Siena Villa

This is a google friendly entry about the Siena Villa apartments in Elk Grove, California (within the Laguna West subdivision.)
I'm hoping that prospective tenants will find this entry and understand, as I did not, that once they get your money they will quit being nice to you.
Anytime I ask for anything they are not contractually bound to provide, the answer is "No". Or, "I can't now, I have to talk to this prospect". Which is sales & marketing for "now that you've signed the lease, we don't have to do bubkes for you."
The apartment is fine. The walls aren't painted white, instead it's sort of a brown theme. It's only about a hundred square feet smaller than the first place I owned. All appliances are provided, albeit, the cheapest, least energy efficient, noisiest available for bulk purchase. And I'm grateful I don't have to schlep my clothes over to a laundry.
That's enough Yiddish for one day.

Bad Mother

Bad Mother "Ayelet Waldman" Politics and motherhood. And Topomax vs Trileptal.

And, an article in the New York Times about blogging parents.
At some point, however, parents may find themselves at a crossroads. Molly Jong-Fast, who has been a frequent subject for her mother, Erica Jong, said, "There comes that inevitable moment when parents who write about their children need to choose between their writing and their children's privacy and honor." Ms. Jong based a children's book on her daughter as well as a pilot for a Fox sitcom. "There's no compassionate way to do both, so either the parent or the child will end up feeling resentful."

Which is why I'm not talking, so much, about the divorce here.

Whining

Mike Connolly, who is a nice guy and shouldn't have to have his office in a waiting room, has an M&M dispenser on his desk. This morning I stopped by to help myself and noticed that it was empty. I ragged on him about false advertising, etc. He told me he'd received instructions from his wife to replenish the thing and he promised to do so by lunch. Then I harangued him about former employees who would ask for stuff, but couch it as a request from their wives. Which isn’t what he was doing, but I can go off on a tangent like no one in the world.
So, I'm sitting here minding my own business and Mike comes in to say that the M&M bank is replenished. I let him know that as long as he validates my whining, I'll continue to whine. He thought that line ought to be shared. So here it is.

Bel Air, The Stores That Care

I'm inspired by customer service. Good and Bad, I think about what happens and file it away. (some people collect stamps, get off my back.)
Anyway, last night, at Bel Air, I needed two sausages for spaghetti sauce. One spicy, one not so spicy. I asked at the meat counter and the butcher went out and opened two different packages, each of which contained five or six of the little beggars and gave me a new custom package. Total cost? $1.00. The whole thing took five minutes.
Tonight is Spaghetti night with sauce from scratch.

No Pun In Ten Did

  • A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The Stewardess looks at him and says, "I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger."
  • Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and ays,"Dam"!
  • Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.
  • Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says "I've lost my electron." The other says "Are you sure?" The first replies "Yes, I'm positive."
  • A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But why?" they asked, as they moved off. "Because", he said, "I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer."
  • A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him "Juan." Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."
  • These friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.
  • And finally, there was the person who sent ten different puns to his friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them smile. No pun in ten did.

Yellow Jell-0

LILEKS (James) : Gallery of Regrettable Food : Jell-O: "Would Madame like the Jell-O this evening? But of course. Would Madame care to confront the fact that the entire family fortune was wiped out in the crash, and that the days of elegant Napoleons, fancy sorbets and delicate pastries have been replaced by Jell-O? But of course she would not. Would Madame care to pay the servants some time before the winter strikes, and we are left without money to pay for our fuel? But I speak out of place. Apologies. Madame. Apologies."