Marie Javins's Blog, page 37

Safe Salon-ing

I find it helps to have a yard in the first place, and it double-helps when your colorist lives upstairs.

While You Were Sleeping

I've been keeping an eye out night after night, hoping to see some of the critters in my yard.

I...might have cheated the other night. I put out a tiny bit of cat food in hopes of getting the raccoon to stay still long enough for a photo. It worked but I won't do it again.

This adorable creature showed up as I watched and waited, like I was on safari.

But...it wasn't just eat-and-run. It was eat-and-examine. Examine every square inch of that patio and fence. This critter (who Yancey has named "Murphy") moved SO fast, sniffing everything. Murphy zipped right over to where I was standing on the other side of the half-frosted window and sniffed the window sill, went down the steps to my back door and sniffed profusely, clambered up the bricks to the patio with her tiny prehensile-ish hands and feet, then made her way over to the fence, SCALED THE FENCE in a split second, used the top as a balance beam, and then jumped over to a tree and disappeared into the nun's yard.

Awesome but a little terrifying. Raccoons know no fear. I don't think I'll ever go out in my yard after dark again.

A Long Journey

My FedEx Ground box looks like it had quite a few adventures in the Jersey City depot since it arrived there on 5/21.

It looks like they tried to deliver it and and I wasn't home. (Which is completely false.) The tracer person told me the problem was they thought it was a business, and so the business was constantly closed because most businesses are closed now.

I suppose it's possible they thought it was a business in spite of the sender (me) marking it "Residential" and in spite of it being sent "Home Delivery." And in spite of me calling about 12 times and saying my name, address, and "It's residential" over and over.

A different tracer told me it kept almost getting sent out from the depot but had never actually left, that's just how far behind they were.
Today I saw the FedEx guy on the street and went over to him and there was my box on his cart. I guess it would've gotten here without me doing that, but who knows.

I was nearly at the airport this morning, which would have just figured. Fortunately, something came up and I had to delay my trip again.

Anyway, the big monitor looks great and is much better for sitting up straight and seeing things. Bonus: My desktop doesn't look like as much of a disaster as when all my files are on a tiny screen.

Do The Left Thing

Do you remember how furious I was when that motorcycle cop stopped me for "jaywalking" across a deadend road while I was walking to work?

I felt hot rage. It took me a few minutes to ramp down my challenges to him and realize that the guy with the gun had me at his mercy. I had to play dead, essentially, which was even more humiliating than being detained for walking to work instead of participating in LA car culture. What a waste of my time, his time, and Burbank's time.

It's a testament to the patience of our black community that it took this long, militarized enforcement, and Donald Effing Trump in the White House for our young people to start breaking shit.

The Moment

Is this the moment the paradigm shifts?

We’ve thought this before. We’re usually wrong, at least in my lifetime. We see a moment, Los Angeles on fire, fury in Ferguson, women on the streets, protestors chanting “I can’t breathe” in cities across the country. But the moment passes. We leave Charlottesville, Trump Tower, Baltimore. We return to our devices, games, Netflix obsession, our comforts, our almond lattes, our gluten-free oatmeal, our consumerism. We are the Amys, not the Karens.

Is this even real? Who are these guys with umbrellas? The instigators systematically breaking windows, their eyes devoid of fury, anti-Soros conspiracies fueling their methods? Has the shit stirred up by online bots spilled over into physical life?

"Somebody hold my blunt."

I was too young to understand the late sixties, the fury on city streets contrasted with the Cold War-fueled space race. You’ll believe a man can fly. Only white men with access to advanced degrees, of course. The street-based fury hadn’t reached the upper echelons of power yet. The outcome of those

This time feels…different. Two out of three branches of democracy as well as many local governments have been corrupted by America’s original sin. We laugh at the buffoons with guns prancing around demanding access to haircuts and bars. But is this just the absurd face of a sinister movement, or is this a threat to democracy? Is there even any democracy left? Generations bought into the compromise of the Electoral College, which is at its most innocuous, undemocratic, and at its worst, the loophole that keeps the kings safe from the unwashed masses. That’s us. In case you think you’re a king, you’re not a king. You’re a tenant farmer who will never be a king. Your farm might be more-or-less successful than your neighbor’s, but you’re not a king. At most, you’re a fancy farmer. An organic farmer in a world of Roundup.

Do the farmers burn their own fields to hurt the king? Or do the king’s soldiers sneak in under cover of night to burn the fields so the king can kick the farmers out now that they’ve started a union? How does the Plague factor into the lives of tenant famers?

Is this the moment the paradigm shifts?

Somebody hold my blunt.

Kissing Opossums

That's not social distancing!

They're Multiplying

There's a whole family in the yard?

Not Cool, FedEx

I shipped my old Apple monitor FedEx Ground from Burbank to myself in Jersey City. I got a newer (used) Apple Monitor to use in my home office in California, now that I have to take the term "home office" seriously, so I thought it would be nice to upgrade my home office in my Jersey City house too.

I shipped the screen in one narrow box on May 15 with signature required, because it was scheduled the arrive the same day I would, and I wanted to be sure I was there before they left it.

I sent the stand in a bulky square box on 5/16, knowing it would start moving on Monday 5/18 for arrival 5/22. I didn't do signature required since I for sure would be there by 5/22.

You can probably see where this is going.

The screen showed up on Wednesday 5/27. Which is 6 days late, obviously, but okay, the world is in strange times. Kinda super-late, but just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and move on.

The other box apparently appeared during the 20 minutes I was out on Friday 5/29, and the driver didn't leave it. I've barely been out of the house the whole time I've been here, because pandemic. I went to the hardware store once. I did a curbside (walking) pickup at Bed Bath and Beyond once, and because ShopRite is right there, I stopped in for some veggies. It's not like I'm out at the mall, y'know?

I called FedEx and got irate at some poor guy in India. He did some calling and promised me they'd make an exception and bring me my Ground box on Saturday.

I called again later in the day to remind some other poor guy. Again, reassured.

This morning, of course I got a text that my package had been delayed to Monday.

I'm supposed to be flying back today, to the same place where I put the damn box into the mail in the first place.

I called and this time, a woman had to listen to me for a while, and she offered to return the box to me in California.

NNOOOOoooooooOOOOo! Please don't help. What the hell am I going to do with a CinemaDisplay stand in Burbank?

"The package is scheduled for Monday."

"I will change my flight. But how can I know it will arrive on Monday? Every day I am told it will arrive tomorrow, and it never arrives."

(Worse, it's on the truck and "out for delivery" every day. My FedEx app is taunting me. This is some kind of gag I don't understand.)

I pretended to believe her, because what else can I do? She obviously would bring me my package if she were in Jersey City instead of India, because she seemed very nice.

I angrily went to Twitter so I could humiliate FedEx in public, because I hear that sometimes works, and that's where I learned a FedEx truck killed a guy in St. Louis last night, and yeah, maybe I'll just wait.

Mini-Lion Attack

If I leave the door to upstairs open for even a second, just to check cat food and water, Lily pushes through.

Why? What is so interesting in my apartment?

My desk, apparently.

They Eat Anything

What do raccoons eat for dinner? I can't tell what this is. It kind of looks like a leaf or a squirrel.

Or maybe it's a mom carrying a kit?