Well, Anotnio got the job at Bloomingdale's, he goes in today to sign all the paperwork and starts right after Christmas, so my little guy pulled himself out of the shocking turn of events last Thursday to find a new job in less than one week. So all those worries are over - if he didn't get this job, I was fearing a long, dreary and depressing search, not to mention quite a struggle to keep up with our financial obligations.
It's good news for my "Dress Better in '07" campaign as well. The trial phase that I am in right now is going very well. Today I have on a nice black corderouy blazer with a white shirt with thin black double pinstripes, and the cashmere scarf that higgy higgins picked up at lohmann's for me, which is grey with black, white and yellow horizontal bands of different widths. With jeans and my black Tsubo sneakers. Very snappy outfit if I say so myself. The Bloomingdale's men's department is FAR SUPERIOR to the odd little men's department in the basement at Neiman Marcus, so with Tony's discount, I'm looking forward to expanding this month's pilot program full scale.
And in the final piece of news that is making me happy today, I drove my beloved little Yaris hatchback into work today, there was not one second of traffic delay, AND, I found a parking spot immediately, right behind the office in Ritch Alley! There was a moment of panic as I neared the toll plaza, zipping down the fastrak only lane, when i reached over to grab my fastrak transmitter so I could hold it up to the windshield and it wasn't in its usual spot. A little scary heading at 50mph for the toll lanes trying to feel under the seats and look in the glove compartment. I was trying to decide if I should pull over into a cash lane, but then I figured even if I got a ticket, they have a record of me having a fastrak and I'm sure I could get it rescinded, but do I really want to deal with that? And I also wondered if some big, flashing alarm was going to go off, but then I was there, heading through, and miraculously, from somewhere I still haven't determined, my little transponder beeped and the display flashed "valid." Does that mean that I don't have to hold the thing up to the windshield like a dork every time I cross the bridge?
The only bad news about the speedy commute was that I walked throught the back door at 7:10am, and noone else arrived until 8:30. Lonely, quiet morning.
My goal for 2007 is to dress better, not that i'm a terribly sloppy dresser, but i think i need to upgrade a little beyond my old navy rut. some nice items, maybe it is time to actually buy and wear a jacket or two, throw in a scarf. so last thursday i took a half day off and went shopping, hitting a huge sale at club monaco, where i bought some very nice stuff for very cheap. i got home around 3:30, just in time for the Oprah/Judge Judy battle for my eyeballs (Oprah won this one, by getting me all teary with Will Smith talking about his movie the pursuit of happyness).
i hadn't heard from tony in hours, which is unusual, so i called him on his cell, which he didn't answer (also unusual). i tried him every thirty minutes for the next hour and a half, and finally on the last call he answered, but sounded very upset and mysteriously said that he couldn't talk but he had something really important to talk to me about in a few minutes. hmmmm.
well, about 30 minutes later, he calls to tell me that he was terminated by neiman marcus.
not to go into a lot of details here, but here is a little summary of what happened. it's very sad and makes me very angry. i'm assuming since i have only about three occasional readers, tony's potential new employer, bloomingdale's, won't be reading this. is that a safe assumption eve?
first of all, let me say that i have been with antonio for nearly 13 years, we've been married for nearly 8 years, and i have watched him, through hard work and determination, go from a 7$ an hour salesperson at the house of blue jeans on 6th and market, to one of the top salespeople at neiman marcus, selling the most expensive designer women's apparel in san francisco and making $65K a year. those of you who know tony will find it hard to believe that he is a hard worker, but i know, that at his job, he gives it his all. neiman marcus RECRUITED him from Saks, named him rookie of the year and the store director wrote him a personal thank you for getting to annual sales of nearly $800K his first year.
so it all starts with his number one customer, who we will call Oh Hale No! (OHN for short). She lives in the east bay, way down past hayward, and doesn't make too many trips into the city. she buys big the regular stuff, jeans, skirts, dresses, sweaters, but she also buys many big ticket items - we're talking $10K all the way up to $75K for furs, jewels, handbags, etc. needless to say, OHN was good for tony's commissions, but also good for Neiman Marcus sales. and OHN kept making these purchases on credit, Neiman would keep upping her credit limit so she could make these purchases.
also, since OHN lives way down past hayward, she rarely comes into the store. she calls tony and tells him she needs a purse, or she wants gold shoes, or she needs a new white jacket, etc. tony would describe things to her over the phone, she's want to see them, so tony would sign them out through security, bring them home and OHN would send her assistant up to our house to pick them up and take them down to OHN. a day or two later, the assistant would bring back what she didn't like, tony would sign those back in through security and charge to her account the things she kept. so there were a lot of expensive items going back and forth, in and out of the store. and tony did some of the same things everyone else there does for their clients, little shortcuts, not following every single rule.
also, the way the store works, things like this happen. he sends a pair of jeans, size 8 down to paula. she sends them back. tony takes them back to the store. they get put in the storeroom just off the floor, waiting to be retagged and put back on the floor. items like that filled these rooms, and sat for weeks before going back out. and say there is someone else helping their customer, they are looking at the same jeans in a size 6. they like them, but they want the next size up. the salesperson can't find an 8 on the rack. so she checks the back room, and there is a size 8. but they are not tagged for sale yet. so the salesperson sells the size 8 to the customer, but scans in the size 6. so now the size 8 that tony checked out and brought back in is "missing." you get the picture. theoretically, there should be a log in security where the jeans were signed back in. and tony should have a receipt from security saying he brought them back. but he brought back ten items that day and other people brought back items too, so lots of stuff is going in and out, and the security staff is not very high paid, and noone is paying much attention to all the details. and hundreds of items that show up in the computer are not to be found in the store, they are "lost" as well. yes, maybe some have been stolen by employees, some by customers, but many of them have been mis-scanned, mis-labeled, etc.
it also doesn't help that tony probably didn't have much patitence for the security people, and he probably was not well liked by them, because if you give him a hard time, as they probably did, he'll give it back. so they were probably out to get him.
almost done. so OHN wants to buy a $75K watch, but needs her credit limit raised. this time the decision goes all the way to headquarters in dallas. and after looking at her history, i think they freak out a bit. so the decision is made to cut her off.
then a week later, tony is called into hr, and security is there with a list of "violations" tony has committed and he is terminated. he was interrogated for four hours, they are asking him what happened to this item, where is this item. while they couldn't prove any specific item was stolen by tony, there were the jeans. women's jeans. in fact, all the items were womens clothing. why would tony be stealing women's clothing? oh, according to them we were running a big store on eBay selling it all. which of course they can't prove and if you know tony and i, the idea of us running a store on the computer is pretty ludicrous.
bottom line, tony never stole a single thing. he worked his ass off to keep this really demanding client happy. yes, to make commissions for himself, but also to make sales and profits for the store. he didn't take any shortcuts that aren't taken by every other person who works there. maybe he took them more often, and his attitude towards the security staff didn't buy him any friends there, so that was probably a lethal combination. but if they went through all the records of each staff person and what they signed out of the store and what they returned, and if they tried to track what had happened to every one of those items, they could come up with something on EVERY SINGLE EMPLOYEE. the system is just to imperfect. but for some reason they tried to use tony as an example. as he has heard from his friends still there, everyone has "cleaned up" their lockers and shelves (which are full of unsold, unreturned, items that were not handled according to procedure), and everyone is being extra dilligent about every last detail and procedure. so obviousley they weren't this diligent before, tony has been used as an example, everyone will be careful for a while, then it will all slide back to the way it was, and has always been.
so anyway, sorry for the long post, i guess i am kind of venting. i feel horribly for tony. he worked very hard to get to neiman marcus and he worked very hard for neiman marcus. and he never stole anything, but they treated him like a criminal. he's never been fired from a job until now. so to all my readers (all 2.5 of you!) DON'T SHOP AT NEIMAN MARCUS!!!!!!!! BOYCOTT!!!!
so today at work, one of my coworkers, who is from Paris, Kentucky, received three packages from her mom, who still lives there. i took them upstairs to her and said "Katie, you got three packages from Paris!"
Perrin, who sits in the cube behind Katie turned around excitedly and said "From Paris?!?!? How exciting!!!"
The conversation went on from there...
Katie: "Paris, KENTUCKY. Believe me, it's not that exciting"
Perrin: "Oh..."
Katie: "Believe me, it's certainly not Haute Couture"
Brad: "No, it's Haute-Down Couture"
Well, another Halloween on Apgar Street, and another decision for me to make. Do I go lights out, shades drawn, doors locked, like 95% of the homes on my street, or do I light up and hand out candy to the less than ten "kids" that may or may not show up, in what may or may not be costumes? Passing a Walgreen's on my way to the BART station, I decided to pick up a couple of bags of candy and make my decision based on what things looked like when I hit home.
Same as usual, about 5 houses on the street had lights on, but as I passed a house on Lusk, half a block from home, I saw several young kids, ages 5-7, dressed in real costumes (ghost, spiderman, etc.) and I decided the kids in my neighborhood deserve one more house to stop at this year, even though I figured this group was probably about to get loaded into a car and driven to the other side of the tracks where the pickings are better. So I got home, put my candy in a big bowl, turned up the lights and waited.
After about 20 minutes, I had my first customers. I opened the door to what I guessed to be about three 12-year old girls in pretty lame costumes. Two of them just had on pajamas, and the third had a dirty frayed tutu pulled on over her regular clothes. So I hold out the bowl of candy to the first girl. She asks, pretty rudely, "Can I just take what I want?" I said, "Sure, go ahead." At which point she plunges BOTH HANDS into the bowl, nearly knocking it out of my hands in the process, and grabs two huge FISTFULLS of candy, which she shoves into the open backpack which she is wearing backwards, so that it is not on her back but on her chest. OK, well, I'll just move on to girl number two then. So the conversation with her goes like this:
"You got Snickers?"
"No. I have Milky Ways"
"I don't DO no Milky Way."
"I also have Twix!" I say, ever the nice guy.
"Ewww. You got all the NASTY shit. I'm outta here."
With which the three girls take off laughing. Well that's it. Lights out for me. So off the lights go, all the lights that can possibly indicate someone might be in this house with candy. And I stand in the Living Room window for a few minutes, in the darkened house, watching the empty streets. I'm just about to retire to the back of the house, after about 20 minutes, when I see the spiderman and the ghost and the superman, the three boys from before, climbing the steps of the house across the street, one of the few lit up, while their mother waited on the sidewalk with a baby in a stroller. How happy and excited they were as they yelled their trick or treats and the homeowners commented on their costumes. I watched as they headed back to the sidewalk, and along with their mother scanned the street in both directions, realizing that they had already been to the four or five houses that were sharing in halloween that night. So I rushed around the house, turning on every light I could, refilling the candy bowl ravaged by the PJ gang, hoping that they would notice me. But the mother had already turned up Lusk street with the stroller, and was calling the boys to come along, when Spiderman took one last look back at the street and I could hear him excitedly yelling, "over there, over there! we didn't go to that one!" And the mom turned, considered for a moment, and then had everyone look both ways before heading across the street and up my front walk, as I swung my door open and waited. They called out their "trick or treats" and held out their bags and plastic pumpkins so politely for me to drop candy in each. And they each said trick or treat again, and then a heartfelt thank you, and the mom thanked me as well, and I noticed that even the toddler strapped into the stroller was dressed up as a little tiger.
And with that, my decision next Halloween will remain as difficult as ever.
i was inuduging in one of my favorite obessions this beautiful sunday afternoon: watching the real world/road rules challenge marathon, and there was beth, goading tina to hit her, which tina did. tina's quote after the somewhat weak punch made my day: "punching beth was like punching a slab of frozen pig"
Brad's been busy. I promise to get it together and get some photos to the place i need to get them to, there's lots to show. i've got a picture of fuzzy, several pictures of the kittens, a picture of a completed project runaway in the backyard, all sitting in the camera at home. a quick update on some ongoing threads here:
The Kittens Took the kittens to the vet on Saturday. He says they are in perfect health and we've done a great job keeping them nourished, which isn't as easy as people think it is (tell me about it!). he said we should go ahead and transition them to regular (canned) kitten food. they don't seem to be taking to it too well. the black and white one did great the first time i put some out, dug right in. the orange one just seems to walk through it but never eat it. and now the black and white one seems to prefer the handfed milk. but we need to get them off the hand feeding and the formula and onto regular food. i'm inclined to not feed them the formula at all any more until they are hungry enough to figure out the wet food, but tony overrules me when we can see that they are hungry. so we've compromised, and i've asked him to feed them less formula than we used to, so they might be hungry enough to start eating the wet food, but not so hungry that they are suffering in any way. we'll see how it works out. i've tried pushing small bites of wet food into the orange kitten's mouth, but it just won't take it. any tips? the good news is that it looks like one of my coworkers and his partner will be adopting both kittens together, which is nice.
OVNI Javier, affectionately known as OVNI, has become a regular fixture around the house. the tv room is almost done now, thanks to his efforts (and $200). he was working late last night, but turned down dinner because he is fasting again, expecting another signal from outer space this weekend. why do the signals always arrive on the weekends?
Project Runaway Well, i have to apologize to good old mom, she really came through with the whole raised back patio and water feature that i was so dubious of. of course, i had to fight some battles along the way to dissuade her from her usual over the top ideas. and there were the usual problems and delays due to her always wanting to customize things and add something extra. the whole thing started with a bunch of square red pavers that my mom got for free from one of her gardening jobs. i had already tired of trying to keep my lawn up between the dogs and the long rainless summers, not to mention the mowing. so i asked mom if i could have those pavers, thinking i'd just rip out the lawn and put in the pavers interspersed with my collection of bricks, concrete and other odds and ends. of course, mom had to take it up a notch or ten, ny suggesting moving some of the garden walls and making a raised patio in the back with a water feature. it actually turned out nice, and mom put in a lot of time helping me get it in, mainly, i think, because she wanted it to look good for this weekends barbecue with my brother's wife and her parents coming over. i think she also feels guilty that i have to have every family event at my house because hers will never be presentable. but that's another story. like i said, i'll get some pictures up, hopefully on sunday.
Spawn of Fuzzy - Part 3
I guess we shouldn't always blame Fuzzy. her last litter was back in may. is it possible to have a second litter four months later? if so, i'd say they're fuzzy's. and if so, i kind of blame myself. after the last litter i swore that i would trap fuzzy and get her fixed. but i didn't figure on more than one litter a year, so i thought i'd have all winter to do this. i was going to do it during my vacation, but fuzzy only showed up one day and i didn't have a trap then. also, fuzzy is about the feralest of the ferals i've ever encountered. usually they become pretty reliable, once they know my porch is a source of food. all three of the cats we keep in the house now started as ferals who became regulars. canela and baga, who both sadly died on stormy rainy nights, would wait for me on the porch for their evening meal every night. granted, they waited on the porch, and bolted for the bushes when they saw me, it wasn't like they were THAT freindly, but at least i knew they'd always be there. fuzzy is different. first, she's got a few years on the other ones. this chick has been walking the streets for several years, at least. she is not the least bit friendly or inquisitive. she's pretty mean looking and has an attitude problem. and she protects her feraldom very well. no regular habits, no regular hangouts, steers very clear of people. so she's going to be a tough one to catch, but i have to do it, this is the third (and maybe the fourth) litter that i know about that she's given birth to in my yard or my neighbors back shed.
so we were just getting into bed last night, watching project runway, with the rain absolutely pouring outside, the first rain in months. we hear the distinct sound of very young, very unhappy kittens right outside our bedroom window. tony immediately wants to go save them. i tell him we should wait and see if the mother (fuzzy, we presume) will take care of them. i explain she is probably moving the litter one by one to a new, dry, location and we should give her chance to come back for these last ones. but after twenty excruciating minutes of listening to these poor kittens crying in the rain, tony wins, and we are out in the rain checking on them. there they are, in the overgrown grass outside our bedroom window, soaking wet with the rain pouring directly onto them. we couldn't leave them like that. a tabby and a black and white. the tabby's eyes have just opened recently and the other's are about to. i'd guess two weeks old? maybe even three? much further along than the last litter we tried to save. so we took them in, dried them off, warmed them up, and put them to sleep in a box on a heating pad, with plans to ask my mom to drive them to the berkeley animal shelter the next day, where our understanding (from my call to our vet) is they will not be out to sleep.
so mom kindly takes them to berkeley animal shelter, but of course they only accept animals from berkeley, and my mom is not prepared with a fake berkeley address or story, so they won't take them. i should have thought of that and prepped her with a story. shoot. so she takes them to oakland animal control, where of course they only take kittens that weigh more two pounds, anything smaller they out down. (for what it's worth, they told her it was the same at berkeley animal control). so she brings them back home and calls me to make a decision. as much as it pains me, i am thinking at this point the kittens have had no food or nourishment for more than 12 hours, they're probably pretty weak and close to death at this point anyway, and there are a shitload of lonely cats already in the shelters, so i'm ok with having mom take them back and having them put down. but i would have to lie to tony, and i'm thinking that maybe after our last experience, he might see my point and be ok with it. OF COURSE I COULDN'T HAVE BEEN MORE WRONG!!!!!
tony was horrified that i would even think that. and was adamant that we try to save them. so i had to call mom, and ask her to go to PetSmart, by the kitten formula and dropper and see if she could feed them twice this afternoon. she was more than happy to help, so hopefully they will pull through until i get home tonight (not like i'm super skilled at this!). tony has already found someone at work who just lost a cat and is eager to take both kittens in a couple weeks.
so if we can keep these guys alive and growing for two weeks, things are looking good. these two look a lot stronger and seem a lot healthier than the last batch, so i think we may succeed.
don't kill me for this! i was curious if my little blog would come up if you searched for it, so i tried searching on yahoo! using two words: apgar and fuzzy. unfortunately, after three hits on the topic of the fuzzy apgar test, the next hit was a guy named dave apgar talking about his fuzzy cat. damn that fuzzy. she is nothing but trouble. but i did feed her last night.
well, this was a fun one. walking to the bart station this morning, i rounded the corner from West Street onto 39th Street. the second building down is a four unit apartment building set back from the street with a small parking lot in front of it. there is an old beat up car halfway onto the sidewalk, with both rear doors missing. i see about 4 pit bulls in the car. one of them very big and black. much to my surprise, as i pass by, they all jump out of the car and head towards me. i had assumed they were chained up somehow, but i was wrong. just four pit bulls, completely unrestrained, sitting in a broken down car on the sidewalk, with no owner in sight. by the time i realized the dogs were on the loose, i was already passing the car, too late to go back to west and keep walking up to 40th. luckily the dogs stopped about 3 feet from me as i passed by. i was surprisingly calm, although i don't know why. i started to get scared as i passed by and my back was too them, and the big black one started to follow me. he followed for about 15 feet. i was convinced that he was going to take off at any minute and head right at me. for my jugular. then he changed his mind and decided to start humping the brown dog. oh great, horny pit bulls in heat.
i would have stopped to snap a picture, but i thought would be ill-advised. i have now programmed the number for oakland animal control into my cell phone so i can call them immediately the next time something like this happens.
This shooting/murder (the one on West Macarthur) that happened last night, is basically right behind our house. if you were to climb over my back fence, into the adjoining yard, and walk to the front of that yard, you'd be on West Macarthur, almost exactly where this happened. look at the map! (crap, my linking skills apparently still need some work. sorry) our house is on apgar, just to the left of where lusk deadends in to apgar.
OAKLAND -- Overworked Oakland homicide detectives had two more slayings to add to their workload Tuesday after late-night shootings left a man dead in the Fruitvale District and another riddled with bullets on busy MacArthur Ave.
The slayings increased the number of homicides in Oakland this year to 118.
Lt. Sean Whent said investigators were finishing an initial investigation of Oakland's 117th murder of the year Monday night when they were called to a second fatal shooting. Whent said the second shooting was reported at 11:31 p.m. at 863 W. Macarthur near Market Street in West Oakland. An unidentified man was gunned down as he ran down the street being chased by a man firing an assault weapon. The earlier homicide was reported near 34th Avenue and Salisbury Street in the Fruitvale neighborhood at about 8:18 p.m. A man was found on the street dead from a gunshot wound to the head. "Since both shootings took place outside we are hopeful there were witnesses," Whent said. "We hoping someone will come forward with a lead."Both shootings remained under investigation and neither suspect descriptions nor possible motives were released.
i don't really tend to worry about it too much, i mean, they are not shooting random people walking down the street (not that i routinely walk down the street after dark in my neighborhood). but last night's shooting happened right in front of the house that was just bought last week by an asian family. i'm sure they're not too happy. when we first moved in in 2000, there were a lot of shootings. we'd hear gunfire almost once a week and a 14 year old kid was shot in my next door neighbor's driveway. then it quieted way down for the last few years, to the point where we almost never heard gunshots. but for some reason it's gotten really bad again. it's back to a regular thing now. but it's always late at night, usually after midnight. it's wierd how you get used to thing like regular gunfire in your neighborhood. it's sad, bur it doesn't really phase us. i guess i'll have to hand out bullet proof vests the next time i have guests over for dinner.
