Blue Angels blues

For the past few days, the Blue Angels have been shrieking across the sky overhead San Francisco with their death-defying antics. I know the board of supervisors tried to stop the war games over my city, but they were unsuccessful...I'm not sure why. Anyway, this dangerous air ballet is totally nerve-wracking...my cats are hiding, and I can't stand looking overhead. Why is it that I'm not allowed to drive over 50 mph on the Bay Bridge, but a 21-year-old kid who's jacked up on adrenaline is allowed to fly dangerously -- at high speeds and very low to the ground -- over a densely populated area?

"It's the most wonderful time of the year"...already

For the past three weeks, I've been getting Christmas catalogs in the mail. Already. It's the usual suspects: LL Bean, LL Bean Home, LL Bean Travel, LL Bean Women, LL Bean Kids, LL Bean in Second Life (joking!), Crate and Barrel, West Elm, and more clothing catalogs from lesser-known sellers. I might have gotten Pottery Barn, too, but recycled it immediately because I can't stand Pottery Barn and I've already got one just five blocks from my flat, which I scurry past without looking every day.

So...this doesn't excite me, this four months of Christmas. Rather, it depresses me. It used to be that online or catalog shopping was my salvation from the crowds -- I could avoid the horrible holiday jingles in the stores and that awful feeling you get when you're in a department store with too many mirrors and too many shoppers.

But not now. I'm hunted by the catalogs....there they are in my mailbox every day, appearing again even as I recycle the previous ones, sometimes growing more bloated in size as the number of weeks to Christmas -- still in the double digits, right? -- draws nearer. I'm getting more catalogs than I am pre-election drivel this year.

Look, I understand what a big deal the holiday season is for retailers. But with the US dollar sinking below the Canadian dollar in value...and almost $1.42 to the euro as I write this -- I can't help but feel that the catalogs are clawing at my arms as I drop them into my recycling bin. I'm sorry, catalog retailers, I know you're counting on us to save the USA...but we have big troubles ahead, and I just don't feel like shopping right now.

operaspotting

It's not the first time that I've seen them, but it's always a delightful surprise. These two opera singers sometimes appear at the train station during my morning commute. They have incredible voices and it's a shame that everyone passing through there is usually too much in a hurry to stop and listen.

I think it's gonna work out fine...

Feeling lazy today. I have plenty of things I should do... but I'm not doing them yet. Instead I did useful things this morning like yanking unwanted cookies off my computer, and yesterday I uploaded a new downtempo podcast and only had to redo my xml code three times before it actually appeared in iTunes.

Meanwhile, the cats are starting to figure out how to live together. Since it's only been a week and the older cat has pretty much stopped hissing, I'm hopeful that they'll be respectful companions when I'm not at home. Judging by this photo, I think that's possible.

The New Cat

After I got home from Zürich, I felt really guilty about my lonely 13-year-old, black-and-white cat. Until January of this year, she lived with another cat, and even though they weren't best friends, they kept each other company. That cat (who was 17) died in January of a tumor. And the other one has been living alone with me ever since.

The problem is, she hates being alone. She shadows me in the apartment and hates for me to leave. I thought she liked other cats, too -- at least, she used to -- and so today I went to the SPCA to look for a roommate for her.

I found this totally cool black cat whom I liked immediately. He was a gentle giant of a cat who purrs all the time and doesn't seem to be burdened with the typical cat neuroses. He was reaching his paw at me through the window of his SPCA cubicle, which he shared with two other cats. Clearly, he could live with other cats, and clearly, he responded to me. I thought my cat might like him.

I talked with the cat psychologist (or whatever you call them) and I got cleared for takeoff. The New Cat came home with me. I played by the rules: they told me to keep the cats in separate rooms for a couple of days. I'm an urban apartment dweller, so I don't really have extra rooms. The New Cat got set up in the bathroom.

Everything was OK for awhile until it turns out that my bathroom door never really locks shut. He figured that out in about 2 hours. Out he strutted, which set off my older cat into a fit of exploding hisses and snorting. Wow! I'd never seen her do that before...and....oh, no....

The New Cat is now barricaded into the bathroom, but he wants nothing more than to move into his new apartment. The Old Cat wants to do nothing more than to murder him. What have I done???

yakety yak

I'm certainly not the first person to complain about this, but I really can't stand it when people talk incessantly on their cell phones while riding on public transit.

The violators fall into two categories: the first type is the passenger who has nothing to say but never stops talking. Usually this person boards the train with lips already flapping and one shoulder hunched to hold the cell phone tight against the ear. This breed of cell phoners NEVER gets off the phone for the entire ride, even if it means calling every single person in their address book. This person needs a babysitter. Luckily, these motor mouths usually disembark before the train reaches the city, probably to go to a shopping mall.

Type 2 is basically "Type A." This cell phoner turns the entire train car into his or her office space. The work day begins on the train and all of us get to share in this person's business matters. The device is typically a Blackberry, but beginners will use a Razr. Forget confidentiality: we all know by the end of the call exactly what you think of your clients!

One of my friends in Switzerland told me that the Swiss solved this problem by creating a train car just for cell phone yakkers. These train cars must resemble the glass-boxed "smoking room" at airports, where people pace back and forth in a smoke-clogged room with cigarettes in their hands. Maybe the cell phone IS the new cigarette.

Don't most mobile-phone service providers allow text messaging now? Use 'em.

Back to bad habits

Well, there's no denying it: I'm definitely back, and back to my old tricks, as well. Today I walked to Amoeba Records to peruse the wares. I know--it's a compulsion. I have plenty of music. But you know how it is when you're into something....it's never enough.

Astonishingly, I don't walk out of Amoeba any more with an armload of CDs. Times have changed. I have a lot of what I want already, and the stuff on my wishlist is largely available only on special order from Europe or by digital download from web-only sellers. And like any record shop -- used or new -- even Amoeba has a lot of what I DON'T want: rack after rack of awful circuit-music CDs with ugly 3D cover art on them, and a seemingly endless supply of chillout compilations from 2001 with basically the same tracks on all of them but different bimbos on the cover.

Well, OK....I did buy three CDs. But I went in with a wishlist, and the chances of finding any of them was pretty remote. I guess I just couldn't leave empty-handed.