It's so noisy here

The cicadas are constantly chattering now because it's always warm now. They go all night and all day. I love the night sounds here. I'd post a picture of cicadas, but they are not pretty.

The Onion-y Bears of Friday

Thanks to Joel, who sent me this for The Bear of Friday:

Missing my little mommy

It's easy to stay distracted during the day because there's work and whatever -- bright, shiny things to pull my attention. But late at night and early in the morning, when everything is quiet, I think about my parents a lot.

A friend wrote that she's angry because she cannot remember everything about her mom, who died eight years ago, with her whole being. I know that feeling so well. My mom has only been gone two years -- two years and four days short of three months -- and I often feel angry with myself because I cannot remember her voice, her laugh, the smell of her.

I can only say that her hands were soft, but I can't remember how it felt when she'd stroke my cheek. I don't remember half the things about her that other people do. I wish I'd saved every voicemail she ever left me, every card she ever sent me. I wish I had a million pictures of her. I wish I'd known her when she was young, when she was first in love, when she was a mother for the first time. I wish I'd known her better, been a better daughter, been a better friend to her. There was so much I didn't know about her.

I wish so many things.

The last bottle of perfume I gave her for her birthday is sitting on my bathroom counter, and sometimes, when I need a reminder, I'll take the top off the bottle and smell it. But it's just perfume. There was so much more. A couple days after she died, I remember going into her closet and finding a sweater she'd liked. I could smell her on it -- the perfume, her hairspray and lotion, the fabric softener she used, and I kept it, and slept with it for about a month. But it wasn't her, it was just some poor approximation.

Those days feel so surreal now. Actually, every day since she died seems so surreal now. Maybe this is my journal, and I do it now because I cannot remember most of the days since my mom died, and if I don't write it down somewhere, somehow, it will be gone, too. I miss talking to her. I miss laughing with her, watching movies with her, sitting out back on the patio and playing cribbage with her, going to lunch, going shopping, being able to call her and tell her even the stupidest things about my day. I miss everything about her.

I'm angry with myself because I want to write about her life but I don't know enough to do it, and even if I did, I'd never be able to do it right. Maybe she didn't have a famous, glamorous life, but she had an extraordinary life, nonetheless.

I'm angry that I cannot hear her voice anymore.

I'm angry that I often cannot look at pictures of her, and when I do, sometimes it's like I don't really see her.

I'm angry because I remember all the things I said that I shouldn't have, and all the things I should have said and done but didn't, and all the things I should have known but didn't until it was too late.

I'm angry I wasn't with her when she died, that she died in the hospital, with strangers, instead of surrounded by people she loved and who loved her, in her home, in her own bed.

Is this what life is going to be from now on? Just getting through every day, distracting myself? I cannot imagine a time when I miss her less than I do now, because don't we just miss the people we love more and more the longer we don't see them?

Why does it feel so often like getting older is all about everything being stripped away?

Planning a party

I'm planning a house-swarming/pre-birthday party this weekend. My roommate Claudia's birthday is next week, so we're going to have a little fiesta this weekend so people can come see the house and toast Claudia's getting a year older.

Should be fun. Now I have to make a birthday cake or something, though... Maybe a good time to practice my cupcake baking skills.

Uncle Ed

When I was a little girl in Southern California, I looked forward to visits with my Aunt Marg and Uncle Ed almost more than anything.

They lived about an hour's drive from us, and when my parents would tell me we were going to see them, I'd be so excited all the way there, I'd barely shut up.

As soon as we got there, after hugs and kisses and always a gift of pretty, colored paper from his print shop for me, my Uncle Ed, who always seemed to have a stogie in his mouth, would go behind the bar in the family room and offer me my choice of an endless array of carbonated drinks. Sparkling apple juice, chocolate soda in a can, any horrendous-sounding thing you can imagine, he had it.

The mixture of those drinks in my excited stomach was, well, volatile. My aunt collected owls, and in one of her bathrooms, she had owl wall hangings, pictures and these stickers on her shower door. I remember them spinning around me as I inevitably threw up carbonated chocolate and apple soda.

Every time.

You'd think I would have been averse to seeing Auntie Marg and Uncle Ed, but no. Every Fourth of July, they would drive down to see us. I'd barely get to sleep the night before they arrived, because I knew we'd have so much fun.

Uncle Ed would wake me up early on Fourth of July morning and we'd go down to the San Clemente Pier, walk out to the end, stopping to look at what the fishermen were catching. At the end of the pier, he'd buy me an ice cream and about $5 worth of bird seed so we could feed the pigeons.

I remember how much it made him laugh to see me covered with pigeons, all jostling to get at the seed that seemed to be everywhere.

We always had a big party at our house for the Fourth, and they'd stay for the fireworks in our driveway, then the fireworks the city lit off on the pier. We'd climb up to the top of the poolhouse my dad built in the yard so we could be high above everyone else -- it seemed like we were almost as high up as the fireworks.

As soon as they left, I remember asking when they were coming back because I could not wait to see them again.

I'm so glad to have those memories. Uncle Ed died this morning.

The (Russian) Bear of Friday

This little guy is one of several Russian bears rescued from orphanage in the wilderness.

He looks like a teddy!

Happy birthday...

...Ann Wilson.

Things I learned this week

From callers:

1. Drunk people will call you at any time of the day, and they want to talk for hours.

2. Mexicans don't recycle.

3. Long-time subscribers who swear three ways from Sunday that they read the paper cover to cover every single day, inevitably, will miss the three stories that repeated the information that was crucial to their lives.

3a. Because they didn't see the stories, that means I never wrote them.

4. If public officials take an action people don't like, they will swear it was done in secret, even though it was done at a public meeting. On fucking television.

5. If you remind people that all city council meetings are public and that they can speak at any of them because council sets aside time specifically to hear from the public, they will still say they never had the chance to speak their minds.

6. "Accounts payable" is not the same as debt. Does that mean "accounts receivable" is not the same as money owed?

From reading:

1. A foot in a buoyant athletic shoe could float as far as 1,000 miles on the ocean.

On the radio

I was interviewed on a talk-radio show based in Charlotte, N.C., this afternoon via phone. The host asked me about our city' efforts to get rid of the motorcycle rallies that many residents complain about. Kind of a strange experience, being interviewed about my interviews.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to my dad, who loved growing flowers, and to all the dads.

Fear

Phobia: A persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it.

I've always had sort of an oooky feeling about the big, blue mailboxes thanks to my mom. She used to tell me there was a little man inside the boxes and if I stuck my hand in too far, he'd grab me. Then she'd make me put a letter in the box and grab my leg or arm our shoulder to scare me.

This is a new one. Ever since I read a police report about a woman finding a snake in her car when she returned from shopping in the mall, I have had this growing suspicion that I will find a snake in my car. I can see it, like a little movie in my mind. I'm driving, unable to pull over or do anything about it, and a freaking snake comes slithering out from under my seat.

The other day I almost got in an accident because my pant leg got caught on the lever that moves the seat forward and back. I was sure it was a snake.

Now, I'm also afraid there will be a snake in my mailbox. I don't go out there at night, and when I do open the box, I stand off to one side and flip the door down and move my hand away really fast.

Wait. Maybe it's really a mailbox phobia.

But that doesn't explain my thing about clowns.

Happy Bear of Friday

I'm wishful polar-bearing, hoping it will bring a little cooler temperatures.

Just a suggestion...

People might want to check out Bob Cesca's blog post today.

The "awwww" moment of Wednesday

Yeah, he's not the Bear of Friday, but the SF Chronicle's day in pictures made me go "awwwwwww," this afternoon.

Sleepy bear took a nap in the tree.

Coffee cup of hell

My office rocks the Folgers in a coffee pot that might date back to the Crimean War. It's a cup of hell plus caffeine. And powdered creamer.

Starbucks, please help!

Here's a random G-mail moment: G-mail gives me a spam folder, and sometimes, things show up in there. I go look to make sure it's not e-mail I want, and at the top of the page, because Google is omnipotent, it offers me Spam recipes. Get it? Spam recipes go with the spam folder? Today it's "Ginger Spam Salad."

That might go well with fucking Folgers.

Also...

There was an ad on for the show "Dirty Jobs," and the host was wrangling baby Highland cattle, which come from Scotland. Made me think of my vist there and how I couldn't wait to see a Highland cow. After I saw one in a field, I really wanted to know what they felt like (like Lenny in "Of Mice and Men," I want to pet everything, except not so hard that I kill it).

I got my wish at Glamis Castle.

I wasn't trying to look like the cow. I promise.

You cannot afford this

Today, I was reading about a new play based on the rather freaky search terms AOL released a couple years ago from actual users. They don't name the users, but assign each individual a number so you can see people's browsing habits, some of which demonstrate there are some sad, demented, perverted and angry people out there.

I started thinking about what my browsing list would reveal about me. One thing it would tell people -- which most people who know me are already aware of -- is that I'm a Titanic buff.

Which is a long lead-up to the fact that I Googled the ship today and came up with news about a watchmaker in Sweden that is offering swanky, limited edition time pieces in its "Titanic DNA" collection that are allegedly made from metal from the ship itself mixed with metal from Harland and Wolff, the shipyard where Titanic was built.

OK, so a few points.

First, one of the watches -- which costs $300,000 (I found this out from someone who found it in the Wall Street Journal because the watchmaker's Web site lists no prices because if you have to ask, you cannot afford this) -- doesn't even tell time.

It only tells the wearer whether it's day or night.

If you can see a watch's face but can't figure out whether it's day or night by yourself, you don't deserve $300,000, let alone $300,000 extra to spend on something like this.

There's another one that functions as a watch, but you cannot wear it.

Why? Because it's made from the unstable, rusting metal from the ship, so it has to be kept in a glass case filled with argon or it will continue to rust and eventually, fall apart.

Second, prove it. Prove the metal came from the Titanic.

Third, there are rumors the metal is ill-gotten booty, which is entirely possible because only one company has the salvage rights, and unless it is selling off pieces of the big piece of hull it recovered, someone's breaking the law.

Fourth, I kind of want one because they are pretty and cool, but I kind of don't want one, because it's sort of creepy.

I've long wanted to own something that came from the ship, but only if it could be absolutely, positively verified, and anything like that would cost far, far more money than I am ever going to have to spend on things that are not necessities.

At one of the Titanic exhibitions I visited, I touched the big piece of the hull, and truthfully, it gave me the shivers, and not in a good way. I don't think I could wear a piece of the Titanic.

But I sure felt the need to write about it.

Holy Crap: Bird War in the MB

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. -- Local birds have declared war on the humans who work at The Sun News, peppering the newsroom windows and entry door with a strategic strafing of "bird bombs."

No one is certain what time the nearly silent attack occurred, but people who work in the building say they are fearful of further sneaky surprises.

"It makes me want to run from the gazebo to the entry as fast as possible, or perhaps carry an umbrella," said one worker who asked that her name not be used for fear of retaliation from the avian population in the ornamental pear trees in the parking lot, the only shady place to park a blue Jetta on a hot Sunday afternoon. "I just wish I hadn't bothered to wash my car yesterday."

"I suspect the seagulls," another employee said. " They've been lurking on the roof of the building, peering down at us with their beady eyes. Or maybe there's a nest of mockingbird babies getting ready to fly and the parents are all excited. Whatever. I just don't want to get crapped on."

No one knows when or where the next attack might happen, and for now, employees are just trying to find a hygienic and non-disgusting way to open the door and reach the air-conditioned safety of the newsroom.

Hot

Dang, the National Weather Service issued a heat advisory today because the heat index is 105 with the humidity. When I went to work this morning, the light, the haze, the heat, it reminded me of when I lived in Fayetteville, and not in a bad way.

Just waiting to acclimatize...

Yes I did, and no I didn't

Yes, I did see Robin, and no, I didn't humiliate myself. He said "Hey, you! Nice shirt!" because I wore my classic logo CT shirt to the red-carpet event.

He noticed the shirt as he and his wife and two youngest kids -- both named Robin (uh-huh. I'm not commenting) -- walked up the stairs to where there was, in fact, no red carpet. It had been pulled up after someone noticed some unsavory looking stains on it, probably left over from the last time Ozzy Osbourne was here. Damn rock stars.

I figured I was tempting the choking gods by popping some gum in my mouth before Robin arrived, but fresh breath took priority on the off chance he decided to actually get close enough to catch a whiff. He didn't. But it's OK. I've been breath-smelling close to him before.

I was even able to simply say "thank you," although my response was a little high-pitched -- maybe even squeaky.

Besides, blurting out "OhmygodIloveyou" never works, does it? It didn't last time I tried. Robin's used to it. He's over it. All the girls love Robin Zander.

Rick Nielsen was there, too, and also liked my shirt.

Not a bad dinner break, really.

Above, perhaps the close-uppiest picture I've ever taken of Robin (as he admired my million-year-old T-shirt), and Rick's "better side," per his request.