The Grumpy Monkey

Haiku for Kira

Your comments sustain,
a monkey who is grumpy.
Dinner party when?

A friend I made on my way to work...

I live and work in Oakland CA. Can you believe this is the wildlife I ran into today on the walk from the parking lot to the building where I work. Yes that is a ray down in the water. I took the picture with my cel and was shocked that you can actually see it.

Lake Merritt here in town is a salt water lake and is fed from the Estuary which is part of the Bay. Lake Merritt and the feeder canals have sharks and rays and lots of different kinds of ocean creatures.

This guy was big. I am about 20 feet above it on a bridge. It had to be 5 feet across and it was beautiful to watch it glide around below me. The water was shallow and clear. I could see it's eyes and hoped it could see the smile on my face.

It has been so hot here for a few weeks. I work, like a lot of bay area people, in a non air conditioned building. It has been 100 degrees in one of the rooms where I regularly work. We have all been valiant in not abandoning our posts but it has been too much. On my drive to work this morning I was wrestling with myself about if I could tough it out one more day.

I parked my car and was grumpily trudging toward work when something made me stop and look down over the railing. Watching him swim made me happy and peaceful which led to a great, if hot, day.

At Work Today

While at work today in a local community college I had to take a rest room break. I went to the nearest ladies room and as I entered I heard a kind of scraping sound. I can't describe it very well but it was rhythmic and non threatening. Non threatening being the optimum word here. The college were I work is not necessarily dangerous but often there are cultural misunderstandings. Like one day when I entered the ladies room and this guy(foreign born student) walked right in behind me. I turned around and told him to get out. He starts yelling at me! "Your hair is too short for a woman's!" What a dick, huh?

Oh well this sound continues and I am now washing my hands at the sink and racking my brains about what that sound is. I really wanted to know, I was thinking air vent or pipes and then it hit me. Someone was unwinding the gigantic toilet paper roll and kept having to pull down a section of the paper and then wrap it up and then do it again and again and again...

Oh my! Then the I had to know who could be doing this? I am a naturally curious person and yes, it has gotten me into trouble. But it was very interesting and worthwhile trouble.

I could not wash my hands forever and as there are only 2 stalls I went out and waited.

An old old immigrant lady comes out with a big big bag. She looked well fed and healthy and quite happy. And why not? That was a LOT of free toilet paper!

Happy New Year!

I hope you all have been having a great new year and enjoying all the rain. We lost power on Friday for the whole day, luckily it went back on at around 8pm. It was not so bad because our heater has a battery back up. Yay landlord! Not something I would have even known about.

Oh, the picture! So Oaklandish! Can you make it out if you squint real hard? No? Well I can't really either but let me tell you what it is. The Wife and I were out in the rain doing errands the week before Xmas. We are at a stoplight and all of a sudden I am pretty sure I am having some kind of-as the kids say-"flashback."

You see there is a blue van in front of me and suddenly the license plate is melting! I know it can't do that! It is made of metal after all! Oh my god maybe I should let the Wife drive! But the Wife is seeing it too! She asks me if i think that license plate in front of us is made of paper?

Oh yes of course it is paper! Someone has photo copied a license plate and taped it to their license plate holder! Oh my, I need a minute to stop laughing so hard. So Oakland-so funny-side hurts-gasp-laughing so hard!

Wanna Buy Some....

Well I guess technically it is Berkeley. Last week I had an appointment over by the White Horse(or as we call it the white-ho) Bar on Telegraph. It is always hard to park over there and I hate to pay so I decided to turn into a neighborhood and see if I could score some free parking.

I turned down a street and saw mostly blocking the road some kind s delivery truck, unmarked. I squeezed by, barely, and found a place to park. I was early so I flipped on NPR cause I am smart like that and sat there. I saw an old woman get out of the drivers side of the truck and ook up and down the street. She got back in the truck and backed it down the street, almost killing my truck, until she was lateral with a man and woman who were "walking" down the street. I say "wlaking" cause they were so drunk! That man and lady looked like they were having a good time as they weaved down the side walk.

The lady from the truck rolled her window down and started talking to them. She was now blocking the whole street with her big ass truck. I could not hear what they were saying but a lot of arm waving and laughing was going on. And the cars were beginning to pile up in front and behind the truck.

The old lady comes down from the cab and walks around to the back with the two people trailing behind her. Now people in cars are honking and starting to yell. The lady had done an impressive job of using the WHOLE street. As I am so grumpy anyway it was pissing me off and I was already parked!

Whoosh-the rolling door opens up and I am expecting to see stolen goods or a mass of drugs, but what I see is vegetables. Lots and lots of vegetables. She and the man climb up into the back of the truck and he starts picking out and handing her corn! She has a produce scale hanging from the celling and everything. There must have been 15 cars at this point honking and shouting. The old lady and guy never even looked up.

Such an Oakland moment. If we had only been 3 blocks or so south! Damn!

At that point I could not take the honking and yelling from all the stuck cars that this lady was incommoding. I took a walk around until it was time for me to go to my job. So Oakland was that lady I wanted to tell her to come and park over in my street and sell us vegetables of unknown origin.

Damn Oakland Music Store

Okay, I have to vent about something that happened to me this week. Overall it was one of those weeks that was not so hot, but for a grumpy monkey I was doing remarkably well, until I went to the music store.

I have wanted to rent an instrument for a while now. I wanted to get a violin, I played when I was young and violins and cello are the most beautiful string instruments to me. As an adult I think I would also have the patience, which I lacked until quite recently, to actually succeed with an instrument.

So to recap, rough week-want violin-went to music shop even though I felt like crap.

The music store guy tells me to rent a violin, 12$/mo 100$dep., that they have to run my credit. I ask the guy the total value of the violin and he says 128$. I thought it was kinda weird but I was excited and filled out their form and gave it to them and went to pick out a teach yourself the violin kinda book.

The guy comes over and says they have denied my credit. Actually he loudly said I have bad credit. I was so shocked I could not think of a response. I ask him the reason I have been denied and he says they do not have to give me a reason. Now I have something to say and tell him I am trying to buy a house and I know every detail of my credit report and it is good, so if there is a problem I have a right(and a need) to know.

He tells me "the lady upstairs" says you have(loudly now)-bad credit. Can I talk with the "lady upstairs?" No. Can I talk to the manager? No he's not in. I told the guy he was mistaken and I do have a right to know why they denied me and turned to put my book back on the rack.

Then he says-Well, you know what I can do for you, I've got this one rental violin I can sell you for 128$, and then if you decide you don't want it you can bring it back and I will deduct 12$ off each month you kept it and buy it back for what ever is left over.

I think the look on my face said everything I could not at that moment because as soon as he finished talking he began to back up toward the safety of the counter. I told him to give me my credit form back and that I thought that was the best scam I had ever heard of AND I was not quite dumb enough to buy something from someone who had been so rude to me and made sure everyone in the store heard about my "bad credit."

I left the evil music store and went to work, worked, came home, ate and went to bed. Then I got up Thursday morning and had the best Thanksgiving I have had in a very long time. Good food, great family and we watched "The Big Chill." Good good movie that I had not seen since it was released in 83.

Hope you all had a wonderful day too!

The Auto Glass Store

One day The Wife came home from work and was visibly upset when she came in the house. She told me that while stopping for burritos the passenger window had been broken out and her book bag stolen from the car. It was 1:30 pm on a Tuesday and she thought it would be nice to bring home some lunch and had stopped at a great taqueria down on San Pablo Ave. Parked the car in front of an old ladies' house who was out watering at the time and walked half a block to the restaurant. When she came back 10 minutes later the same lady was still watering her yard. The Wife looked at he car and saw the window was broken. She turned to the lady and asked her if she had seen who had broken the window and the lady said no. Well I can't really blame her but it still sucked because the only thing in the bag were photographs that were irreplaceable. You know you try to not be to tied to things but some things you just can't help it, and those photos were just that. The Wife drove around the neighborhood and found the bag, the photos were gone.

We decided that leaving the car open to whomever might want entry was not a good idea so we sat down and started calling throught the phone book for glass repair. All the come to your house places were booked and most mechanics couldn't do it that day. Finally after many calls we found a place nearby that could do it right away and off we went.

Let me expand about Oakland and available services-there are not enough of any. Not enough grocery stores, clothing stores or drug stores. I am not saying there aren't any or the one's here are sub par; it's just there are not enough so they are always packed with people. Often I accept a service because it is available knowing it would be better to go to another location meaning another town. Like the time I went to Sears and got a great deal on tires and it took them 5 hours to change the tires for me. During this time I saw the tire guys wandring around and talking on thier phones and wrestling with each other in the parking lot. Finally after 4 hours the nice receptionist went out and yelled and yelled at them on my behalf. I am hesitant to yell at people who are putting on my new tires as I like to make it all the way home.

My point is The Wife and I knew it was not going to be an easy quick thing, we just had NO IDEA how crazy it would be at that auto glass store.

It turned out to be an Auto Glass Store allright, and a Stereo Equipment Store, and a Glass Tinting Store and finally a Wheel and Tire Store. It was a huge warehouse and they directed us to drive in and leave the car in the middle. Then they pointed us over to a distant sales counter with many many people working behind the counter. We picked a window and paid up and slowly we realized we were the only customers in the place. Feeling a little odd we asked if they had a waiting room. You see The Wife and I share a car and it was an industrial area with no place to go. This seemed to startle the man helping us. He turned around and asked a lady behind him something in another language, she pointed behind us across the warehouse.

The Wife and I started to feel a little concerend but butched up and made our way to the waiting room. As we entered we saw that it was a big room with an exit to the outside and had many chairs and windows. This heartened us as I remembered some advice my dad gave me when I turned 21, "Never go into a bar with no windows." And it turns out he was right, buts it's another story.

In the big room we saw three other people all sitting together by the exit. It was a pimp and two hookers. He was a young guy, maybe 25 and the girls were around 18. He was nicely dressed and groomed and they were dressed as you can probably imagine. The 5 of us took a moment as our world's collided to appraise each other. I am a butch lesbian, there is no room for interpretation when you see me. The Wife however, much to her chagrin, often passes. So it was 1-0. We knew what was up with them, they weren't quite sure about us.

We had foreseen some waiting and had both brought books. We picked a place and sat down. Sometimes in these situations The Wife and I sign, this situation felt different and volatile so we read and willed time to move forward. Time did not care and crawled by. After 10 minutes or so they lost interest in us and started to talk amongst themselves.

I am not going to relate all the sad and crazy things they talked about. I am only going to share the one that made The Wife and I bolt out into the street and wander around until the car was ready.

Like I said we were reading. After about 45 minutes the pimp jumps up and marches over to some old newspapers, grabs em and sits back down mumbling about "how he can damn well read too."

My Grumpy jumped up to full force and I put down my book and looked at them across the room. The Pimp was pawing thru the paper and picked a section still grumbling. He did that snap thing you do to straighten out the paper and then began to concentrate and move his head back and forth scanning the paper. There was, however one small, little, terrible problem- the paper was upside down.

Normally I would think this was a joke but after spending 45 minutes listening to these to these people I could tell this was not for fun. The girls looked at each other and then at the upside down paper. They started to snicker. Then they started pointing, lastly the cackling began.

"He's pretending he can read!" One snorted "Oh my God that is so funny Daddy!" laughed the other.

The pimp went stiff, put the paper down on a table and stood up, it was not pretend or funny to him.

The Wife and I stood up and retreated into the warehouse behind us-the car was not ready so we took to the streets and wandered around. We came back and as we were driving away with our new window we saw the pimp in an amazing BMW out in front of the business.

He was in the drivers seat talking on his phone and for all to see were the two girls in the back seat, each one on top of some guy in a mechanic's suit.

Nice to know some businesses are still open to barter.