Carnaval Update

Carnaval is starting to wrap up, and I've been thinking about my list of 22 a la The Queen and The Champ. I know you all wanted pictures, but since I cannot locate the little cable thingy I can't upload them. I'm very sorry about that my dear readers....

1. Friday night at midnight crews showed up to build the tents on the street, right outside my window. 
   
2. Saturday morning it was raining and it didn't look promising. 
3. A lady across the street set up table to sell homemade tamales and other foodstuff. 
4. The cops closed down the lady across the street pretty quickly. I guess even at Carnaval, you need to have a permit to sell food on the street. 
5. The rain stopped on Saturday, but the crowds weren't out in full force. 
6. Outside my window was a dance floor where they had break dancers for a while and some Japanese drums performed for a period. 
7. By 5:45 PM Saturday night, the crowds were cleared out and things were coming down. The SF police were very good at moving folks along. 
8. Sunday morning the sun was up and it was a beautiful day, not too warm, not too cool. 
9. I went to the parade, which was about two blocks from my place. 
10. The parade was a very community oriented event. Lots of dance troops from what looked like community centers and neighborhood schools. 
11. Saw a teacher dancing the Samba in the street with her students wearing a halter top, sparkly skirt, and full back tattoo. I immediately wished my sister was there to ask if any of the teachers at her school would do that. 
12. Saw lots of feathers and sparkles, lots of drums, lots of skin, lots of color, and lots of happy people at the parade. Great dancing, cute kids dancing, beads being thrown. I love parades!!
13. I was frisked trying to get back to my apartment. Okay, not frisked, but metal wand detector and my purse looked into. 
14. Had a psychic reading. 
15. Registered to vote. 
16. Walked past the port-a-potties to go up to my place to use my own private perma-potty. 
17. Met my neighbor across the hall as I was leaving to go back down to the street. 
18. Went and checked out the booths up and down the street. 
19. Thought about buying some food on the street because they had some great smelling stuff, but because I'm a little phobic about that I just smelled the smells and imagined what the food was like. 
20. Tried on a hat made out of hemp and saw booths of 420 friendly paraphernalia. Bought a pewter ring and then headed back up to my place.
21. Watched a Latin dance-off from my apartment window. I mentioned there was a dance floor right below my window. 
22. It is now 6:45 PM and they have cleared out the crowds again and are already tearing down all f the booths and tents. 

As I watched the parade today I really want to participate next year so I'm going to have find a community group where I can go volunteer. 

Again, sorry that I don't have pictures yet. I'm probably going to have to go buy a new camera and take my current camera memory cards and see if I can find a place to get them down loaded. 

Carnaval Festival

Here is some interesting news from this country mouse in the city....

I received a notice from my building manager last week that said the east garage door will be blocked this weekend and therefore I will not be able to park on the eastern half of the garage. I wasn't really all that concerned about it until this morning when I was talking to my boss about the notice. She asked "why are they blocking it?" I respond with "I don't know, I guess there is some neighborhood festival going on, let's see.... the notice says 'the annual, Carnaval Festival...." I didn't even get the chance to finish what I was saying. Her eyes popped out and she was "does the parade go by where you are? Can you see the street from your window? I've always wanted to come up to the city to see Carnaval."

I look at her as if she has grown a second head and am like "WHAT?" Turns out that right outside my window this festival will be going on all weekend. Check out the link http://www.carnavalsf.com/index.php. If you find the map and in order to give you a little perspective, I live at the corner of Harrison and 23rd.... It ain't gonna be a quiet weekend for me!!!

The HOD is gonna be party central, I'll only charge $5 to use my bathroom rather than the port-a-potties on the street!!

With any luck I'll get some great pictures and will post them up here next week!

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!!

Grrrr....I Say Grrrrr

So, I'm getting all settled into the New House of Dodds and really starting to get a feel for the neighborhood. I hear the little kids playing in the street and the ice cream carts rolling past the window in the early evening. I watch the steam come off the generator things at the hospital a few blocks over. I know that my neighbor's name is Richard and I think he may be straight, but am not positive. I haven't actually met him, but when his window is open and my window is open, well it is like we are practically in the same room. I know that the fire department is just down the street as they zoom and roar past my window periodically.

There are, however, areas of my new abode that I haven't figured out yet, and these are what frustrates me the most; mainly because these are things that I SHOULD know and/or be able to do for myself but I just can't seem to get it going.

1. I can't seem to get my wireless Internet to work. Well, that isn't exactly true. I have managed to get the router to work, so I can have more than one computer plugged in at any one time. AND, magically last night I turned on my old work computer to get my pictures of the Grand Canyon and Gettysburg off of it and found out that it was seeing and connecting to my network and the Internet....very strange because I then turned on my Mac Book and didn't have the same warm fuzzy; maybe tonight, though.
2. I have hooked up my television and cable and DVD player and can get them all to turn on, but can't get a picture to come out on the TV. True, I didn't see if the DVD player was feeding through the TV, but that is mostly because I can't find the remote to either. Tonight I'll see if the cable will magically begin to work but if not it looks like Comcast will be getting a call from me.
3. I can't cook. I know that my personal ad used to read that my ideal man would be able to "cook with fire", but I was referring to bar-b-queuing, not using the gas stove!! I tried to make macaroni and cheese last night for dinner. I measured out the water, set it on the stove, looked at the little knobby thing, push, turned to "Lite" and it went click, click, click....but no flame. So, then I called my Dad, because even though he is 1500 miles away, he should still be able to make fire happen for me!! Nope, he told me how it works on a gas grill, which seems to be very similar to what this should be doing as well, but no flames. So, I found the instructions that were left by the previous tenant. I saw the scorched corner of the helpful hints sheet, which tells me that at one time there was fire, and I followed the instructions. Still no flame. No flame = no boiling water. No boiling water = no macaroni and cheese. No macaroni and cheese = ABBA having Cheerios for dinner. Looks like I'll be calling the Apartment Manager to see if he can help me out.

So, that is a recap of my first week in my new place.... no wireless, no television, no fire. But, I'm happy!!

Ooops... ABBA is Domestically Challenged

I have been doing my laundry for over 20 years and I have NEVER done anything of this nature.

I have washed and dried wool sweaters and shrunk them into Barbie clothes. I have melted bras and panties, but I chalk that up to the super heat coming out of the industrial driers in the laundromat at college and the fact that I wore cheap polyester undergarments before I accepted the wonders of cotton. I have over loaded the washer to the point that it poured soapy water all over the floor. I have let the washer get off-balance so that it literally walked across the floor. I have practically burned down the house by not cleaning out the lint trap on the drier. But, I have never made this mistake, until this week.

I have been moving into the city this past week, so my mind and time has been a little fragmented and ADD. As I was wrapping things up at the old place, you know vacuuming and boxing up the food and cleaning stuff, I decided to do a last couple of loads of laundry since my new place is going to charge me to use the washers and driers.

In my haste, I just threw a bunch of things (towels, t-shirts, undies, bath mats, etc.) into a load. Here is where I went wrong. I threw in a cheap, all be it very pretty, red rag rug that I had by my front door in with all these items. I used cold water, but that didn't save me. As I opened up the washer and started chucking things into the drier, I almost had to kick myself, except for the fact that it was just the perfect ending to the day.... You guessed it, the red rug bled all over everything.... Luckily nothing too important was ruined. I now have some lovely pink undies and a pink t-shirt or two. My mint green flannel jammie bottoms are a strange mottled puke color and my pale blue bath mat is some odd shade as are the blue and green striped towels. The weirdest item by far is the cream bath mat that came out 1/2 cream 1/2 strawberry colored in a random tie-dyed fashion.

Sadly, there was some dye left in the washer when I ran my next load which was my white sheets and my white mattress pad, but luckily they aren't too terribly ruined, just a little tinged in pink and it may have just been my eyes that were reading pink into them.

You may be asking yourself, ABBA, what have you learned from this? Have you learned to sort your clothes better? Have you learned to use those little sheets that supposedly draw dye to them? Have you learned to rinse out your washer after washing darks?

No, I haven't learned any of those things. What I did learn was.... if you buy a cheap red rag rug from Target, when it gets dirty, just throw it out. While that might not be the best earth-friendly lesson, but at least you won't risk turning your flannel jammies into a puke color!!

How Often Have You Googled Yourself?

So, this evening I'm sitting on my couch watching America's Best Dance Crew (I know, lame, lame, but whatever) and while the crews are dancing I'm just surfing away on my pretty MacBook. 

Well, I started out googling old boyfriends, because I am very lame, as mentioned above. Then I decided to google myself just to see what was out there in cyber space about me and well I learned the following things about me, or rather those other people out there that share my name....

1. I am a lyricist and wrote the lyrics in Sleeping Beauty: The Time-traveler and Her New Millennium Prince. Actually, I seem to be listed as the lyricist on a number of items. I must ROCK at writing lyrics!! 

2. I am the wife of a guy killed by a serial killer in a book called Nobody True by James Herbert. 

3. I am the co-editor of the newsletter Technically Write (which is actually true, I did co-edit that newsletter many moons ago). 

4. I am 17 and recently moved to Arizona from Alaska. 

5. I am on the board of the Creative Alliance along with my husband. 

6. I am the "matron" for the Acute Medicine and Therapies department for some medical facility out there in the world. 

7. I am the CDM Coordinator at Taylor Young and Owner in the UK. 

8. I do public relations for some company. 

9. I work for the Northern Counties School and we have an action plan based on the OFSTED Inspection that was carried out by three of Her Majesty's Inspectors. 

10. In September 2007, I had 2 tickets to the Atmosphere show for sale on craigslist in Grand Rapids. 

I learned all of this after only 2 pages of googleness. I also came across somebody's MySpace page that was in memory of some guy name James Martin. The eerie thing about this is I graduated from James Martin High School...freaky, huh? 

Okay, maybe none of this is as interesting to anybody else but me, but for a quiet Friday night, I could have done worse....