up to Capital Hill & picks up Karen & me. We stop at QFC & I buy a dozen donuts. We get back into the car & head for work. We park & head for the door of the big tall office building. For reasons that are no longer clear to me, I’m carrying a PC with my donuts. We approach the door & see sleep-deprived Yiran waiting for us inside, talking to the security guard. Rather than putting down the armload of hardware & donuts, finding my keycard, & pressing it against the keycard-device – I gesture to Yiran – indicating that he should hit the unlock button on his side of the door. He nods his head, reaches over, passes right by the button & pulls the fire alarm.

Less than five minutes later, a fire truck pulls up in front of the building. Two firefighters (reflective jackets, classic fireman hats, & suspenders) step inside, wipe the sleep out of their eyes, & find the five of us (Yiran, Victoria, Karen, the security guard, & me) eating donuts & listening to the fire alarm. No visible smoke, toxic spill, or cat in a tree. Yiran & the security guard apologize sheepishly. The security guard leads the firefighters to a back room, where they turn off the fire alarm. As the firefighters head back to the truck, I offer them donuts – but they decline.

The four of us bid the security guard farewell & head up to the 29th floor for the system changes.

August 4, 2000 11:37 Edinburgh to Glasgow train: Shortly before we leave the station, a couple of dozen Boy Scouts rush in, squeeze their backpacks into the overhead luggage racks, & fill all of the empty seats. They’re speaking in Gaelic. A group of scouts score the two pairs of seats with the table & do what any self-respecting Gaelic-speaking youths would do after a week of hoofing through the heather – they whip out a deck of cards & play Pokémon.

Walking home from a show, I turn onto Denny & find myself in the middle of a couple of dozen punks loitering outside Hamburger Mary’s. I continue up the hill, but before I even get to the curb a pair of police cars with lights flashing turns a corner. Everyone scatters – walking or running in different directions. A handful of kids are walking up Denny with me.

A guy with red spikey-hair whose keeping pace with me, gives me a quick up-and-down & says “How you doing?” uncertainly.

I’m semi-camouflaged into the group – shaved head, black jeans, ragged black Animal from the Muppets t-shirt, but no visible scabs or jewelry. “I’m good.”

He still looks at me a little uneasily, I’m not pulling it off, so I offer up a, “What’s going on back there?”

“There was this show at Hamburger Mary’s. But they realized that a lot of us were getting in with fake IDs & they canceled the show.”

We continue walking up Denny, me & the rest of the punks. The others turn onto Broadway & head for Dick’s. I stay on Denny & walk home.