The Impending Christmas Hangover

Sweet baby Jesus, here I am again, lagging, lagging lagging. In all fairness, I have been pretty busy since the last post (busy is relative, as it were--if you count reading every feed that floats in through Google Reader, online shopping and watching countless repeat episodes of Top Chef on Bravo "busy," well then, you and I are on the same page).

In any case, I'm mentally preparing for the goodness and mayhem that is Christmas around the Park household, and up and down the Interstate 80 corridor, where the extended Park family has over time settled. A particularly joyful occasion involves, among other events, the following:

Twelve shots of grappa
Eleven jokers joking
Ten belchers belching
Nine travelers belly-aching
Eight "garbologists" gathering
Seven pies a' baking
Six gossips gossiping
Five moooo-ooood swings
Four Scotsmen swilling
Three Masterminds a' playing
Two sisters fighting
And an Italian on an accordion

In case you're curious, a garbologist is the poor guy, usually my dad, who gets stuck cleaning up all of the wrapping paper after the gift-opening frenzy.

It's all shaping up nicely, don't you think?

Thanksgiving Hangover

Alas, it has been far too long since I last posted, and sadly, I can't even blame it on a raging Thanksgiving hangover, the residual of which is still plaguing me. I promise that I'll pull myself together to write some meaningful one of these days, or rather, not so meaningful, about crying in front of large groups around the holidays or nearly throwing drumsticks (not of the turkey variety) through the television while playing Rock Band 2.

Stay tuned...

Everybody loves a list

My lovely, ever-helpful husband, "Jordan Park," explained to me recently that in order to be a successful blogger, I need to post lists. "Everyone loves lists, Dolores!"

At first I bristled, because my last serious encounter with lists was a book entitled, 14,000 Things to Be Happy About--a gift that someone gave to me when I was in high school. Yeesh.

But then I relinquished. Lists can be fun! Here's my first attempt:

The Top 5 Bizarre People That I've Seen in Berkeley This Week

5. A very sexily dressed tranny in front of the Berkeley City College
4. "Old Man Politics," a scruffy older gentleman with white stringy hair, who sits in front of Tully's, wearing a straw hat covered in anti-government propaganda stickers and shaking his cane at people
3. An itinerant banjo player who winked at me on my way up the BART escalator (howdy, pardner!)
2. A woman screaming expletives, top-volume at her husband/boyfriend outside of the Berkeley Public Library (I wonder if he forgot to pay the over-due fines?)

And yes, the wild card:

1. A throw-back-from-the-60's guy standing in front of the entrance to the downtown-Berkeley BART station, waving a burning handful of what from afar purported to be incense, but clearly was a dried variety of the genus Bob Marley, and yelling at passers-by to relax

Now HE made me happy (dang book).

The sights and smells of the city

Did I mention smells?

I think it's probably fitting, given my propensity for the "earthy," to write about flatulence--more specifically, flatulence on MUNI, San Francisco's municipal transportation system. If you're not a frequent rider of MUNI, you can easily imagine yourself as one of the sad ranks by picturing a small, enclosed space filled with a disproportionately large number of loud teens yelling at each other or into cell phones; old gum squished between your seat and the wall; garbage piled underneath your feet; and the occasional homeless person ranting jibberish and leering at you from a three-foot distance. It makes for a glamorous trip across the city.

While heading home from work yesterday, I hopped on the T street car (yay, nearly time to sink into my cozy pants and catch up on "The Real Wives of Atlanta") and not once, but TWICE, in single week did someone pass through the doors of the car only to pass something else, trapping my fellow passengers and me in a noxious haze.

The second time this happened, the egregious offender stood proudly in the aisles and gave grimacing nearby passengers knowing glances as if to say, "Aaaah, yes! That's what relief smells like, people!" But the pained expression on the face of the woman sitting next to me was a glimpse into what we all were feeling: that we wanted to die quick deaths--or at least that the guy might get off at the next stop so that the doors would open and inject some oxygen into the atmosphere.

Unfortunately we were stuck for about five more blocks, suffering in silence.

After I stopped breathing through my mouth and lurched out of the street car at my stop, I couldn't help but marvel at how much us city-folk endure on a daily basis. Perhaps putting up with other folks' bodily functions makes us more tolerable of humanity in general, and therefore, a bit more easy going and less apt to become angry at situations outside of our control.

Then again, and against all of my best save-the-environment intentions, I think I might start driving to work a bit more frequently.

And so it begins...

After much prompting from friends, I am committing my ramblings and random observations to a blog. While I'm not sure how all will unfold (I imagine that I will annoy more than inspire), but hell, I've got to do something with all of the stories--vignettes, as it were--that have accumulated and continue to accumulate as I wander the streets of San Francisco. And well, Berkeley, too, sometimes the farther reaches of the Bay Area, in such mysterious, strange places as Alameda and Mountain View. I doubt that I will post more than every so often, but we shall see. I suppose that it will all depend on how many times I am accosted by weirdos, see indiscretions from the back window of my condo, am amused by only-in-Northern-California moments, or naturally, how much I've had to drink that night.

And now back to my dangerous, time-wasting obsession with the 2008 election and the 150K that the Republican Party has spent on Sarah Palin's campaign wardrobe.