Post post script to last post

Every day - more telemarketing calls - so I have composed my version of the bugler song mentioned in my last post -

someday I’m going to murder the caller

someday you’re going to find him dead

I’ll stomp upon his telephone

eliminate his calling zone

and have a quiet home instead

Someday I'm going to murder the bugler

Several months ago I changed my telephone listing from unlisted to listed.  Bad idea. Since then I have received an unrelenting onslaught of telemarketing calls - mostly from construction companies wanting to remodel my home.  They are annoying, but especially because they are so ridiculously phony.

"Good morning, my name is **%%# - how are you today?  How's your day going?"
or "I hope your day is going well."

When I reply "what do you want?" or "Who is this?"  There is a pause as though the caller were offended by my direct approach.

I grew up during the Second World War.  A song whose lyrics have stayed in my memory was written during the First World War in tribute to the lowly doughboy - "Oh, how I hate to get up in the morning. Oh, how I'd love to remain in bed.  'You've got to get up, you've got to get out of bed.' Someday I'm going to murder the bugler. Someday you're going to find him dead.  I'll amputate his reveille, and step upon it heavily, and spend the rest of my days in bed."

I don't remember the exact wording, but the idea is the same.  I would like to reach across the telephone wires and strangle the caller - and spend the rest of my days answering the telephone confidently.  Yes, I do have Caller ID, but the clever callers are identified as Private Caller, and so are a few of my friends.  I have the choice - to answer, or not to answer -

I am registered on the Government's Do Not Call List -  not much help nowadays.

Pinterest - I'm on

I am in the 21st century - on pinterest  with my name Dorothy Raymond  Take a look at my Boards.

When I tried getting back to my blog this morning I was surprised to see that my last post was in 2011 -

Today is Friday, the 13th - and MaeRose has tummy troubles - she stole one and one half bagels yesterday - but that should not cause so much aftermath evidence - unless the plastic wrap is the problem.

Blogs are probably passé
 now that most people are tweeting and twirling and texting.

Ethnically incorrect artistic assumptions

I recently had an appraisal by a bank loan officer.  His name, given to me beforehand,  was recognizably Japanese.  So, in addition to trying to 'unclutter' every room and make sure the surroundings looked spacious as possible, I polished my three tansus, pulled out additional Japanese artifacts, and awaited favorable comment.  (I even stuffed several large dog beds into my car, front and back, because there was no other place to get them out of the way.)

Lesson learned.  After entering my "Japanese" bedroom, and getting no response.  I pointed out one of the tansus.  "Oh, I thought it might be Craftsman," was the reply.  I nodded at another tansu and the pottery tanuki on top, adding "they're vintage Japanese." All I got was a puzzled shrug.

Then my visitor told me all about a home he appraised in Pasadena which was electronically wired against intrusion because the owner had an entire wall of valuable Japanese paintings.  "They must have been old woodblock prints," I suggested.

Later, when he referred to "those block pictures," and told me that the Mexican food in Sedona was the best he had ever had, it became clear that a Japanese heritage does not mean either an appreciation of, or an interest in things decidedly "of a place."

The same must hold true of any culturally-specific artifact, or food, or clothing -  not necessarily appreciated nor recognized by someone from the culture.

More on Sierra Madre's new Farmer's Market

A few weeks ago I blogged in dismay about the reopening of the farmer's market in Sierra Madre.
Location much improved - tree-lined street, easy access.  But, only a four or five farms with produce, the rest - prepared foods, and predictable clothing.

Things have picked up.  More farms, fresh bread, baked goods, fresh fish, and variety of merchants.
Still a 'work in progress' but obvious improvement.

Fingers crossed that it survives, and thrives.

More about children and dogs

Two little boys, aged three and five, approached us on our daily walk, with the proper greeting, "May we pet your dogs?"

Then the older surprised me by asking if MaeRose had fangs (at first I thought he said 'stains') -
and then he asked me if she was a vampire.  The final question, which he posed seriously, pointing to Darby, "Can I pull his tail?"

That is the first time a child has asked that.  We have met literally hundreds of young children with our volunteer activities for the Pasadena Humane Society - all ages from infancy to teenaged.  Even tho' some are afraid of dogs, none has asked about vampires, or permission to pull a tail.  There is always a first.

Another morning in Sierra Madre and surroundings

This morning a large coyote raced past me and my two dogs  - on a tree-lined residential street - another ho hum moment for seasoned residents.  I wonder where it was going in such a hurry.  Or where it hides out in these many blocks of homes and commercial buildings.

In 1984, months prior to the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.  newscasters, newspapers (yes, there were several) and local pundits predicted a massive traffic jam from the beaches to the foothills.  Warnings, alternate route directions, stay at home pleas, overwhelmed.  And, then the two weeks arrived - to the joy and wonderment of those of us who traveled everywhere by automobile - blissfully enjoying clogless freeways, and the cachet of bragging about getting from Pasadena to Santa Monica in less than 30 minutes.

And now, July 2011, comes a repeat - carmageddon, cartastrophe, carmania - all because for a weekend the 405 Freeway is going to be closed for a ten mile stretch.  For weeks we have been promised round the clock news coverage, traffic officers working triple overtime, speculations of major never before seen bumper to bumper jams - interviews with brides choosing alternate routes for wedding guests, interviews with families fleeing on vacation, interviews with construction crews threatened with $72000 an hour fines for every hour past the deadline for freeway reopening.

Next week we will know - another 1984 summer?  Who knows?

Yesterday the new Sierra Madre Farmer's Market opened - what a disappointment - two vendors with vegetables, two with fruit, one with fish, one with almonds (expensive!) two ethnic food stalls, four booths with limp unappealing flea-market style clothing, one with pseudo-vintage pillow covers and frayed straw hats.

All the pre-opening publicity led me to expect much more. I will, instead, join the throngs at the Saturday market in Pasadena.

Guess you can tell this is a morning of partial venting.