Friday, May 16, 2008

Country Mouse in the Big City

As promised, here is my follow-up regarding dinner Monday Night.

You will recall that I had a terrible day dealing with PG&E and my crying fit. Well, after they were all gone, I was feeling MUCH better and was bound and determined to enjoy my dinner at Sam's friend's, and now mine, Fabrice and Sophia's house in celebration of Fabrice's birthday. Sam and I decided that we would go in together and bring a nice bottle of wine, so she told me what kind to get and I went trekking through the 'hood to locate BevMo. It turns out BevMo is less than 2 miles from me, which I haven't decided if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I wander around BevMo with my note of the kind of French wine I am supposed to get, looking like a big dork, but not quite as crazy as the homeless guy getting the MadDog 20/20 who was the other customer at the time. I locate what I need, get a gift bag, pay, and head out for home.

After running home and changing into jeans and opting against the 4" killer boots for shoes that are slightly less dangerous, I played with my hair and all the various products that go in said hair (wax, paste, gunk, and clay). I then walked the short 5 blocks to Sam's house.

She and I determine that it is a lovely evening and that since Fabrice and Sophia are about 1.5 miles away, we'll just walk to there place. I mean, that is one of the benefits of living in the city, right? Neither of us considered the fact that we are living in a city of hills, and not your wimpy hillocks, HILLS. And, of course, our destination is at the top of one of these hills. About half-way through the walk Sam and I are kicking ourselves for not bringing along a cork screw because we were pretty certain that Fabrice really would understand if we cracked the bottle of wine before we actually go to their place....

Eventually we arrive at the summit. The other guests are arriving at about the same time, thank God they were all pretty much European and work on a different clock than my Midwestern upbringing which would have considered arriving for dinner at 8:30 as being very late and actually eating at 9:00 or later just crazy. There was wonderful jazz playing in the background and great wines being poured. Lot's of laughter and kisses and greetings, and all these people made me feel so very welcome in their world.

We sit down to dinner, which started with mussels and sausage, then moved to roasted lamb stuffed with goat cheese and basil (I think), and topped off with what I call a banana split birthday cake (banana cake, whipped cream, fresh strawberry all layered together). The wine continued to flow freely as did the conversation.

Most of the folks at the table are quite the world travelers, so they were all regaling one another with their experiences and mostly the funny trials and tribulations that happen with traveling abroad. It was a great evening, relaxed and friendly.

As things were wrapping up, around 11:30 on a school night, Sam and I determined that we were not looking forward to the walk home, even though it was going to be all downhill. Luckily, Sam had the brilliant thought of asking for a ride from one of the folks with a car. And even better, these nice gentlemen didn't give it a second thought to schlep us home.

All in all, it turned out to be a wonderful experience and this country mouse is truly enjoying all the aspects of San Francisco life!!

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

What A Week....

I know that it is only Wednesday, but I have a very interesting week already under my belt.

Sunday, as mentioned in an earlier post, I spent at IKEA determining what sort of storage unit to build in the new HOD (House of Dodds). What I didn't mention was that I started the morning off walking to a wonderful bakery called Tartine's with Sam, her sister Cindy, and her nephew Dylan. I have to say that is one plus mark for living in the city because you can walk places and get unique experiences. I also went and got my hair all whacked off and the front part is blond again, which the Queen was very excited about because now I am her true ABBA again (Aries, Blond, Blogging, Aggie). Well, when I stopped at home between the walk to Tartine's to drop off my pastries and jumping in the car to drive to the hair whacking place, I met "John" on the elevator. Turns out John lives in 413 to my 417 in the building. We made chit chat on the ride up and said "see you around" as we stopped at our respective doors.

Monday, I went through a series of very draining meetings at work and then raced home so that I could be home at 1:00 to meet PG&E to turn on my gas stove sometime between 1 and 5. I walk down the hall of my building at 1:05, mind you I saw NO PG&E truck in the street and NO PG&E person in the hall or elevator, I come to my door and there is a note there that says "Sorry we missed you. We were here at 1:05. You will need to call and reschedule." I was FURIOUS!!! I walk in the door, grab the phone, and call the number only to be dumped into call system hell. After 10 minutes of "press 1; press 3; etc." I am in tears. Not just watery eyes, but full blown sobbing, snot running, can't speak tears. I'm screaming at the computer call system that I want to speak to a person and finally, miraculously I am connected to one.

I actually feel very sorry for the guy on the phone who had to deal with me. I started out explaining that I was here at the apartment on time, can I help it if the service guy was probably early and decided to go to lunch? I then screamed at him that I can't take ANOTHER half day off from work to wait for the gas man. I said I'd been living in this place for 2 weeks now and couldn't cook and had even called my daddy back in Texas, even though I knew he couldn't do anything to help me out. I explained the situation, I tried to light the burner, I get the click, click, click but no flame; my building Super came and looked at it and said no gas is getting to it so I needed to call PG&E and have them come light the pilot, even though it really needed to be turned on at the main. The entire time and heaving and sobbing and apologizing for crying. Eventually the guy on the phone said, "let me speak to my supervisor" and the next thing I know, he is back with me saying "somebody will be back out today between now and 10:30 PM.

This entire time I've also been texting Sam and letting her know about my frustration. She calls almost as soon as I'm off the phone and I sob a little more, then let her know that they will be there before 10:30. She comments that is unacceptable as we have dinner plans with our French friends at 7:30. She tells me I should call them back and tell them that I smell gas and they need to send somebody out immediately. Of course, she also says that she knows it isn't my nature to do that. And, I'm like, well "I can't lie, besides, I've already told them that the gas is turned off at the main, it would be a little fishy for me to call them now and say I smell gas." And she agreed. We hung up and a little bit later her wonderful Mum calls me to see if there is anything I need and to tell me that I need to let go of my innocent, Texas manners and get city tough. She also asked if I would like for her to call and give PG&E a few words for me.

At 2:30, my phone rings and it is PG&E downstairs. He comes in, turns on the gas, comes up to the apartment to see that it is working, and explains how to use the stove. I was so grateful that I actually asked him if I could give him a hug. He declined the hug siting some Sexual Harassment BS, but I told him that I was mentally hugging him. I'm sure he went back to his PG&E buddies to let them know that there is a crazy woman in 417!!

After the gas fiasco, I felt great and ready to go to dinner with Sam and the French crowd, which will actually be another blog....

Tuesday, I woke up with a migraine and ended up staying home from work, so there really isn't anything exciting to comment on there.

This morning, Wednesday, I get up, still having residual migraine issues, but need to face the day at least for a little while. I get dressed and open my front door. There leaning up against the door is a bottle of wine and a note welcoming me to the neighborhood. And it is signed "John from 413".

Could I actually have a budding friendship here? I guess there will be more to come on this!!

Monday, May 12, 2008

The "New" Place

So, as you know, I have moved into the city of San Francisco. I moved from a nice sized two bedroom, two bath apartment to a MUCH smaller one bedroom, one bathroom Railroad apartment (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_apartment). I have been in the apartment now for 3 weekends and I am slowly getting settled in. It has been a challenge because I've been trying to make my large furniture from my previous apartments fit nicely into this new place. Well, it isn't working.

Yesterday, I went to IKEA. This was my second trip to IKEA in two weeks and my first EVER on a weekend. I will never go back to IKEA on a weekend. However, I did make my way through the maze and pick up a number papers on the different types of shelving systems and storage systems that are offered. I also picked up a little bedside table (because once I rearranged furniture, my old table no longer fit) and some of their Danish cookies, which I have developed quite the hankering for. Yes, my plan was to grab an IKEA associate and explain what I wanted to do, have them design it all out for me, then purchase the stuff and take it home and be done with it. Well, that didn't work because even though I saw a number of employees, they were all busy with other people and in their map they even state that you need to make an appointment (although I really doubt that all the other people there grabbing at the associates had appointments) so I just went home and figured I could do this on my own with some graph paper.

Jump to me at home in my one chair that I currently have in my living/ dining/ kitchen/ office/ media/ studio room with brochures on 8 - 10 different shelving units, graph paper, a pencil and a glass of wine. First this I had to do was determine the amount of space that I had to work with and then convert that onto the graph paper. I have 8' to work with and that is 96". My graph paper had something like 72 squares on it, so I couldn't do a one for one inch to square transfer. So after a lot of counting and determining multiples and equivalents, I finally determined the "space" that I had to work with. Then came the challenge of taking the measurements on the furniture and doing the same thing so that I could have as close as possible an accurate scale of furniture to wall space to graph paper, etc.

Jump to me finally having completed the scaling process, head pounding from all the math and choking on eraser dust because I had to rework things a couple of different times. I now have a rudimentary drawing of my unit in which I will keep my television, and its accoutrements, my books, My Cd's, some kitchen whatnots, probably some quilting paraphernalia, and whatever tchotchkes I deem appropriate. So, next step: purchasing said unit and then begging, borrowing, and stealing from my friendships to gain some assistance in getting it all home and built...

And of course, I have to have ALL of this done by the end of this month so that it will all be settled and organized and looking lovely for when the Queen and her dear husband come out to stay with me!!

EEK, wish me luck!