Parking lot sitters

I was driving down the street today and saw a car parked in not a parking spot. It was actually parked in front of a yellow curb and in front of a fire hydrant (right in front of Pine Tavern). I shook my head as is my custom and muttered something about how that car should get a ticket or some punishment (kind of like a stereotypical old man). I park my car and walk to my apartment. I walked by the same car and saw a man sitting in the driver's seat, just hanging out there. Soon after I entered a state of bepuzzlment, I saw another man sitting in his car just about 15 feet away. Good day to sit in a car, I guess. I always wonder why people park their cars and just sit in them. Some simply sit in a particular parking space and wait for their companion to return. Then there are others who will park right by the front door of whatever shopping center they're at and press the hazard lights so everyone thinks they have a large load to hoist into their vehicle. I think that's true about 50% of the time. The other ones are only turning them on so we will not bother them about parking right in the middle of a, once clear, path for cars to drive in. When they are, I think to myself, "unfair! kindly park in the lot like the rest of us common people!" But, usually person has a friend or a wife who left the car and is doing something. Then I think, "well why don't they just go with their traveling companion to wherever they are going together?" To me, that seems much better than sitting in a car. I sit in a car enough, thank you. when I was a kid, I used to stay in the car while my mom or dad did their thing; running errands or whatever. But I had a Gameboy and had to level my pokemon. I don't feel like these individuals are the type to share that interest, though.

street fog

There's something especially mystical and astounding about fog ascending from the streets and sidewalks surrmy home, my office, and just about everywhere I go today. That was just part of the freaky deaky weather that day. snow, hail, tornadic wind (not to be confused with Titanic winds). And when these bullies weren't tromping around, fog would come back to take their place. It was there for a long time, but it's very rare for fog to do that and just steam off the streets for hours. I would see things like this only a couple times every year. Either way, I get into this different mood when I see it and walk through it. I want to run through it. I don't care how cold it is; I want to take a jog and run as fast as I can through the visiting clouds having them curl behind me as I disturb their constantly rising dance born from the grounds where us mortals dwell. It's mysticality caused my mind to trace back to climactic battles in Hollywood born in fate and drawn out in this same fog embracing trunks of great oaks unknowingly amidst clashes of steel and limits of courage. I recalled vast and seemingly otherworldly scenes painted out in colors of red, green, and blue-ray on a plasma canvass candidly capturing planet Earth at its most savage, extravagant, and strange. These thoughts passed through my mind in the short walk I take from my car to the doors of my office. I didn't act out on any of these thoughts. I didn't run that day or fight some epic battle or rent Planet Earth on blue-ray. I simply had a moment of awe that took it's course in my heart, slowly replaced with convictions of responsibility and duty (I had a busy day that day). I sat at my desk and began to sort out my day. I still couldn't help looking out the window during times of slow brain output and just wondering.

Sweet!

I had one mission today: go get a giant rice crispie square from Cash and Carry. I've always dreamed of things like this. You know, common everyday snacks that come in a gigantic size. The sky is the limit; anything can be mondo-sized these days. I remember recently stumbling across a five-pound gummy bear at Powel's and a picture of a mutant gummy worm in an ad alongside my facebook profile. If you're like me, your heart pounds and your hands become clammy just reading this. Others are indifferent. Their taste for cleverly wrapped candies as an adult has been ruined from an extreme intake of sugar during their childhood. Anyway, this post is for junk food junkies. You know who you are. The ones who ate all the candy in their Easter basket before lunchtime; the ones who go shopping on the day after Halloween to get as many leftover candy corns and fun-sized whatevers they can possibly carry for ten dollars. For us, our eyes become wide and we turn five years old again when stumbling across something as majestic as a gigantic rice crispie square (well, it's more of a rectangle I guess). As I was saying, this was my mission today. So I approached the store, held back by a lethargically automatic sliding door. In the moment I stood there waiting, I noticed that it was in fact an exit door. I immediately thought to myself, "boy, I hope that attractive girl doesn't see me going in the exit." Just then she looked over and I bounced my eyes to the door, now welcoming me (as much as an exit door is able to) into a magical land. All concerns about an attractive girl witnessing me walk through an exit door disappeared. I made a b-line to the holy grail of rice crispie bars on a shelf three rows down. I stood there for a moment to take in this very precious moment. I think back to my days as a child dreaming of a moment like this. I take the marshmallowy block in my hands and prepare to make my purchase. On my way to the register, a lady walked by me pushing a cart full of bulk gatorade and pound after pound of frozen bags. "Oh, sweet!" she remarked. I didn't say much in response, maybe something like, "oh yeah." I'm never prepared for this kind of thing. I make my purchase and make my way out the entrance (I don't know what it is about my disregard for the direction of doors) and to my car. Fun times.

A lesson to prepare you for an optimal restaurant experience.

I've written about this before and expressed my feeling about it several times before. Yet, this thing keeps coming up in my life to this very day, like a curse following me around until I'm finally done working with food. No, it's not gaining weight. It's something that comes out of a customer's mouth at quite a frequent rate. I'm not talking about bad breath, or those little mouths that come out the queen alien's mouth in the movie Aliens. It happens after I get through explaining a beverage or a food item from out menu. "is that good?" What?! What are you asking me? You're asking me if I, an employee paid to convince you of our food and beverage quality, if something is good? What am I supposed to say? There aren't very many options for me that are both honest and approved by my superiors. For example, saying, "not really" would be one statement that may be honest, but is harshly looked down upon by the people I seek approval from. So I tell them how amazing whatever they're asking about is. What is the moral of the story? Ask smart questions.

For the last two days in a row I've answered my phone and asked if I had been asleep and if I had been woken up by said call. At the point of answering both of these calls I had been awake for quite some time (maybe an hour or so). It's kind of an awkward situation and results in me being slightly insecure and distracted for the rest of the phone call. I also come to a loss for words for such a comment when it's not the case. It's kind of like being told that you look tired. What a great way to start my day. If this proceeds, I may have to squeeze some talking practice into my morning routine. Fa la la la la la la la la. Just like that. Up and down the scales. Just like choir. Or I could get creative and say whatever I'm doing in scale-form. Maybe my life will just turn into a jolly old musical based on the life of Wesley Welch. Kinda like that episode of scrubs. I wonder what the music would be like.

downtown shananogans

My first reaction to a bad smell is always to look around and find the source so I can avoid it at all costs. Any absurd odor triggers something in my brain causing me to frantically search for whatever is emitting such fowl things into the air. I suppose it's a sort of primal self-preserving instinct i have to make sure my nose does not get filled with tiny yuk particles. My friends always tell me that whenever I smell a fart, that tiny poop particles are filling my nose. I try not to think about that.

Today the gaseous demons possessing me came from yark on the sidewalk. Uh-oh! Not yark on the sidewalk! Right next to a garbage can too. Encounters like this spur a few questions to come to my brain: "how long has this been here?" "does the city have any sort of seek and destroy system for this sort of thing?" "That poor dog!" Unfortunately, it looked like it had been steeping there for a while. I wondered again about the 'seek and destroy' system and how I might go about informing someone about taking care of this. What number would I call? Who would I talk to? Would they accuse me of dealing it because of smelling it? At this point, I had walked much past the yark and had no intentions of following up on it. "maybe birds will eat it" I thought to myself, justifying my ignoring the matter. Just then, my thought was disturbed by three elderly standing at a crosswalk accusing one slightly younger woman of jay-walking. "you're going to jail!" they jested.

hallway coffee

I love making my own coffee in the morning. There's just something special you get with a french press that the standard, gurgley coffee machine is lacking. My only problem was that my roommate was sleeping and my grinder sounds like a chainsaw, and we all know how awful it is to wake up to a chainsaw in the kitchen. I hatched a master plan and traveled with purpose into the hallway looking for the nearest outlet. The one I found was right outside the door of the public bathroom (I live in a hybrid residential/office building with apartments sharing the hallway with several businesses, so I don't feel inclined to get to know them really. It's also nice to have the option of a public bathroom that is not sharing the atmosphere with our bedroom). So I'm standing there, in my flannel pants and slippers pushing a big black button on the whirring blender. It's really loud and takes only a couple seconds to grind the beans, but I really didn't want someone to encounter me in this situation. I could only imagine the clever remarks I would receive from random passerbys going to and fro in their daily undertakings. "I guess you could use some coffee this morning! hahaha" or maybe "you look lost" or really anything about me not seeming to be awake and needing coffee. Oh, the laughs. Or they would simply walk by and try not to make eye contact. ooh, awkward. Anything really would have been a damper to my morning.