AAA

Three As are a cause for suspicion these days. The bond rating agencies ignored all common sense, succumbed to pressure, and gave AAA ratings to all manner of junk securities. (As Husband explained to me, when there's a lot of shit in a lot of buckets, the smell of each bucket doesn't offset the others, which how how the rating agencies justified giving excellent ratings to buckets of shit.)

I thought about the AAA rating when I checked my grades online. It turns out that I got an A in my workshop, an A in my lit seminar, and an A in my colloquium. Under normal circumstances, I'd be puffing my chest and celebrating with a metaphorical cigar. However, I know that my grades are as inflated as Moody's ratings on collateralized debt obligations full of subprime mortgages. And just like with all the securities ratings, I know that all of my classmates' "products" were given triple As, too. It's sort of hollow.

Once, way back in the day when I thought that a career in public policy would fulfill me and thus pursued a graduate public administration degree, I aced a semester. I received an A in my advanced seminar on child & family policy (actually a PhD class in the School of Social Work), an A in my seminar on social policy analysis (also a social work PhD course), an A in a course on the legal environment of policymaking, and an A in my public management practicum. Damn, I feel my chest puffing up as I write this. The next semester I almost outdid myself, earning two As (in an insane course on public housing policy and in a policy analysis practicum), and A+ (seriously, they gave me an A+!) in a research practicum on poverty and public policy. Then I got a B+ in a sociology course in which the professor refused to talk to me after I missed a class due to illness, so that ruined it, but whatever. I've never been prouder of my work.

Grades don't buy happiness, that's for sure. I'm pretty nervous to start over again at the end of the month. I won't even go into the problem I'm having trying to change a class because no one is overseeing the fucking program right now; the director is on leave for the semester, and the associate director is out until Jan. 20. Not that they should be at the beck and call of students just because we pay $22,000 a year in tuition, but you'd think someone might stick around for little issues. What do I know about running programs, though? I just got an A in public management and have been administering nonprofit programs for almost a decade. I smell some buckets. (Man, this is way more bitter than I intended it to be.)

Yin & Yang

Good news: I had a good 2nd day.

Bad news: I came home to find the progress on my bathroom to be unacceptable. It seems that the building staff is attempting to replace the tile in the shower and bathroom walls themselves rather than hire a contractor. (I suspect that this is because the managing agent balked at the quoted prices.) The upshot is that it looks like shit, with the wrong size tile used on some places and other tiles already are cracked. The new tiles don't look anything like the old ones. I would rather have had them put in a funky color and at least have a cool stripe than two different shades of white. Worse, Husband touched a tile and it fell off the wall.

Good news: I won't be home to deal with it.

I Made It!

This is probably the only time I'll write about work since I try hard to pretend that my "professional" life and my "writing" life are two very separate things, partly so that I may continue to have a "professional" life. Anyway, the first day was good, if a bit overwhelming. First days are always overwhelming, though.

The time flew (it helped that a co-worker's birthday was celebrated), and I learned many things and attempted to start many others. I only made two slightly inappropriate comments, and both were as we were leaving. (I said that I didn't care that a foundation that worked to preserve the "purity" of Judaism by discouraging interfaith marriages had to close its doors after Madoff - a Jew - scammed all their funds, then I made a nasty comment about the Hasidic people who own an electronic shop and refused to let my new co-worker return her brand new flat screen TV - still in the box - after she figured out that it was one inch too large for their entertainment unit.) The work will be very interesting once I really dig in. I'm excited. Still nervous and overwhelmed, but excited.

When I arrived back at my castle (ha ha) after slaving away all day, I was dismayed to see that the super was still in the process of soliciting bids to fix the hole in the wall in the bathroom. Fortunately, the shower was fixed, so it is now possible to bathe in relative comfort, with both cold and hot water in a pleasing combination that is more than a trickle. I shall prepare for work tomorrow (I'm still adjusting to the idea that I will go to a job five days this week, and next week, and on and on) by washing my hair with the ridiculously fancy mint oil shampoo that I absconded with from the ridiculously fancy hotel in San Francisco.

I Want to Wake Up in a City that Never Sleeps

While I very much loved my trip and all the fabulous people that I saw that I want to see more often, I am glad to be home. The (free) luxury hotels (and yurt)were nice, but sinking my head into my deformed pillow when I arrived at my apartment this morning was like snuggling up with an old friend. Plus, speaking of old friends, sleeping with Theo (my teddy bear) only reminded me how merely adequate my well intentioned travel stuffed dog companion is.

Still, being home is not all rainbows and butterflies. I brought back an unintentional souvenir of a cold. There is a long line of gutted tile running along my bathroom wall, and everything that was in the bathroom is now cluttering the dining room. The shower is supposed to work, but doesn't. The workmen are coming back to patch things up tomorrow, and thankfully Rebecca will be here to remind them that they didn't really fix the shower.

Where will I be tomorrow? Downtown, starting my new job. I'm scared shitless. At least the toilet flushes better than it has in years.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Sixty-two years ago today (well, it's still today in California and Illinois...), my mom was born in a blizzard. It was a difficult delivery, as she was breech and her nose somehow managed to catch itself on my granny's tailbone, if I recall the story properly. (If I don't, my mom will correct me in the comments.) I am so glad that things worked out.

The funny thing is that Husband and I went to the San Francisco Streetcar Museum this afternoon. Why is this funny? Well, my granny's cousin always tells us how she heard that "Bernice was in the hospital having a hard time," so she rushed over to the hospital in the blizzard on a streetcar. San Francisco operates old streetcars on its F line, with different cars paying homage to cities that also operated streetcars in its past. I looked for a postcard depicting the "Chicago" streetcar known as "The Green Hornet," but sadly there were none. I thought it would make a great birthday card for my mom. (Yes, I am admitting that I otherwise forget to send one, although I did call her.)

Later this evening, Husband and I passed by a storefront with the words Fecal Face Dot Gallery on its awning. We laughed and laughed, and I thought about how my mom would also chortle if she were with us.

Happy birthday, Mom, you nutty fecal face! I love you.

Rescue!

While walking back to our hotel from Ghirardelli Square, I noticed an abandoned pirate on the sidewalk. I was horrified! Who would throw aside a perfectly good pirate like trash! Since his whiskered yellow face and brown musket were covered with sand, dust, and cobwebs from neglect, I procured a tissue (unfortunately, a used one, but I doubt that the pirate cared) from my coat pocket, and scooped the little guy up.



As we continued on, I stopped at a little corner grocery to purchase a libation for myself (Cherry Coke Zero, the most expensive bottle I ever bought at $2.01!!!). At the store, I snagged a piece of wax paper that was intended for use in picking pastries up from the case of baked goods, and further enrobed my new friend. He rode the rest of the way safely in my coat pocket.

Upon our arrival, I plunked my adopted pirate into the bathroom sink for a bath. At that point I noticed that much of the gunk that previously covered him had already transferred itself into a gunky part of the tissue, so he was already in better shape than when I first came across his sad little body. After he floated around in the hot bath for a few minutes, I wiped him down with a (clean) tissue. The rejuvenated pirate seemed very grateful, and I now have a guard for my desk at my new job!

Often times no good deeds go unpunished, but I am pleased that I took a few minutes early in this new year to help a plastic trinket in need.

Out with the Old, In with the New

There's nothing like starting a new year than by breaking things. By things, I specifically mean bathrooms. And by bathrooms, I mean home and hotel facilities, one on each coast.

Yesterday morning, Husband and I awoke to urgent voicemail messages from my cousin, who is staying at our apartment while we gallivant about California. It seems that the pipes in our bathroom are leaking. The super and a maintenance dude came over to poke about, and after ripping up the linen closet (and patching it back up), concluded that the walls and floors of the bathroom need to be torn open to fix the problem. Work is to commence on Friday, Jan. 2 and hopefully will conclude on Monday, Jan. 5, which is my first day of work and I was already a nervous wreck about it before I learned that I won't have a functional bathroom that day.

I rang in the new year today by nearly breaking the toilet in the hotel. The result of my spontaneous self-cleansing strongly resembled an eel. Steph warned me yesterday morning that the toilet was not as powerful as it should be. ("It took me three flushes and a lot of hoping. I almost started looking around for a wire hanger, but then figured that this place was too fancy. A wooden hanger would work," she explained, "but wire hangers can be bent so that you can get as far away from the shit as possible, whereas a wooden hanger, it is what it is.") I thought about my honeymoon trip to London in August 2001 and how I had broken the toilet with a shit brick, and then feared that my eel turd would be even worse. Fortunately, it went down in two flushes and nothing resurfaced. Whew!

Happy new year and shit...