New phone.
Thu, 28 Jun 2007 18:19 PDT
Not like anyone checks here before texting me or anything, but I did get a new phone about a week after the old one broke. And it has a camera. And Daniel has new shades.
My phone's display is broken.
They say that Tibetans refer to the Dalai Lama (pictured wearing a visor above to shield him from the bright lights at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium) as Kundun, "the Presence."
Well, here on my block there is also a presence. A police presence.
Rewind: ever since moving in, we have heard noise until 2 or 3am on our street from kids who drive in from around the Bay to come to the 18+ club around the block. I don't really mind, except when they smash bottles, break into cars, harass girls on the street, etc. Anyways, I'm sure they got a call at least once a week for some disturbance. I've seen plenty of ghostriding out the window, spontaneous after hours dance parties in front of the headlights with the stereos cranked, brandishing of firearms, as well as some thing where they drive down the street and swerve in and out of parking spaces. Whatever. This happened every single Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night, and cops would make a pass by once or twice a night at the most.
A few weeks ago, they tore down the freeway across the street. Cars are diverted onto a temporary structure. For the next year, there is no parking on our street, which is only 8 feet wide now, while they rebuild the freeway. Cops have been posted on our block literally 24 hours a day since the demolition, for the sole purpose of preventing people from parking on the street. This has got to cost the taxpayers.
I just think it's very telling that the cops are mobilized for the interest of the contractors working for Caltrans, but not for the people who actually live and work on the street.
To serve and proctect... INDUSTRIAL INTERESTS.
Keroleen showed up at our house walking around with an eye that looked like this. I never saw anything like it, so I called Ethan (the MD) to ask him about it. He needed us to take some pictures and send them to him. He diagnosed it as allergic conjunctivitis. But after looking at that wikipedia page, I saw that it could have been pinkeye or a Chlamydia infection. Great... Thanks EBMD, for not telling us we were in the same room as someone with pinkeye or ocular Chlamydia.
I was reading an old issue of The Chronicle from last week, in which an article discussed the lack of snowfall this winter and the need for everyone to conserve water. Uh... thanks. The Chronicle's helpful tips for conserving water:
Shower with someone else. Shut off the water when you're soaping up. Take shorter showers or bathe with the tub a third full.
I was so upset at this article. Mainly because there should be a comma after "shorter showers," but I guess that's why French Boy used to read The Economist to learn English, not The Chronicle. But I was also upset that they didn't include Mike Wong's helpful tips for conserving water:
Grow crops that use less water than alfalfa, cotton, rice, and irrigated pasture. Prevent large agribusiness abuse of loopholes in water subsidy law meant to benefit family farms. Reduce water loss during pumping and transport. [1, 2, 3]
It's not approaching its tenth birthday, like the Octopus, you can't use it to buy stuff at 7-11, and don't expect a free ride if you use up your card during a trip.
It cannot absorb paper farecards, like the
SmarTrip,
and you can't just show up at Metro Center, wait in a short line, and pick one up for five dollars.
If someone swipes your wallet at 5pm on a Friday, you have to wait until Monday (assuming it's not a holiday), at which time you can report the loss and have them put in an order to cancel your card within one business day. You are liable for all charges racked up on your stolen card from 5pm Friday until some time on Tuesday when the cancellation takes effect. It is not compatible with transit benefit programs of any kind. It can be recharged only by credit card, and only in chunks of $45. You cannot even enter the system if you have less than $10 on the card; it will trigger a $45 recharge.
But there's something intensely enjoyable about walking up to the faregate like you don't know it's there, and in one smooth 2-second motion, whipping out your wallet and swiping the pad, cruising through the gate without losing stride or even opening your wallet.*
* It is prohibited to enter and exit the faregates this way. EZ-Rider users must remove the card from their wallet and physically touch the card to the sensor pad for at least two seconds.
I went to the UCB library to look at The Wheel of Sharp Weapons, by
Dharmaraksita. Rinpoche will be giving a teaching on this text
at a
Labor Day retreat in Ann Arbor, and I wanted to browse it
before deciding whether to go. While sitting in a nice leather
armchair in the concrete spiral staircase in the main library,
flipping through the pages, I somehow absorbed one passage.
I remembered it as something like, "If someone is mad at you in
an argument, always assume that it's truly your fault." The full
text of verse nine is actually:
Should impulse arise now to seek our own pleasure,
We must turn it aside to please others instead;
For even if loved ones should rise up against us,
We must blame our self-interest and feel it's our due.
Acually practicing this feels weird. It feels like I'm letting
myself down, letting myself get trampled. But what is really
getting trampled and threatened is my ego. I mean the ego in the
colloquial sense, not the psychoanalytic definition of the ego.
Like an inner Gollum, the ego resists spiritual progress.
Since Daniel is pretty much the only loved one to rise up against
me these days, remembering this passage has made home life easier
for both of us. I'm looking forward to a full teaching on this
book.
Our block is closed off to traffic, with cops
posted at either end of the block, due to the freeway demolition
right across the street from us. For some reason, on my way to
the donut store, I started thinking that there was a parallel
between our legal system, in which killing cops or government
workers results in increased criminal penalties, and the karmic
system, where your accumulated negativity is greater if you
assault a Boddhisatva than if you assault a regular
human. Boddhisatvas are kinda like the equivalent of a Catholic
saint, or more like a candidate to be a Catholic saint.
Cat shit.
Wed, 18 Apr 2007 21:14
I was on the way home from work when I got daniel's text, "Mao puked in the bathroom".
We met at Powell and Ellis for dinner and then, on the way back home, Daniel mentioned that Mao puked twice, and he had cleaned up only one of the instances. So I knew part of what was waiting for me at home.
I came in to find a piece of shit, unusually far from the catbox. The rest of the pile was still in the box, but this seemingly bisected piece of shit must have somehow been dragged a couple of steps.
At the same time I had to fix both of the toilets. While I was fixing the upstairs toilet, I heard Daniel screaming from downstairs, "Mao smells like shit !!"
So I resolved to wash the cat's feet. He never seemed to freak out around water much anyways, so why not? Better than having shit-prints all over the place.
Indeed Mao didn't mind the foot-washing. But while turning him around, I happened to notice a 7" length of shit-covered dental floss coming out of his ass, with the cleaner parts generally stained yellow as if by some concentrated curry. I held him down and started pulling it out, but he kept making that strained pooping face. Both of his cheeks bunch up, making his whiskers rhythmically come together like hands clapping in front of his face.
It was too gross so I just cut it. And disinfected the tub for the princess. And fed the cat more food. Hopefully he'll take care of this himself.
[UPDATE] Ha ha, Kirala has two tails too !! !!
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