Not A Dollarshort

Stop it.

Motherf'er, I hate earthquakes.

Okay, say you're in an apartment -- the top of three stories -- in the Outer Richmond (formerly known as The Great Sand Waste). Do you stay inside or run outside?

I need to know these things.

Survey Says.

Last night it occurred to me that I may be watching way too much of the Gameshow Network.

While lying in bed, casually discussing the highs and lows of my day, I mentioned to Ben that "Allen" was once again on Press Your Luck.

This, by the way, was a low.

Mena: God, I hate Allen.

Ben: Who?

Mena: That guy on Press Your Luck who makes all those noises of glee while winning. He makes me so angry. He's such a smug bastard.

As we discussed the personality flaws of Allen, I explained to Ben that I discovered today that the Gameshow Network plays episodes in order of broadcast. And, today, while laying on my almost comfortable couch, I came to the realization that, yes, I am truly pathetic.

The actual thought:

"When the Family Feud's Richard Dawson comments about a past family or a joke from an earlier episode -- and I actually REMEMBER the joke or family -- it's time to turn the television off."

Happy people are boring.

I'm not the most uplifting person.

Actually, I'm a bit of a pessimist, a chronic worrier who spends a great deal of my life belting out complaints and sighs at equally annoying rates.

So, it amazes me when I consider how frightefully cheery I have become since we've moved to San Francisco.

Cheery is relative, of course.

Most everyone I come in contact with will hear me issue a standard spiel about how much I love living in The City. I love the dining options, the Park, the Beach. And, oddly, the bus.

That is, when the bus comes within twenty-minutes of its estimated time of arrival. Or, when I board the correct #38 -- the one that takes me to my apartment rather than Ocean Beach.

It took a while, but I learned that it's important to read the destination on the front of bus.

I'm learning to like walking. I'm learning to tolerate the hills surrounding our neighborhood. And, most importantly, I'm regaining the independence that I loss somewhere between high school and marriage.

Taking the bus by myself is a big step. Going to Aaron Brothers to pick up a 56x16 picture frame (which cost more than the print) and riding the bus by myself is an enormous step.

Now, you're probably thinking that I'm a terribly stunted person. I mean, what kind of person pats herself on the back for riding a bus?

To which I respond, don't bring me down, mofo. I'm making progress and I'm queen of the mountain (or queen of the rather step hill we live on).

The "Queen of the Mountain" phrase, by the way, was a catchphrase of mine as a child. We had a very tiny tiny hill on our lawn -- probably unperceptable to anyone without child eyes -- which I would stand on when I was feeling particularly happy.

I haven't thought of that memory in probably 15 years.

This weekend continued our embracing the city streak.

On Saturday, we walked on the Coastal Trail which leads to the Legion of Honor. At the Legion of Honor, I picked up volunteer forms and we signed up for membership.

Later that night, we met up with Scott and Megan and dined at The Tonga Room in the Fairmont Hotel. A bit pricey, but still a good time. Some drink pictures: 1, 2, 3 and a picture of it raining inside the restaurant.

Sidenote: A complete coincidence, I had an email waiting for me when we returned from The Tonga Room. It was from my dad and was a link to this menu from The Tahitian Terrace at Disneyland. After The Tonga Room and that, I really was feeling the urge to take a Disneyland road trip.

On Sunday, my mother drove up from Sonoma to deliver our bicycles.

Since it is my new mission to melt away her hatred of San Francisco, Ben and I took her (via the bus, no less) to the lovely Queen Wilhelmina Tulip Garden at Golden Gate Park where, amidst the flowers, the Greater Bay Area Costumer's Guild were gathering for their Dutch Painters' picnic.

Now if I go on with this description of my weekend adventures, I'm afraid that a blue jay is going to land on my shoulder and begin singing.

Believe me, I think grumpy, neurotic Mena is more interesting too.

I have a way with words.

I've got, and I use this term loosely, writer's block.

Actually, the exact phrasing I used today is "my blogging teat has been sucked dry."

Ben told me not to post that sentence since he found it disgusting and proof that not all things said aloud should be posted.

True.

In other news, Wednesday was the one-year anniversary of dollarshort.

And, like some preoccupied husband/wife, I forget to send roses. Or rather, I didn't bother to commemorate the occasion with a post.

However, my dear pal, Paul, remembered -- on his own, no less.

So normal, it's weird.

I have a horrible habit of inciting all sorts of familial rumbles on holidays.

Take last year's Easter celebration.

Or the Easter before that, when, with one little benign (but smartass) comment, I managed to anger my father-in-law to the point where he felt that storming out of the house and driving away was the only solution.

Gosh, I love the holidays.

So, it is simply remarkable that this past holiday weekend was not only crisis-free but also, dare I say it, pleasant.

My father drove my grandparents up from Los Angeles since their health and age prevents them from making the drive themselves. And, Ben and I managed to share the weekend in such a way that we felt both of our families were being well-represented.

At one point, when my mother, Ben and I were playing frisbee in her warm and sunny Sonoma County backyard, I wondered when the pod people had stepped in.

There were dogs a plenty, pretty flowers and even a singing bird.

Sidenote: In true Grabowski spirit, my family's parrot (a mitred conure) sings three songs: Cool Water, Skinnamarink-y dinky-dink, and the theme from the Pirates of the Carribean.

Now, here comes the part filled with Catholic guilt:

Of course, I still feel guilty for not attending Easter mass. This was the first time that Ben or I have missed a hard-core holiday church service.

We tried to justify our absence by saying it was a protest over the way the Catholic Church is handling the recent scandals.

But really, we were just feeling lazy.

Still, for someone who went through 14 years of Catholic school, I fear that my payback for missing church is a-comin'.

Let's just hope that God's wrath was wrought when, after an hour and a half of play, our game of Oregon Trail crashed.

We had just reached the homestretch and my character had already survived a snake bite, two gun-shots, and a nasty infection!

Yes, let's hope that was our punishment.

Earth Angel.

This, I promise, will be my last Back to the Future reference for a while.

Do you remember the scene where Marty's playing guitar at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance and he's fading fast because his parents haven't yet kissed?

And, you know how after they kiss, Marty perks up and is revitalized with a new breath of existence?

Well, a modified version of that scene was played out in our apartment last night with the installation of our DSL.

Within a matter of moments, we went from dial-up burnouts (Ben and I have been sharing one phone line since we moved) to reinvigorated Internet codependents.

With the installation of DSL, the release of Movable Type 2.0 and the unpacking of our apartment finally behind us, I will finally have the time to post more regularly.

And perhaps A Day Late will cease to be about twenty-nine days late.

Once again, those who can't...

Out of the seventy photographs I took at SXSW, only about seven turned out to be any good.

Considering that I have a digital camera which allows me to preview and keep the half-way decent photographs, this ratio indicates that I need to learn how to work my camera.

I have a sneaking suspicion that having accidentally switched on the macro setting didn't help bring out the photographic genius in me.

But it gets better!

The seven photographs that actually turned out to be passable should be part of an exhibit called "The Narcissistic Photographer and Her Husband."

Why?

Well, because out of these seven photographs, four of them contain either Ben or myself. 1 2 3 4

The other three? A dog at a restaurant, my award (continuing on the narcissist theme), and, breaking with tradition, a shot of people other than ourselves -- in this case, a photo of The King of Pop and Cam.

Incidentally, the photo of Anil and Cam was the last picture I took while in Austin.

Perhaps if I stayed for the music portion of the festival, I would have some really great shots.

Humidity makes life more difficult.

I'm delighted to say that we're safe and sound and in the comfortable Omni in Austin, Texas.

An observation from the weary traveler:

I have never really known what people meant when they say California has a "dry heat." I know now. We walked to the convention center to register for the conference and I nearly passed out in the street.

Perhaps it isn't just the heat -- perhaps it has something to do with the fact we've been up since 3:00 am and have consumed an obscene number of donut stix and Starbust lolipops.

Question: Why do my hands feel so dirty? I keep on washing them and using anti-bacterial towlettes but can't shake this grimy feeling. Let me guess -- it's the humidity letting me know who's boss.

Cry Me a River.

It wasn't easy, but I believe that this move may have actually broken my will, soul or any part of my psyche which allows me to function on a daily level.

Well, maybe it was easy, since a task like making toast can send me into a crying fit.

So, there's the couch. It was only a year old and we loved it. It was comfortable, large and relatively inexpensive. We based our entire living room around that couch.

It didn't fit up the stairs on the day of the move so the movers returned with two more guys to hoist it up the balcony.

Two hours and two hundred dollars later, the couch was jammed in our bedroom doorway. Fifteen minutes later, our best couch ever was on the road back to Petaluma -- to Ben's parents' house.

I know what you're thinking. "So, your couch doesn't fit? Get over it!"

And I say, I can't help but sweat the small stuff. Add enough small stuff together and you get really large stuff.

Large stuff like my fear of flying.

We leave for Texas tomorrow morning. And, my fears (and nightmares) have become so distracting and tormenting that I actually tried to cancel our trip yesterday.

I've reached the point where instead of saying "we're flying for Texas on Friday," I say "God willing, we won't die on Friday."

On the bright side, I have discovered a whole set of new time-wasting activities. These include:

1. Staring.

2. Pacing.

3. Rocking.

4. Kicking moving boxes.

I'm a bundle of fun.

Reflections on the move.

Last night Ben and I sort of reached the zombie stage of moving -- our bodies continued to move boxes and hang up clothes despite the fact that our minds were spending 80% of their processing capabilities trying to figure out just where the heck we actually were.

Sore arms and sore legs prove that we've actually made a dent in moving -- well, actually, we've made more than a dent since this morning we woke up in San Francisco.

Now, we're back in Petaluma picking up the last of our things and cleaning the rest of the house. And, as I sit on my G4 writing this entry, I wonder just when we'll have our DSL connection up and running in the apartment. Considering that they won't even let us make an appointment yet, I'm thinking that it will be a while.

Bad things about the move:

1. Our movers couldn't get our couch up the stairs to our apartment. We're couchless, basically. The movers are coming back this week with three more guys and they're going to try to hoist it up two and half stories.

2. We've gone from 2 1/2 baths to one quite small one. Perhaps this isn't so much a bad thing but more a wake up call that says "hey guys, you know what? Each of you don't need your own full bathroom."

3. We're a bit scared to venture out of the apartment. That will pass.

Good things about the move:

1. The kitchen is almost as big as our old kitchen and I'm almost finished unpacking that room.

2. It's quiet in the apartment. Since we're on Clement, I feared that the traffic would keep us up all night. I barely heard a car pass last night.

3. The creepiness of living in a new place has already worn off.

4. We feel like we're on vacation. This too, will pass. But, it's quite fun waking up and feeling like you've just began a new adventure.