Archive for the ‘Junk Drawer’ Category

Of the 476 visitors to this site in the past twenty-four hours since this post was up, only two chose to post their core values.  Sure some visitors were from Moscow and spoke only Russian and were just trying to spam the comments in order to sell herbal ecstasy, but even those reading folks from San Antonio, Mountain View, and Chicago had no interest or energy in defining who they are via a list of principles.

And you know what?  I don’t blame them.  Life is hard, and the very last thing you need is a blog with a homework assignment.  Especially if the prize is a book about…work.  Now if I were going to Fed Ex an iPhone or some ice cold margaritas to the winner’s doorstep for sharing, say, the color of his pupils or the shape of her bellybutton, that would be easy.  These are concrete and easy ideas to tackle on a day in the life of everyone in the world.  Bless us all.

Now of the two who tried, only one will win.  But what a glorious thing it is to enter a book contest with a 50-50 chance of winning.

And Greta will now pull one of the names out of the Dodgers hat.
(rustle, rustle, shuffle, twist and shake)
(and now I will mix the papers)

And the winner is…  WATER JEWEL
Congratulations!

So what knowledge can one glean from all this?  I’m not certain.  If you know, please leave your answer in the comments section and you will be eligible to enter a drawing for a brand new pair of socks, white socks, in your size!  The drawing will be held, God willing, on December 25, 2012.  Submissions will be accepted on this post until then.

Thank you for playing Greta!

In response to yesterday’s assignment on determining Core Values, I have posted mine below.  I’d like to give a shout out to Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh who drove home the importance of the concept in his book Delivering Happinesss.  You can read about the book here.

I hope that you will post your core values in the comments section.  And just to nudge you to participate, I’m offering all commenters a chance at winning Greta’s gently used copy of Delivering Happiness.  The winner will be randomly chosen, via little pieces of paper jumbled around in a Giants hat, which I will have to purchase since my husband is a Dodgers fan.  No wonder we are a soon-to-be disgraced name in the SF bay.  And you think it will be my fault.

And without further ado, GRETA’S CORE VALUES:

• To provide an unrelenting, cold-hearted, hyper-scrutinizing view of the HIGH PERFORMING MAGNET SCHOOL.  Because criticism of the almost rich is an end in itself.

• To help my most wonderfullest readers realize that the world is not as bad as it seems.

• To help my most wonderfullest readers realize that the world is far worse than we think it is.  And to respond via high-speed, fast-paced mockery.  Do not read if you suspect your health may be at risk or you may worsen a pre-existing condition like rapid weight gain or gonorrhea.

• To make fun of Greta and to sublimate all her shortcomings into engaging reading material.

• To provide original peace signs for all humanity to trade freely and with moral impunity, unlike downloading free music from Napster or stealing cigarettes from 7-11.

• To provide my most wonderfullest readers with an online activity between the hours of 10 PM and midnight when their good brains are too tired for Dosteovsky.

• To provide my most wonderfullest readers with a diversion during the busiest part of their workdays, thus, enabling them to stick it to The Man.  (JK, The Man, I love you for totally providing jobs and stuff, even though you’re, um, hoarding wealth while the little people offer up sweat and stomach lining in exchange for their meager earnings.  But as long as I can one day buy a high-def TV from Costco, I give you my total buy-in.  In the truest American spirit.)

Okay, your turn.  Have at it.

Come on now.  It’s fun.  It’s only the world wide web!  Don’t be scared.  It’s no where near as embarrassing as the pouty-mouth, sexy pictures you post of yourself on Facebook.  What, you don’t do that?

Today was the most meaningful of days at the HIGH PERFORMING MAGNET SCHOOL.  The day for which my daughters INSIST that we remain enrolled there, amid a cyclone of Coach boots, test score-obsession, battered creativity, and self-amorous parents who must tell you which reader their child is on, despite your impressive attempts to duck behind the mountain of bananas at Trader Joe’s.  The day of which I speak, most wonderfullest readers, is…CRAZY HAIR DAY.  That’s right.  It’s the day when HIGH PERFORMING MAGNET CHILDREN can let their hair down (or up or twisted and sprayed purple) as if they were normal children of the world who learn to read at the ghastly delayed pace that their brain development permits.

Unfortunately, at our highly average household, we encountered a SNAFU.  The colored hairspray, through which a year of agonizing car rides would be negated via an excellent Crazy Hair Day, was missing.  My grumpy husband looked at me like a prosecuting attorney eyeing a felon trying to avoid a third strike conviction.  Surely his wife, he thought, in a crazed clean-up frenzy tossed the unsightly cans that adorned the top-shelf of the bathroom for 362 days since the last Crazy Hair Day.  I don’t think I did this, but I might have had a My House Is Messy blackout.

It was 7:30 AM, and the 24-hour CVS, which stocked these bottles of joy, was seven minutes away in the opposite direction of the school.  During the famed San Francisco Bay Area rush hour.

What would we do?  Risk tardiness to school, an infraction punishable by the principal’s written notification of the obvious. (We KNOW that you were late to school on the 26th day of May in the year 2010.  Don’t screw with us or our test scores.  P.S.  Do you like my outfit?)  Or the worst alternative:  go to Crazy Hair Day with un-crazy hair.   That’s right.  We could torture our daughters by causing them to be imperfectly crazy.  There is skill required in everything.  Even in achieving crazy.

And accusations flew through the living room as did suggestions for crazy structural alternatives to colored hair.  These were all met with an angry, “NO.  Our hair has to be BLUUUE-UH!”  And as I raced for my keys to save the day like a chubby Shopping Supermom, the cacophony of huffs and puffs grew to a feverish din.  “No’s” and “Nu-uh’s” and “whatevers” raged on wings of utter urgency and frustration.  Then, like a clear-voiced trumpet, my three-year-old shouted above the noise, “CAN I GET A KITTEN?”

And then I left for the hair spray.

And I got the goods and met the traumatized Pippi Longstocking children and their harried dad at school.  And I made their hair colored.  And it was crazy.

And later that day, we adopted a kitten.

Turkeys in the Neighborhood

This gorgeous beast gave me a full-fanned expansion of his tail feathers just a few feet from the window of our home.  (I’m assuming he’s a tom because with that blue-hued face, he’s so fine.)  Here you see him as he’s closing the display; it is May after all.

You can’t imagine the grandeur he exuded with his chest puffed up and his tail outstretched in that fabled Thanksgiving way that inspired all those honey-combed, tissue paper centerpieces of the 1970s.  (Ad:  There’s a link below to purchase one of those suckers. “Shop Greta for all your nostalgic turkey needs!”)

It honestly makes me reconsider putting the pieces of this bird on a sandwich or under some gravy right next to the mashed potatoes.  He’s beautiful.  How does he not think he’s the center of the universe and that all creation was intended for HIS dominion?  If only he could figure out a way to kill us, roast us, and bury us under the sediment of bacon, tomatoes, garlic mayonnaise and lettuce.  But turkeys are, like, way too chicken and bird-brained to pull off the purchase, registration and operation of a firearm.  And so, the humans win the game of superiority.  And tasty lunches.

Nice Fanny

But still.  I wonder how in one moment we can gaze in sanctimonious awe of their beauty, and in the next we pop them off without a thought, like we’re tobaccee-chewin’, mini-Al Capones named Cooter in jeans and backwards baseball hats.  I suppose  all things, like all humans, have gentle and horrific sides to them.

Excuse me while I wash the blood off my hands so I can eat my lunch.  Out dang spot.  Out, y’all!

B0030ZEFXA

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There is so much to think and feel after a 20-year high school reunion, it’s no wonder that people approach the subject with such excitement, revulsion or vehement indifference.  Beyond it being a good, bad or mediocre time, there is wisdom to be gained from the experience, though unfortunately, it comes twenty-six years too late.  So I have compiled a list of reunion facts intended for the classes of 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 (current high school students) so that they may benefit in time.

• In 20 years, people will fall into three categories:  fatter, thinner and “you look exactly the same,” and you will be judged accordingly.  (Your true value will never be accurately assessed.)

• The class appointed Popular Group will still be the Popular Group.  They will not notice anyone, and everyone will notice them.  And some on the outside will insist on being tortured by this.  Don’t do this. Cultivate your own self-involvement.  Seriously.

• You will reconnect and possibly resuscitate under-nurtured relationships.  This will make you happy.

• Some former good friends will have no interest in you.

• The Tim Factor happens:  Tim #1, who was skinny and rude, will now be handsomely filled-out (see item #1) and will exude kindness and personality.  Tim #2, who was very mean, will apologize fully to the girl he mistreated.  They will talk for twenty minutes, and she will finally cut him off to dance with her girlfriend.  Your love of humanity will be reinvigorated.

• Somebody will ask you why you’re not (blank) anymore.  (The specifics are endless and varied.)

• The richest people will be the drunkest.  (I think.)

• Time, mediocrity and Hostess Twinkies will have happened to the dreamy guy/girl whose locker was above yours.  (See item #1)  Let your heart ache now with a sense of perspective.

• The failed would-be MLB star will remain cold and indifferent, and will graciously inculcate the now clear-skinned, former volleyball player into his circle of friends. (See item #1)  She will be infinitely grateful for his invitation and very understanding of his tardiness.

• You will be relieved to realize that you are no longer part of one entrenched social system, and you will be buttressed by the knowledge that you are an individual in a number of changing systems.

• Some will have passed away.  This will be devastating.

• High school and its aftermath are both a whole universe and absolutely nothing.  Navigate as freely as possible and without too much concern.