The Characters of San Francisco~~~~

Well you sweet luscious, yummy things, the situation here in California “heated up”. They did a “lock down” on the house and the senate at the State Capital to finalize a state budget.

Hmmmm and they did, Republican Maldonado, waited until he knew that the vote came down to him and he made his demands. Oooohhhh I just loooove his strategy, the democrats had to give in or they would be stuck there, without showers, until the budget passed, and what Maldonado demanded made very good sense. (Rowl)

A spending cap, no raises for law makers in budget deficient years, no per diems for law makers if a budget does not pass, elimination of the 12 cent per gallon tax on gasoline, the Comptroller’s office could forget all new furniture, put to the voters on the ballot for 2010 if they want open primaries, of course sweet things that is something that most democrats hate, but he got it. Although he thinks it could cost him his political career, but I think that he just might improve it, because he thought the way most reasonable people, like Moi, think. (Merowl)

After all why should those idiot, knuckle draggers get paid, when the rank and file are being laid off. Even I know that the threat to lay off the rank and file would do NOTHING!! (Rowl) But oh threaten their own pet projects coming to a stand still and THEN watch them hustle (Growl)

It’s not perfect, but it’s what everyone is going to have to face for the next 18 months, the question is will what California receive, in its portion of the stimulus package be enough? Of course it won’t, even I know that you have to do more to bring businesses here to California and I’m talking big corporations, not just small businesses.

Creating almost 500,000 jobs here in California is not enough, when we are closer to being several million unemployed. (Flicking a speck of dust off my sleeve)

But enough of that sweet things.

I’ve been scanning the news and there is so much to consider and rant about I don’t know what to chose from, I think I would prefer local news, after all we all know what is happening and not happening that should happen nation wide and internationally.

Work has been a “bit insane”, my friend Yoshi and I, as well as several others feel that when the rain stopped and we had a few ‘blessed days’ of sunshine, it also brought out the ‘nut cases’ or as I prefer to call them “51/50’s”.

There were just too many incidences to even begin to tell you, like one man accusing John of impersonating a police officer, and poor John was dressed in a business suit, or the man who said Yoshi was staring at him when she was really looking at me as we grabbed a cup of coffee this morning; of course this man was never in Yoshi’s line of sight as he was sitting behind her, then this fellow said “everyone-is-staring-at! ME!’ so I said to him with an evil look on my face “You better watch out, ‘they’re coming to get you Barbara’”

(Merowl) I soooo loved the original “Night of the Living Dead” (the one in black and white) we laughed when he quickly got up and ran away. Ahhh but dear sweet Yoshi said “It can’t get worse.” It did.

This afternoon (Friday) we were finishing up things at work when there was a commotion just outside our conference area, we stopped what we were doing and went out into the main area and was surprised to see this naked man (not the same one from this morning) wearing only tennis shoes (they may have been Michael Jordan’s’) and a idiotic smile on his face, running through and around the office area, generally was frightening the younger women, then he made the mistake of bouncing up to me.

Ahhh sweet things I can be soooo evil; he stopped in front of me, I suspect thinking that I would blush or scream, but instead I slowly looked him up and down, pointed to his shriveled magic wanger and said “Is that all you’ve got? That IS pitiful.” And laughed.

It was enough to stop him so that Security captured and handcuffed him; I never saw such a deflated look on a persons face. After Security marched him away, to be arrested by the Police, Dan came up to me and said “Remind me to never get on your bad side.” (Purrr)

One staffer asked if they had started the “Bay to Breakers” run, I could only shake my head thinking that ‘Spring Fever’ has started early in S.F., Yoshi told me that she was thankful that she seldom goes to see the Bay to Breakers Run, at first she enjoyed it for the clever costumes, and interesting floats, but after seeing 3 naked, overly fat men running who were in serious need of a Richard Simmons intervention, that was enough to give her nightmares for weeks and swear off French fries. Poor Yoshi. (mew)

BART was running slow, there were some problems on one of the track lines, I overhead that there had been a shooting or a stabbing at one of the stations, this evening I found out it was both at two different stations.

When I finally got home, the sky was turning its wonderful Maxfield Parrish Blue with pink and gold at the edge of the skyline, but it was still too bright to see any stars, I heard that more rain was on the way, but at least we had a chance to dry out a little. (purrrr)

I just set my things down when I heard a noise just outside my door, opening it I discovered my elderly neighbor Lillian had dropped one of her shopping bags, fortunately it only contained can goods, so I helped her get her things into her home and told her to sit down while I put things away for her.

Poor sweet thing, she’s going to be 92 this Thanksgiving, and she does have an interesting story to tell, having lived a very interesting and unconventional life, she lives alone, is still active and can still play 9 rounds of golf.

She invited me to dinner and we had a lot of laughs as she told me about the things she did in her life and I told her about what happened today. Ooohhhh sweet things I just love her zest for life, her overwhelming desire to learn new things, her mind just as sharp as ever.

The one thing that does trouble her is that her eyesight is slowly deteriorating, she sees well enough during the day to drive, but once it gets dark it’s impossible for her to drive, I said that if there was some place she had to go to in the evening I’d be happy to take her. I felt that she shouldn’t feel trapped in her own home. Not that she is without family, she does have children, grandchildren even great grandchildren but they all live out of town.

I really like Lillian, I said that if she wanted me to, I could check on her, if she liked, and if there was any emergency I could contact her family. I could see that my suggestion brought a look of relief on her face, she admitted to me that it was one thing that worried her, she had out-lived most of her friends, but to know there was someone close by made her feel much better, so we made arrangements. I also knew that once baby sis moved in with me that we would be able to keep an eye on Lillian even better. I knew baby sis would like her as much I do.

So now I finish my blog, and look out my window to the lights of the City by the Bay, and think upon all the characters that make up the City; about Mr. “they’re staring at me” and “the naked runner”, Millie the 85 year old woman who takes Polaroid pictures of people, the twins so identical to wearing the same outfits, the Bush man, Tommy the escape artist who escapes out of chains at the cable car turn table at fisherman’s wharf, the old man who rides the cable car playing “Camp town Ladies” on his harmonica while his dog ‘sings’, the elderly lady whose dog carries her purse (her dog is a Rotwiler ), Judy the Hooker who wears hot pink Daisy Dukes’ even though she’s 70 years old, and so many more, each one who does something to be distinctive in a gray city, to break out of the drabness of the world.

Each has their own niche, painted upon the psychic canvas of the City, some to be remembered for a long, long time, some who will become distant faded memories, but all not quite forgotten as long as there is at least one person to remember them.

And now my sweet, yummy things, to bed, to sleep, perchance to dream, sweet dreams to all of you.