here goes

The prim, blue path of consumer happiness

At last, I finally went with W. to IKEA.  He's been suggesting such a trip for years. He knew that, because we didn't go to the new restaurant we'd been planning to try that day, I was short on time to find a new place to go that week.

That's right.  All those years less than 10 miles from an IKEA store and I had never been to one. (especially not even after Fight Club). It was the first time I had experienced the long, blue IKEA pathway of products. The arrows point you in the way of the exits, but it took an entire floor of wandering around till we got the hang of the shortcuts. We needed them because we limited ourselves to 30 minutes in the store.  That those thirty minutes only stretched into 60 is a tribute to our self-control and time management skills.

We came to IKEA for a bedside table because I feel W. should upgrade from cardboard nightstand to at least a particle board one.  He reminded me as we were shopping that I said he could have my old wooden nightstand and I would get the new one.  I had picked one out of the IKEA catalog weeks before we actually went to the store, so we didn't undergo much stress finding something we liked. The price was tolerable at only $40, too.

We also picked up a couple of power strips and we waited in line for a clerk to find the very last of the string of lovely dragonfly lights. The yellow, red, and green ones were just not selling.  Somehow, as W. waited in the checkout line while I went to the restroom, W. found some cinnamon almond wafer cookies, so he bought those, too.

IKEA is quite the immersive experience. To shop there, you have to give yourself over to the creepy, maze-like floor plan. Once I resigned myself to making the entire circuit (until we found the shortcuts), we had a fun after-dinner stroll. I enjoyed seeing the round beds, the wall off odd-shaped mirrors, and the furnished display cubicles, especially the ones with signs that said something like "Everything in this room costs $749.00." The Swedish meatballs in the "restaurant" area smelled marvelous. W. is part Swedish and his mom has, on occasion, has cooked tasty Swedish meals. We laughed at the real Swedish books on the shelves, including about 100 overstock copies of a 2001 desk calender geared for Swedish teen girls.

I can see why people who like to shop for cheap stuff like to go there.  The designs seemed somehow trapped in a 1970s aesthetic, a time, frankly, that was gives me nightmares, design-wise.  Would I go to IKEA again?  Sure!  It's entertaining.

Some days after my first IKEA experience, I asked my friend, F., as we drove by IKEA on our way to the airport for a New York City adventure, if he had ever been to IKEA. He replied that he took two steps into the maze once, saw how things were, turned around, left, and vowed never to return.

Maybe, if we work really hard, W and can have a matching bedroom set by the time we retire.  If so, we probably will not be buying it from IKEA.

Heaven-sent balcony

The election is over (10 days ago to be precise).  I'm still trying to recuperate.  A nasty ear infection that started two weeks before the election has pretty much wiped me out.  The ENT doctor I saw today says the fatigue will go away once I get off the Cipro and that the plugged up feeling will be gone in another week to ten days.  That's what someone told me two weeks ago!

Anyway, even though I lost, I gave the incumbent a run for his money. Our results were less than 10% apart.  I got around 9,300 votes compared to his 11,000.

Eventually, I'll post more about my adventures from the campaign trail (probably). Since this is the Thanksgiving season, I'll try to post things I'm thankful about, sort of a countdown to the big Thanksgiving holiday, the Thanksgiving equivalent of an advent calender. 

While campaigning for city council, I got many more opportunities than usual for public speaking.  We had five candidate forums and dozens of endorsement interviews.  Many of these events offered opportunities for us candidates to make statements ranging from one minute to five minutes long.  During the first candidate forum I participated, one sponsored by a local chapter of the AARP, I did not set anyone's heart on fire with my poise and elegance.  Instead, I got half-hearted wishes of "Good luck" afterwards.  By the close of the last forum, I got a much more enthusiastic responses of "I'll vote for you!" and "I'll take a lawn sign."

I attribute my improvement to two factors.  First, I threw out the text other people wrote for me and I wrote my own. Second, I memorized my speeches.  That is to say, I had them memorized when I went to the events, but I still used notes to prompt me. (The experience of and results from the newspaper endorsement interviews warrant their own blog post.)

Last night, I had the opportunity to speak publicly again. There was nothing much at stake this time, and my purpose was not to promote myself, but the audience could have seemed a bit intimidating in its own right.  The CEO of the multinational Fortune 500 company where I work was in the audience as was a co-founder of said company, a bunch of politicos, an editor of a major newspaper, several professors, and a judge or two. 

(For once the CEO was obliged to listen to me at a meeting!  I confess I enjoyed turning the tables a bit.)

The subject matter of my speech, while not self-promoting, was quite sensitive.  I was to make a memorial speech about a boy who died nearly 10 years ago and present a plaque to his father, a well-regarded judge.

To prepare for my candidate speeches and my memorial speeches, I needed a place to practice.  Most people say, practice in the mirror.  I find that of limited usefulness at work.  To refresh my memory, the last thing I want to do is to stand in the women's bathroom and wave my arms about and practice smiling.  Creepy. 

Empty offices are also bad choices.  The walls are thin. The offices are in high demand and they all have glass panels by the doors.

Fortunately, at the building where I work, only 20 steps from my desk, is a nice, deserted second-story balcony that overlooks the parking lot and the busy intersection I see right outside my window. I went out on the balcony to practice 10 times a day on the days I had practicing to do. The traffic noise kept people in nearby cubicles and people walking through the parking lot from hearing me. The height and configuration made me feel like Eva Peron stepping out on a balcony to talk to her adoring (and in my case, imaginary) public below, a definite psychological boost.

I could step away from my desk every couple hours, run through my 2-minute speech four or five times and be back at my desk within ten minutes.

As I practiced and slaved to memorize my memorial speech yesterday, I realized just how glad I am to have access to that particular balcony. It's an ideal place to practice.

My speech went flawlessly.  The judge and I brought people to tears, I later heard.  I'm glad for that, too.

Red Bear or something like that

Still fixated on October -- the month of new things.  November new things is fallout from October's new things.

Ukiah is a lovely little berg, full of artists and creative types of a similar political stripe as I am. A couple weeks ago, I took myself up that on a way for the tail end of a train-the-trainers seminar for digital storytelling.  When I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge heading north, I nearly wrecked my car craning my neck to see the sun rise over the City. That golden glow tinging the clouds almost made me pull over and bask in loveliness, but no. I drove north all the way.

I set up my Alienware computer in the row of Apples and run-of-the-mill HPs and did my digital storytelling magic thing, met a lot of people and didn't worry too much about where to spend the night.  The Days Inn at the edge of town looked adequate.

At the end of the day's session, we did our "circle." When one of the organizers heard I had no place to stay yet, she looked at the other organizer and said, "Red Bear."

Organizer #2 got out her cell phone and made a call while people in the "circle" were telling us about their feelings.

Before I could say, "That would be nice," I had a place to stay, with a guy named Red Bear.

Red Bear asked to talk to me.  We decided to meet up at the theater that night. I told him what I was wearing and who I'd be with and he said he'd find me.

I felt just like I had drove through a cosmic warp and landed in some idealized small town from a TV show, like Mooseport or Stars Hollow.  All the townspeople show up to be supportive of the local theater.  Everyone meets for the town meeting and tells their real opinions afterwards no matter what.  The main characters are supermen and superwomen who run seminars during the day and star in stage productions at night and host 20 strangers with computers in their house the next day.  Unreal.

Red Bear and "Madge" did indeed find me. Red Bear is not the guy's real name, but it is close enough for purposes of this blog.  Let's just say his real name has both a color and scary animal. He's a Pomo Indian.  Madge took him in 15 years ago soon after she moved to Ukiah to retire.  He was coming off a stint with drugs and drinking and bad marriage trip.  Now that have sort of a long-married domesticity thing going even if she's 30 or 40 years older than he is.

Red Bear spends a lot of time with school children, telling them about Indians and how things used to be, and only a little about how things are. He's something of an art curator.

Midge's house sprawls around a swimming pool, but I got my own cabin in the back of the property. Madge, shocked that I had never watched the Jon Stewart Daily whatever show, induced me to stay and watch it with her and Red Bear. (The inducement was dark chocolate Dove Promises).

This was the first time I talked with, much less stayed with, a nearly pure-bred California native Indian.  I enjoyed Red Bear and Madge's company very much.  They both encouraged me to come back and bring my husband next time.

I'm sending them a post-trip host/hostess gift -- Jon Stewart's new book, of course!

The Fabulous Thunderbirds

Residents at our house and in our town have noticed a lot of extra noise today because of the airshow at the local airbase. The fabulous Thunderbirds performed this weekend. I first heard the deep roar and whining noises from the sky right after lunch near the airbase on Friday. The planes flew so low over town we nearly had to cover our ears as we walked to our cars in the parking lot. Everyone driving while the jets flew low over town drove extra slow and craned their heads out their windows and people stood out on the street to watch the planes circling overhead. The Thunderbird pilots performed Saturday and Sunday, so I've seen planes in formations flying over my backyard as they circle around to wow the crowds on the ground. Every time I hear them, I stop what I'm doing, go outside and look for them. For me, the military aspect of Memorial Day weekend did not slip by unnoticed this year.