My Home Town On Fire

Minneapolis used to be this little city in the upper Midwest of of the United States where I was raised.  Nobody cared about us.  Nobody knew where we were located - they could not locate us on a map if their life depended on it.  People would always confuse us with Indianapolis or any other city in the frigid arctic circle (mostly Canadian cities).  Just please.  Do NOT and I repeat Do NOT confuse us with FARGO.  That is another rant for another time. 

As tempting as it is, I'm not going to go on my soap box declaring to the world how righteous my own political viewpoints are to try to grab .......000000000000000000000002 seconds of the public's attention on this lame blog (or FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatever).  


More importantly, going back to 1984 when we thought we all could catch a glimpse of Prince if we hung around certain parts of Minneapolis (note:  we did not give a flying %$#@  what his skin color was and there was no media circus nor social media fanning the riot flames).....this is what it sounds like...when doves cry.  Right now the doves are crying. 

Every 30 Years

Robert Charles riots of 1900.  Harlem race riot c. 1935.  Watts riots c. 1965.  Rodney King c. 1992.  George Floyd c. 2020.  Notice anything here?  All these racially inflamed riots are 30 years apart.  Anybody else see a pattern? 

Minneapolis

Attention Minneapolis and all the others who are rioting (notice I did not say protesting):  Two wrongs don't make a right.

Walking a Chicken

.....only in Sonoma County would you witness somebody walking a chicken like a dog down the street.

We Don't Care If People Are Not Happy

I have a friend who is a veteran in the world of human resources.  She worked at a large company for a long time before she retired.  She would often tell upper management that the employees were not happy.  The response?  They did not care if the employees were not happy.  They are there to churn a profit. 

It's profit before people.  Always has been always will be.  Think about that.  Think about that in your own personal business transactions.  You are always looking for the cheapest deal possible, too. 

No More Office BS

The other thing that is really wonderful with everybody working from home and online meetings is that all the pre and post office meeting BS has been eliminated.  It's a lot harder to try to corner me just prior to a meeting to persuade my viewpoint on an issue.  Business meetings are just that - business meetings.  No, I'm not your friend and I don't care what you have planned for the weekend.  We have a business relationship.  Don't take that as me being uncaring and rude, I just know BOUNDARIES.

The problem today is that the boundaries are blurred between business and personal relationships.  We are expected to be 'friends' with people we would not have anything to do with outside of work.  We are expected to go do dinners, concerts, sporting events....(gag).  Throw in all this  idea we should all be working in an open room instantly accessible to each other at all times of the day (and night thanks to email and text) and no wonder we all want to open fire on each other.  Our spouses don't have the same accessibility to us that our workmates do.

Thank GOD for the virus allowing us to work from home.  OOOOOOOOPS.  I forgot to pay my PG&E.  That means I'm cut off.  No access to internet nor email.  You'll have to send me snail mail if it's that important.  Thank God for the virus so you don't show up unannounced on my doorstep.

The rant for today:  BOUNDARIES

Respect them. 

Aren't You Getting Antsy?

.....ummmmm...nope.  The longer this whole shelter-in-place continues the more I'm liking it.  I don't miss the public at all.  Don't worry, I'm not the least bit offended you all don't miss me, either.  It goes both ways.  In fact, I'm annoyed when you're at the grocery store the same time I am. 

I'm getting my social fix by sitting outside with one or two friends at a time for cocktails and such.  Everybody brings their own drink and food.  We all sit at least 6 feet apart.  Everybody who comes over is within walking distance so if nature calls they can all depart to do their thing and come back so nobody has to enter anybody else's home.  Fortunately for me, I have a band that rehearses across the road and we also get live music.  Bonus:  The band is actually really good.

What's there to miss?  I get time with my favorite people and also get live music......all without a hefty price tag.

We have decided that we are going to invest heavily into our yard, both front and back.  It's going to be the ultimate outdoor hang-out space as I think that is where entertaining is going and will stay.

Speaking of outdoor entertaining, maybe it's time to bring back drive-in movie theaters and car hop service.  BRING BACK THE 50'S.  If you have a classic car you get a free burger.  How fun would THAT be?  Dressing up would also get you a free hamburger (or whatever).

Do As I Say And Not As I Do

Every wonder why all the television news anchors (and politicians) always look so fresh and neat?  Aren't they supposed to be 'shelter-in-place' with the rest of us?  Why does their hair not look ragged?  Why are they always so polished? ...and what of this of CA Governor Newsom jetting off this past weekend to Montana?  Oh yes, official CA business happens in Montana.  Isn't HE supposed to be sheltering-in-place like the rest of us? 

I don't buy for one second that they are all doing their own hair and make up. They mandate behavior they won't follow themselves.  If it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander. 

Yet, there they are....telling us all not to be selfish and to sacrifice for the greater good. FU. 

Hypocrites.  

Sha Boom Sha Boom

Quiet Rage is going down the nostalgic music hole tonight.   Play along.

Extinct: The Water Cooler

Do you want to know what is going away like the DoDo Bird?  The office water cooler.  Ahhhhhh yes, the office water cooler.  The place where gossip proliferated, affairs started (and ended), and where new business alliances were formed because company management was completely inept and WE can do better on our OWN.


Because of COVID-19 the entire office culture that has defined society since post WWII is about to end.  Is that a good thing?  Probably.  I remember my first job(s) at major stock brokerage firms living the cubicle life.  I took the bus to the city like a good little worker bee drone way back in 1985.  I took the elevator up to my floor and reported to my little cubicle with my fellow co-workers.  Oh..... I do have a moment of cubicle jubilee.  In 1987 somebody on my floor got off the elevator and shouted at all of us, "Get out and RUN toward the sound!  U2 is giving a concert just because."

It wasn't until later we learned that it was U2's "Save the Yuppie" concert in San Francisco.

Now that we are all working from home and will probably never return to the high rises, I'm feeling nostalgic for the office moments that defined my life.  Yes, most could be turned into a comedy show that has already been aired (The Office).  There will not be any more Christmas parties where people got carried away and photocopied certain body parts that were later made into wall paper in the break room.  There will not be any more gossip along the lines of, "Gee, Petunia has put on some pounds....do you think she's expecting?  George from accounts payable has been awfully attentive to her lately...do you think?????"

All this has been replaced with above-the-waist business video conversations online only meeting platforms.  Hey, if you're techy saaaaavy... use the 'touch up my appearance' feature.

AND... the Christmas party.  Weird.  I worked for Charles Schwab (who is Jewish) and back in the 80's they would have Christmas parties.  I'm having a flashback to when I was at a company Christmas party.  I was four months pregnant with our son.  A guy asked me to dance.  Being the dance freak that I am I would have danced with a mop if it meant I could get out on the floor.  The look on his face when I accepted his offer to dance when he discovered my pregnant lump was hilarious.  Still, we went out and danced.  It was JUST A DANCE....not a date nor a marriage proposal.   We both found the humor in it.

I'm mourning a culture that will cease to exist now that COVID-19 has changed the rules.  It's all I knew growing up in the age and culture that I did.  However, it really is unnatural and unsustainable to coop people up in little cubicles in an artificial environment that is away from families and homes.  Thinking that coworkers can replace family members is folly.  We should be spending more time with our families, anyway.  In the end, who will be at your funeral? 

DNR (do not recussitate) Retail

Retail shopping has been on its deathbed for a while now.  It's been on life support.  The public is like the retail's family knowing that it is going to die, but nobody wants to actually pull the plug. Sure, there are cute-sy slogans like "shop local" and other efforts to keep customers coming in through retail's doors.  However, such efforts are like shoveling against the tide.

Well, the virus and ensuing economic collapse has pulled the plug for us.  We are watching retail gasp for its final breaths.  Does retail have a trust or will to decide what happens next?  The implications will be far and wide.  Cities will become ghost towns.  Think of this.  What are the major reasons anybody goes into the city for anything?  People go into the city for shopping, work, restaurants, cultural events., etc.  All of these reasons as of now are forbidden.  Will they ever come back?  If yes, when, and even more importantly, how?

San Francisco has been dealt a blow.  Anything that was paying into the tax base and employing people has been annihilated.  There's no incentive anymore for anybody to put up with the trash, needles, homelessness, panhandling, crime, traffic, etc.  The blight of the inner city has come back.  It will become a prison of sorts for those who remain.  God forbid should we allow the inner city cesspool come into our own neighborhoods.  That's why we don't live where we (used to) work.  SF is surrounded by water except for the border with San Mateo County so the moat keeping the undesirables in is already intact.  It's kind of like Alcatraz. 

We are living in the transition of ages.  Nothing will ever be the same ever again.  It's foolish to think that things will go back to 'normal.'  There is no more normal.  However, denial is part of the grieving process when something dies (retail). 

The 8 o'clock howl

There's a ritual going on in our neighborhood where everybody goes outside and howls at 8:00 PM.  It's so tribal and I love it.  We sound like a bunch of coyotes howling at the moon.  It only lasts about a minute or two, but it's the closet thing we can get to communicating with our neighbors without anything electronic. 

Simple IQ Test

Here's a simple IQ test where you can easily assess your own IQ or somebody else's.  Anybody who posts anything political on social media is a moron.  The biggest idiots often preface their opinions claiming they are intellectually superior and dis anybody who holds opposing points of view.  These idiots portray themselves as holier than thou and feel the need to spread their beliefs.  They often bash those who post political opinions on social media, but there they are.....doing the exact same thing.  Then they invite arguments that only end up getting nasty, mean and personal and then wonder why social media is so toxic. 

"Gee, a social media post totally changed my outlook on politics,"  said nobody ever.

People are so entrenched in their own political bubble.  That scares me no matter which side it is.  I'm more interested in WHY people believe what they believe and not WHAT.  Obviously, their life experience has led them to believe what they do.  Aren't you intrigued as to why?  I don't want to argue with people and try to one-up them on some artificial intellectual barometer in attempt to prove my own points.  I want to peel the layers of the onion to really try to understand without my own ego or prejudices getting in the way.  

Helen Keller

I have one of those professional planner books.  Every day has some inspirational quote.  Here is today's, "Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.  The fearful are caught as often as the bold."  - Helen Keller

COVID-19 News Briefing

Yup.   This sums it up.  The doublespeak we get from the media and politicians. 

God and Guns

I can't make this stuff up, people.  Sometimes words fail me.  God and guns.  

CORONA VIRUS: Postponned Until October

My calendar has been cleared of work related travel.....for now.  Now the planning geniuses are shoving off everything until October.  Sorry, but I can't be five places at once and I don't want to be.  Why October?  That is the start of the flu season.  These morons are going to start a fire that they won't be able to put out.  Everything right now is fairly manageable as far as cases and hospital beds.  That won't be the case if everybody crams all this belated business travel and related conventions into autumn. 

Round two of this virus is going be worse than round one. 

Two Actual Readers

Believe it or not, I do have a very rich social circle.  It's true that I'm an introvert, so that means I'm very particular with the company I keep.  I prefer quality over quantity when it comes to people.  Also, when I make friends I tend to keep them forever.  Granted, we may not speak on the phone everyday (which is an introverts nightmare, anyway) but the connection is timeless.  With all my friends we can pick up exactly where we left off.  It does not matter if years have passed in between.  There's no guilt for lack of communication, either.  Life happens.  I'm not going to be the center of my friends' lives.  They have families, obligations, etc., etc.

My real friends know of this blog.  I know of two of them who actually read it.....and they still talk to me.  LOL. 

Enjoy your Sunday.  At the moment I'm doing LAUNDRY (all five stages, of course) and deciding what to make for dinner.  No, this does not set the thrill-o-meter off.  I'm content puttering about.  There's a certain peace in it. 

The Sexual Assault Blame Game

I don't care whether your a democrat, republican, or whatever.  Any male that runs for office will be immediately accused of sexual misconduct with women from decades ago.

Before you get all huffy-puffy with me, I am not in any way condoning sexual power plays of any kind.  I am speaking (writing) out against the instant accusations that are always politically motivated.  It's Biden's turn to be in the hot seat on this issue.  There's something odd.... The alleged assault did not matter then when Biden was VP, so why now? 

They did it to Trump, they are now doing it to Biden.  I am not a fan of neither, just for the record.  They have done it countless times before with countless candidates and politicians.  Smearing a candidate on accusations that are older than a quarter century should not get any air time.  People who have committed murder have served less time and have been forgiven. 

Sorry, but this political move is old and tired...and quite frankly....nobody cares what happened 25+ years ago.  It's a he-said-she-said game that automatically puts the candidate on the defensive. The campaign managers who keep trying this used-up tactic attempting to get us to hate the opposition should be fired immediately.

If campaign managers going to try to dig up dirt on their opponent, make sure it's fresh dirt.  And yes, I'm a woman who has my share of male power plays over the years.