Window Update

I know you are all desperate to know ('all' - I flatter myself) whether our windows have been washed yet. Alas, no, but we did get another message yesterday to ask that when our turn finally comes, our windows are only open 3 inches. In addition, time has been added to the window washers schedule "for set up and break down activities." No mention of break dance activities though. I would understand why additional time had not already been factored in for that.

No wonder this is an annual event. I haven't seen the window washers yet but I am expecting some sort of Steptoe and Son set up with slapstick tendencies, meaning that due to hilarious hi-jinks, actual daily window washing is kept to a minimum. See, it is worth keeping reading this stuff just to find out if I am right isn't it?

Our monthly bread

Today is pay day (not mine sadly as I am still living vicariously [I doubt this word has been used in the correct context, but I am leaving it in]) so I thought we deserved a treat. In fact, I got two - bread and the stuff which will make the Wii work which I have now ordered. It is a good day. Sadly, I have used up most of the money in one morning, but hey ho, that's the way it goes sometimes when you have strange priorities.

Yesterday or maybe the day before, they largely roll into one (this is leading somewhere fret not) I went to Safeway. It is our nearest shop and I have learnt the tricks of how to shop there cheaply. We have changed our diet accordingly. A large bunch of coriander costs 69c (about 35p), a mango is 75p, avocados are pennies, but apples are a no no, and tomatoes have to be used cunningly - so Thai and Mexican it is. I am experimenting with recipes too which I am really enjoying but it has led to some very strange meals. We made spring rolls with filo pastry (I almost didn't find this in the shop - it is spelt Phyllo here) which we baked in the oven. The filling was spot on; the outside went from crispy to soggy in an instant, and we had made 8. We still have 4 left and I force us to eat one each week to get rid of them.

I digress - Safeway, yesterday. I was followed around the shop by a man with no hand. Instead he had a hook. What was worse was that he looked mean, and he was angry. Safeway attracts a wide range of society, and many of the more interesting ones like to shop when I do. At first we had to inspect every inch of the shop to see what they had and what was cheapest. I could probably sit a written exam now, particularly if they had a section on items they don't stock. I still get a little excitement from the shop; mainly from hilariously named products (Big Ass Beer anyone?). It's staff and customers fail to excite me now, even the ones who don't recognise a swede, or have vicious looking hooks.

I knew it was time for a change. With money in my pocket, suncream on my exposed flesh, as few clothes on my back as would be decent (yes, its hot here, summer has started now and I find my wardrobe wholly unprepared for this), I set off. Whole Foods was my destination, 0.88 miles away, or a 1.76 mile round trip. I got the shuttle to the library which about half way there and walked the rest [for shuttle spotters, the driver was Addya, a petite* and attractive woman with a sultry Spanish accent, like Marcus' girlfriend from Eldorado.**]

Whole Foods is a strange shop and I have a very limited understanding of how it all works. I have been there before and left bewildered and poorer. This time it wasn't going to beat me, and I needed items which Safeway will just never supply, like decent bread and tapioca starch - it's probably best not to ask about that one, and I am wittering as it is, so deviating from my point would be even worse now.

They have a bulk buy section where I eventually worked out, you scoop out what you want in a bag and take one of their labels and write the code on it and then tie it around the bag. The pen was provided but I do not jest when I tell you it took me ten minutes to find it, and meanwhile a homeless man stole something and exited through the alarmed door I was standing next to and it all got a bit fraught.

Whole Foods have many core values which if you find yourself at a loose end can be read here. I would like to draw your attention to the policy of making "store environments that are inviting and fun." I'm sure that every other shopper was having the time of their lives, but I was merely getting some provisions and trying not to scream out loud at some of their prices. In their defence, the staff are always wonderful. I just don't understand what is going on. At the checkout, I was asked if I wanted to have the 5c for using my own bag deducted from my bill or given to charity. I was prepared for this question after a lengthy explanation the last time I was there (I have translated the words for you rather than put verbatim what they actually ask) and asked to donate my 2 and a half pence. To honour my wondrous charity, I was given a wooden disc with the name and address of the store on one side, and 'Nickels for Non Profits' on the other. I really have no idea why. I mean, it's lovely and I am very grateful, but there is no need for that much praise for 5 cents.

I took my Acme Bread ciabatta (I don't think they sell dynamite to blow up Road Runner but I will keep looking), my oat bran and dried apricots and fled. Tesco, all is forgiven, except buy one get one free on fireworks that time, which was just plain wrong.


* She sat closer to the steering wheel than I do, and that is quite close
** I realise that no one will understand this reference, but I was an Eldorado fan and I am not ashamed

There's no Beeb on my Telly

We are now the proud parents of a big black box which takes up a lot of space in our small white box-flat. It cost us $35 (which at the current conversion is just shy of £19) and could have had any number of previous owners. Some of these were not careful, and the remote control has extensive teeth marks. It is fifty fifty whether they are human or canine [ note to mum - remote has been wiped with a disinfected cloth]. So, now when we shell out some more money (sadly much more than $35), for a cable subscription, and a PAL / NTSC converter and some other leads (technology not a strong point), we will be able to watch programmes, or play on our Wii, which sits forlornly in its box, not even unpacked after its cruise from the UK.

In the meantime, we have been graced with 4 free channels. They work brilliantly if we plug in the TV and hang the lead out of the window. One is in Spanish and seems to involve a lot of talking cartoon animals and intense looking females. One is in Chinese but only appears in the evening. Two involve terrible programmes spoken in a form of English, about nothing in particular, and have adverts every three minutes or so. It isn't until the second or third ad that you realise you are watching adverts, such is the quality of the programming.

American TV is going to take some getting used to. I am even wondering whether it is worth getting cable - the idea of paying a monthly fee for this dross isn't appealing, but the adverts are marvellous. It is like watching Tarrant on TV but without the weird Japanese shows. The audacity of the PR here is bewildering and mesmerising. I have found myself turning over when the programme starts to try and catch more adverts.

The news is also thrilling. There are several news casters and the camera jumps from one to the other in a seemingly random pattern, and someone new says something which may or may not be relevant to the story, but its OK, because you forgot what they were talking about three people before.

We do get the Simpson's, Smallville, Reaper, Family Guy, Malcolm in the Middle for free - in short, all of the US programmes which make it over to the UK, plus a lot of stuff which hasn't, but it might do, and lucky, lucky us will have seen it all first.

What I do miss though is Mario Cart, and Super Mario Galaxy and even watching Mike play Lego Star Wars. One thing is certain, with the next pay check, we will get the converter and leads which mean we can play the Wii on our our TV, then we can set up international Mario Cart races. My thumbs are ready.

A Snapshot of Google Chat: A Modern Day Love Letter or An Ode to Incapability?

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Squeegees at the ready!

The annual window washing is apparently such a big event here that there have been three emails on the subject already, with more promised. We are being urged to close our blinds the whole week that the washing is scheduled in our building so that the washing 'won't disturb us'.

I am not convinced this is the real reason. I also think that sitting in the dark heat with wet noises coming from the outside for a week could be bad for a girl. Maybe that is just me.

I await my next tenant update with growing interest. Other update highlights thus far have included the following bending of the English language from the ever professional staff here:

Under the heading 'Important things to know about laundry',
If you use the full amount of soap, your machine will break down by 'over-sudsing' and your clothes will be left soggy wet.

Apropos of nothing:
Differential equations and quantum theories aside, 08/08/08 is a big day in the history of the world. Wilbur Wright, one of the "Wright Brothers" aviation team from Ohio, held the first public demonstration of his new "airplane" invention 100 years ago today. The show stunned skeptics on August 8th, 1908 at the Hunaudieres horse racing track near the town of Le Mans, France. His first flight lasted only one minute and forty five seconds.

About the mail centre ( the true story behind this set up has been covered elsewhere):
Lately our Package Center has been packed to the max!...In our Package Center we created a diagram to show what size package is considered oversized, and what will not be accepted due to size limitations.

There was also a picnic advertising for today which promised free watermelon and 'feet-moving entertainment'. I decided to give it a miss.

Enid Blyton and the Father of Lies

Last night after my catharsis, we decorated the white walls of our flat, with Blik. Blik are self adhesive, removable wall decals perfect for decorating the magnolia heavy walls of a rented flat. Our white box needed cheering up more than most.

We bought 2 sets; We Are Not Savages, a design based on Lord of the Flies, and Let's Go Parasoling, a beautiful design which now sits in our bedroom. The end result is beautiful, but boy, is it hard work to put up! The packaging suggests as soon as the package arrives, you simply unpeel and stick, et voilà, a new room. I think it took us four hours. Yes, I think that's fair; we went to bed at quarter to two. It was almost like putting up an Ikea wardrobe, but with less sweat. Two glasses of wine were simply not enough. The parasols design involved having to line two pieces exactly over each other, which is no mean feat. Let's just say that there was a little bit of shouting, and it wasn't mine...

The second set was even more problematic. The pieces were huge and our flat is small. My role was prepping and peeling, clearing away, and making the final decision on where the pieces will lie (having the slightly more artistic eye), as well as sticking on the less intricate pieces (the ones without underpants for instance). Mike took the steering wheel as the main sticker-on-er, more qualified by virtue of his steady doctor hands and origami skills. He excelled [apart from the early shouting which we don't dwell on] and the wine helped.

When I woke up this morning with the sun streaming through the window, there were 3 children flying away into the sunset on a beautiful summers day, ready for their latest big adventure. I wonder if they have remembered their picnic of home made lemonade and hard boiled eggs, with a separate twist of salt wrapped in greaseproof paper?

In the corridor, Piggy, broken glasses and all, and a half crazed Simon cower round the corner with the dead pig already gathering flies. Across in the main room, the fire rages, the savages dance, and Ralph blows his conch. Obviously, it isn't the happiest of books, but it really suits our flat, and it makes me smile. Two lots of very different childhood memories have now been brought to America.

Towards Stage 4

My last post was lame. It was lazy and weak, and for that I apologise. Don't get me wrong, I am fond of a nice list, and it was all true, but it wasn't the truth. The truth involves me hitting my first wall.

The truth is, emigrating is hard work. You expect it to be hard, but that doesn't make it any easier, and the daily grind has begun to take its toll on me. I am not bored, but I am frustrated. There is too much to do to be bored. I have the luxury of having the time to read, to write, to blog, to cook, to people watch, to walk and to explore the city for free via random shuttle rides.

I have a real opportunity here, the advantage of a foreigner; the amazement of seeing things with fresh eyes, totally differently to everyone else. I can be awed by the mundane, I can witness the remarkable in the unremarkable. It is a privilege, and I am lucky. I expect it will wear off soon, as life normalises and I integrate. While it lasts though, the downside is I am an outcast. I look different. I speak differently. I think differently. It is lonely.

The other day, someone stared long and hard at the skirt I was wearing. Her mouth was agape. She actually had to stop in her tracks because she found that she couldn't walk and be that astonished at the same time. Like witnessing a car crash, she had to watch, even though she didn't want to as it was too horrific for her.

I bought a hot chocolate in a coffee shop and when I declined the whipped cream on top, I was interrogated by an astonished girl. I said that I just didn't feel like it (I could have said, it is bound to be so sweet already that extra sweetness may make all my teeth fall out on the spot, but I refrained) and the girl actually shook her head in disbelief, like I had just admitted I respect George Bush, or something equally as outrageous^. The shock was visible on her face. We were talking about cream, and apparently I was a one woman freak show.

I grow tired of not understanding the simplest transactions, and reiterating myself repeatedly, trying to quickly work out which words I have said which have been misconstrued. I still automatically look the wrong way when crossing roads, and then look every way about a million times just in case, even though 'federal law states that cars must yield to pedestrians' and irritatingly they do yield, sometimes when I haven't even reached the kerb, sometimes when I am in fact nowhere near. As I am too cynical to believe in such gallantry and law abiding, I do that 'sorry and thanks' half-run, half-walk, mistrusting that they won't suddenly just change their minds and run me over after having to wait so long. Rather than be pleased a car has stopped for me, I find it intensely galling. Do these people have all the time in the world? Do they have to look so smug about it? Do they have to smile with their glittering white teeth? Are these people ever sad? Do they get angry? Do they in fact feel any real emotion? So far, all I have seen is a whole lot of fakeness. The emptiness of the greeting "Hi, how are you?", the inane gibberish which passes for conversation - a constant stream of small talk from people who are real friends, not strangers. The constant, loud but ultimately hollow talk. Talking is big here. People are glued to their phones. They recently passed a law which forbids drivers to talk on their phones whilst driving. People still do, but before the law, all you would see was a mobile in one hand, can in the other. I still haven't worked out how they were holding on to the steering wheel.

I spend my days alone, and isolated, in a lonely and isolated place. I have a long way to go to get used to this entirely different culture. According to our brochure on culture shock, I am in between stages 2 and 3 of 4. Stage 2 is "Problems! School, language, shopping — everything is difficult. Things that were simple back home require more effort in the new country. It seems hard to make friends, and at this point, foreign visitors may begin to believe that the local people are unfriendly. Homesickness begins, and along with it complaints about the new country."

Stage 3 is "Recovery. The foreign visitor begins to use the language more fluently, so communication with locals becomes easier. Customs and traditions become clearer, and slowly the situation passes from impossible to hopeful. Minor misunderstandings which were stressful in stage 2 become manageable."

My goal, apparently, is stage 4 "Stability. Eventually foreign visitors begin to feel more at home in the new country. What they do not like about their new country no longer makes them so dissatisfied and unhappy. Life has settled down, and they are now able to find humour** in the situations in which they find themselves."

These stages don't quite fit me, surprise, surprise. I don't believe that the locals are unfriendly. It is hard to make friends wherever you go, in whichever country you are in, full stop. The situation has never been impossible; it was and is, manageable. Language isn't a barrier, differences in phraseology are dealt with. Life feels settled down already, the dry cleaner remembered my name after one visit, and we have a routine. I guess it is just the routine which sucks. Home to the library to Safeway to the other campus to home again, peppered with the odd shuttle ride. There will only be so many times that I will be impressed with Vern driving, listening to comforting classical music when a just-married cable car comes by, ringing its bell, with the passengers heckling and shouting at cars at the tops of their voices.* [In the same journey, we passed the Danielle Steele cafe and I witnessed someone in a car park drive over a bright orange cone, and watched as it crumpled under the wheel, the person try to reverse the problem away. Wonderful]

My stage 4 involves meeting the city half way. The really difficult stuff is yet to come; saying goodbye to our visitors from the UK, knowing that they get to go home and we don't, working out which shop is going to sell a bra in my size, figuring out what shoe size I am in America (research thus far is conflicting), having to live with US TV, starting work...

Still, the day I can write a backwards date first time, without having to stop and think hard; the day that a slight twang appears in my accent, perceptible only to family; the day that I go into a sandwich shop and are not intimidated by the thousand questions and options before me; the day that the fakeness doesn't bother me, will actually be a very sad day. I will be as integrated as a foreigner can be. I hope it isn't soon, but maybe that is just what a stage 2/3 dweller would say.



^ naughty, naughty me...
** I am not at Stage 4, and nowhere near. This is proved by the fact that I had to add a u into humour. I had to.
* This is not strictly true, I will always be impressed by that.

Snakes, sausages and ennui

This week, six weeks in to our adventure, has been a bit up and down. The routine has set in now, regular, hum drum and dreary. I am not good at being unemployed. I have all this wonderful time on my hands, but no 'spare' money to actually go out and do anything. Of course, if they grant me a work permit, I will no doubt loathe my job, and not have the time to actually do anything. Such is life really. On the plus side, I have discovered the following things this week:

Larry is a very common name around these parts.
Making chicken stock from bones is wonderful. Trying to get it out of the ice cube tray after you have frozen it is less fun.
Delia Smith, although born in Woking, went to school in Bexleyheath.
My order has been shipped, twice.
Ocean Beach is a lot like Formby Beach, except with warmer sand.
There are buffalo in the park. They make low mournful noises which everyone else mistakes for hog forns guiding boats away from the cliffs, but I know it is the buffalo.
The circus is in town, moments from the flat in fact. One of their clowns looks like Michael Jackson. They have 40+ American flags at the entrance to the big top. They also have a snake whisperer.
The makers of Viagra plan to move in across the road.
Peasant Pie's 'Pie of the Month' is Turkish Lamb Stew. One of the ingredients is tomato paste. It costs $2.85.
Fire alarms in this building are terrifying. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer the sound of a fire bell, as opposed to a voice telling me I am in mortal danger.
On 25th August, if all goes to plan, we will have a TV and a hoover.
Falafel are easy and cheap to make and can be baked in the oven, thus reducing the calories.
There is always someone asleep in the library.
Twitter is turning off phone notifications to UK phones.
The annual window washing starts late August for a few weeks in the housing complex. Currently, my windows are brown. Rain can be a good thing.
My favourite website message of the week was "We recommend you delete your browser's cache to refresh bad memories about our site"
American sausages are as bad as I thought they would be, and possibly worse.

Do you want a hug with that?

Our trip to the farmers market this morning has left us with a bounty of sweet and juicy oranges (the kind that shouldn't be eaten in public in case they dribble hopelessly down your face), piquant peppers of all shapes, sizes and colours, (including brown which shouldn't look appetising, but it really does), a punnet of small yellow tomatoes in anti-corporate irregular forms, and three massive ready-to-stain-the-chopping-board beetroot. Yum, yum.

The market is a busy twice weekly affair, which was heaving when we got there, and no doubt remains so from start to finish. It takes place at the Ferry Building which is already a constant hubbub, and is visited by locals and tourists alike. You can spot the locals; they actually buy stuff, and they don't stand in the way of people actually wanting to buy stuff, just tasting the freebies. There are two markets; one for fruit and veg and one for arts and craft. Sandwiched in between the two stands a man with a home-made drum set playing his heart out, producing amazing sounds from a vegetable oil container. He is always there and must have the stamina of an ox.

Slap bang in the middle of the fruit and veg market, in a main thoroughfare, for people coming off ferries and visiting the regular shops and restaurants at the ferry terminal, and for the farmers marker shoppers, are a group of people who hold up cardboard signs which read simply 'Free Hugs'. If a person comes towards them, they open their arms and embrace. A girl with a big voice advertises by bellowing "Come get your free hug" and perhaps a surprising amount of people to a British reader anyway, bellies full of the finest Californian fruit, approach to feel the warmth of a stranger, and then get on with their day. It is impossible not to smile at the spectacle.

Cultural Exchange

If only I had known the etiquette as prescribed by Dr Voyageur to 'get along' with Americans before we came here, and the advice of the expat exchange about how Americans form friendships, life thus far would have been much easier. There was something similar that I found on an official government site but these are priceless.

For those of you who cannot be bothered to read it all, these are my personal highlights (sorry, there are so many):

Instead of snapping, "Give me the key to room 208," smile and say, "Hello, I am Pierre Dejarnac. May I have the key to room 208, please?" [Note the name used - is this a dig at the French?]

Most Americans and many Canadians, especially younger and middle age Americans and Canadians who have not lived in an age without effective deodorants, are repelled—very repelled—by body odour, especially outside of exercise situations.

Americans and Canadians, as do many people, dislike being coughed on. You are expected to turn your head and cover your mouth with a handkerchief or at least with a hand when you must cough. Not to do so is a great rudeness. Not to do so spreads disease.

Burping and farting are repressed in North America, even though attempts to control these may be somewhat unhealthy. When you fart or burp, neither you nor the people in the area acknowledge what has happened. No one apologizes or comments, unless children (some of rather advanced age) are joking among themselves.

This one I have already failed at quite badly:

Some new to.. the U.S. see the great informality, but fail to see that there are differing standards of leisure clothing. What you wear in the garden differs from what you wear to go grocery shopping...Styles, by the way, do not mix well. For example, when wearing jeans, men should not wear the type of formal shoes that they normally wear with suits. In most cases, just being observant will lead you to the right choices.

And then, the whole tone changes to something altogether more sinister:

The United States is an assimilation machine.

Deep in their hearts, Americans feel that behavioral conformity leads to national unity in this land of immigration.

In school and on the playground, children are pushed to conform.

It's OK, we're back:

People.. feel uncomfortable when persons stand too close to them. If your spittle strews on them during conversations, you are standing too near..

Men do not embrace, unless they are very good friends, family members, or members of various ethnic groups

When they cross their legs, many American men will rest one ankle on the knee cap of their other leg. This is fine. Phew! Women from other countries do not need instruction in how to sit in North America. ha ha - one in the eye there, men.

Your consumption of food should not be noisy. Some international visitors and students really need to practise this in order to not attract negative attention. Now, who would that be then?

The weirdest advice of all, particularly for a Facebook generation:

Americans use the word friend to mean anyone I have spoken to a few times. Americans do not have a good word for someone who is closer than an acquaintance but not as close as a friend. You know the person you play tennis with every week, who knows all your children's names, and who told you the best place to buy shoes, but who does not discuss personal things with you and who would not tell you if you were doing something foolish. In the United States, we call that person a friend. To refer to someone who is very close, we have to add another word - a good friend, a close friend, a best friend, my oldest friend.

That concludes my cultural exchange lesson for today.

Yolanda and the 3 Quarters

Coming back from the library, on the Teal shuttle bus, guess who my driver was - yep, Yolanda. She weaved in and out of the traffic, beeping anyone who held her up for a split second, listening to the baseball commentary on the radio, loudly. I forgot to mention before that she wears black driving gloves, so if you can't tell by her general demeanour, the gloves prove it. She means business.

Whilst waiting for the shuttle, I was approached by a very weather beaten oldish woman, who asked if I had a dollar for 4 quarters. In her hand were three quarters; do I look like an idiot? I apologised and said I didn't have one. She headed off in another direction, proving that she only had 3 quarters to my mind as I was on a crowded pavement, but not before she had quizzed me on where I was from. I told her, to which she proclaimed that she had done some study somewhere or another where there had been some students from Brighton. She came up close and stated that they had been intelligent, good lovers, and great drinkers. With that, she welcomed me to the country and headed onwards, to try to get a dollar from someone else.

Your driver today is...

I am lucky enough to live on a university campus which has a free week day shuttle bus to its other campuses and hospitals and medical centres, for use of staff, patients, students and formal guests. Plus, as I have recently discovered, there is also a free shuttle which takes me to the library (in which I borrow books and DVDs for free) and the shops (which give me nothing for free - boo). I can also walk to other places using the shuttle bus network, such as Japan town, my local Post Office, the Mission district (the Latino sector of the city, where everything happens) and many more places I will doubtless discover.

When we flew in to San Francisco, we got a cab to the place we were staying and our very friendly cab driver quizzed us on our visit. We told him where we would live, and where Mike would work. He said something like "Geez, so you are gonna live and work in opposite ends of town? That's gonna take you like thirty minutes on the shuttle... but I am sure they have worked our some shortcuts." This was said by a man born in the UK. Can you tell? No, I couldn't either and I hope it doesn't happen to me - I mean, who says geez? He seemed to think that 30 minutes was a long journey to work. As someone who has commuted in London, it seems wonderful. A 30 minute bus ride across a city where you don't have to drive or even think if you don't want to; that is quite a special privilege. The same journey on the MUNI takes an hour if you are very very lucky and involves a change. The colourful life that you see out of the window on the shuttle is sat next to you on the MUNI too, which can sometimes be unpleasant. I will just give you one example - I took the MUNI a couple of weeks ago in the middle of the day and sat next to a woman with a large amount of bags who couldn't sit still and kept delving into her belongings in a skittish way. She was all elbows and knees and I was trying to be as small as possible to avoid the inevitable bruises. Just before she got up for her stop, she grew more restless and cackled away to herself. Then she said "This is my stop" as she barged me out of her way, at the last possible moment before the doors shut. Something made me look down where she had been sat; maybe it was the strange smell, and there was an enormous puddle on the floor where she had been. I cannot honestly say what it was, but I decided to stand for the rest of the journey.

So, the shuttles. I love 'em. There are often many different routes to get to your destination and I have tried most of them now. You get to see so much of this rich and diverse city as each driver has their own way of getting from point A to point B. As all the streets join up here, there are no doubt endless possibilities too. There is only one certainty; that you will cross Market Street. This is an enormous street which cuts across one half of the city and links up with more-or-less everything. There are nice parts of Market Street and there are places which should be avoided at all costs. Deprivation, homelessness and poverty are rife here, but there are some cross roads, and solitary blocks which have a very high volume of down and outs.

Today, I wanted to go to the Farmers Market on another campus so I took the shuttle there. In each shuttle, there are route maps and customer feedback forms, and a sign which says "Your driver for today is..." with a magnetic strip attached so the driver can put up their name. Nice touch. The drivers are all unique; some are very chatty and some very quiet; most are extraordinarily helpful; some just want to drive and avoid human interaction wherever possible; and some revel in it. There are 2 drivers of the ones I have witnessed who stand out most of all for me.

My drivers today were Yolanda, who took me to the Market on the Grey route, and Larry, who brought me home on the Gold route.

Yolanda was just beginning her shift while I was waiting for the bus to leave. She had a system of starting which I got the impression didn't differ from day to day and was a joy to behold. I am the sort of person who takes delight in small things which others don't notice, and I am an avid watcher of people. It makes the everyday monotony change into something altogether more momentous. Yolanda adjusted the seat to her height, laid out her timetable, stuck up her name, paced up and down the bus looking for litter, and then got out a disinfectant wipe (which are everywhere here; they give them out at the supermarket to wipe the handles of your trolley or basket) and as I watched her reflection in the mirror, wiped the steering wheel and anything else which the driver before her would have touched, thoroughly. Then we set off. This woman owned the road. She seemed to have a problem with regular buses though as in the twenty minutes it took her to get there she cut two up in a sea of horn honking. Her route was interesting too. It was like she had a deprivation magnet. Either my poverty senses were hypersensitive today, or Yolanda drove through all the worst neighbourhoods and streets in the entire city. The route was seventeen minutes of raw humanity, and three minutes of sanitised campus and Farmers Market signs.

Thank you Yolanda. I love your name. You show the streets whose boss, and you are super hygienic. Could you be the perfect woman?

Larry couldn't be more different. Larry is a wise guy who peppers his driving with his own witticisms. He points out the 'sights' to people who are deep in mobile phone conversation, plugged in to their Ipods, or otherwise apathetic. I hang off his every word. He has a tendency to listen to public radio debates, which are frankly amazing. I never knew so much about hypocrisy or charisma* before. In case you missed any of the discussion when Larry is guffawing away, he repeats it back to you, encouraging a shuttle debate. I have yet to witness someone take him up on his offer, but that hasn't deterred him yet. He is sardonic and irritating and helpful and fascinating. He was the man who pointed out the troll window to me. Say no more. Today, as we drove through lovely parts of the city, he pointed out that people are growing corn in the grounds of City Hall, there is a 70% off sale on at some shop I haven't heard of, and it is Farmers Market today. Old news Larry.

Larry's route stops off at a medical centre. While we waited for a doctor of 30 years, trained in the Vietnam war, wearing a pair of very saggy cream slacks, and other passengers who I hadn't learned so much about, to get off and more people to get on, Larry tried to give directions to a patient who had just come out of the hospital trying to get to Japan town, which is 4/5 blocks away. She was incredibly confused, didn't seem to know where she should be going, and began to walk away, when Larry called her back and invited her to hop on. She thanked him profusely, and he told her not to tell anyone, showing an altogether softer side of Larry. I look forward to going on another adventure with him soon.

Now though, I am off to the library on the Teal route. I am hoping they invent a Fuchsia route to take me to Trader Joe's. A girl can dream.


* Lady Diana had it apparently. As the people's princess, she had suffered and so people related to her, but also she commanded respect as she was royalty. It also helped that she was beautiful. The queen doesn't have charisma because she is very staid (and presumably she has not suffered and isn't beautiful). I haven't figured any of it out yet. I am hoping soon to forget that I heard it.

All my dreams come true?

I am literally so excited that I am struggling to keep my fingers still enough to type this. I have just found out that from 8th - 17th August, San Mateo, a place south of San Francisco will host it's annual county fair. This involves a vast number of entertainment activities including horse racing, a carnival with a list of rides as long as my arm, concerts, a chilli cook off, a diaper derby (a crawling race for children less than a year old), vegetable displays, Big Bubba's Bad BBQ, Chinese acrobats, pig racing, and quilting competitions. I really could go on and on - this place seriously has it all.

My interest was immediately peaked, of course, and then I delved a little deeper to see what the concerts were like, expecting a bunch of people who I had never heard of. Imagine my delight when I discovered that the line up included, not only The Village People, still going strong after 30 years, but also Billy Ray Cyrus, of Achy Breaky Heart fame. I was hooked after I read about the public quilting to be honest, and now suddenly, there are icons involved. This is more than a girl can take on a Tuesday afternoon.

After a heady dose of smelling salts, I checked out the prices, fully expecting that this page would contain the sting. Now, I find a diaper derby fairly astonishing, but I have never been more surprised in all my life. Booked in advance, a full day at this amazathon costs a mere $6. That is £3. It rises to just $9 if you pay on the door.

I'll be booking in advance don't you worry. Now the only problem is to decide whether to go this Saturday, when the Village People play, or next Saturday with Billy Ray...

Bus ride

When I was on the bus today travelling through the Mission district, I saw a window filled with trolls. There was a web site advertised and when I got home, I had to look. What I found is marvellous.

Uncharacteristically, I am saying nothing else on the matter. The trolls can speak for themselves.