And remember ... ALLLLLLL clowns are evil.

I do not now have, nor have I ever been known for having, tact. (Tim, I can hear you dammit. Stop laughing.)

Some folks have the ability to always say the right things to the right people at the right time. (I'll add that it's been my experience that having an accent of some kind will assist with this.) The person that can do this? Yeah, they're the exact opposite of me. I actually can say something perfectly kind, but will wind up apologizing for it because I'll have chosen the wrong words.

Because of the number of times I've gone to the Gulf Coast, my manager has decided that I represent "all things Mississippi". I didn't ask for this to happen and I'm VERY uncomfortable with the mantle. My only experience with the area is post-Katrina, and I'd hate for someone to judge my town after a riot, fire, landslide, etc. It'd be like … ummm … ok, it'd be like breaking out the day before your big blind-date. You'd HOPE that all the good stuff would shine through but, realistically, you'd realize that there was an elephant in the room or, in my given example, on your chin.

Anyway, here's my dilemma: A volunteer from a past volunteer work-week has arranged to be interviewed by their local newspaper in an effort to get more folks to support the Gulf. This is a good thing. Hell, this is a GREAT thing. And I'm ALLLLLL for it.

Except

having worked with this person for a solid week (and judging ONLY from that time together) I can honestly say that this person arrived with a specific notion, never saw past that notion, and left with that notion. And while their enthusiasm and heart is in the right place, I just know this person is gonna say something that's actually going to damage the trust, work, and respect-level that I've been TRYING to maintain.

Ya' know how there's always that one jerk reporter with the enormous microphone at the scene of a massive car crash? And he jams the mic into the face of a young child at the scene and barks "tell me how you're feeling right now" and as you're watching in horror, you just think "Oh, would somebody please drop a piano on this ass-clown"? I can close my eyes and actually see this person saying "Well, ya' know – they live in a crappy area anyway" or "It's not like they had that much to lose, really" or "Those that live down here should expect this sort of thing".

(Again – I have no tact, so maybe "ass-clown" isn't the word that springs to mind for you. It IS what comes to mine, but anywayyyyyy …)

So I need to tactfully ask this person to either cancel the interview, or get the questions in advance to prep them on their answers or (and this is what my manager wants me to do) be there sitting next to the person so as to prevent any "stupid answer" from happening. And I wanna be clear here – I don't care if the person being interviewed looks like a moron. Heck, I don't even care if the company comes off as looking bad. But I refuse to have ANY of the people that I've met in that region be judged so harshly. Especially by an ass-clown.

Putting myself through a little planned Missouri

September will be interesting … in a few weeks, I'll go to a state that I swore up and down I'd never EVER step foot in to participate in an event that I'm VERY unprepared for but with friends that I adore and for a goal that I firmly believe in (even if I'm not wild about the org. that I've partnered with to participate in said event). I have no specific reason to fear Missouri really … and while I've been told (over and over and over) that it's not "the South", the accent that I know as being from Missouri tells me otherwise. I have, as I've already written, a deep affection for most things Southern, actually - but, without going into details, I have a painful history with an ex-resident from St. Joseph, MO … and well it's just gonna be uncomfortable for me is all. But it is manageable. This *will* be the "stretch" experience that I have for my 39th year on this planet. Not the event, actually but the "going to Missouri" part.

And yes, I know what I'm doing for my birthday next year. I know exactly where I'll be, what I'll be wearing, what I'll be eating, what city I'll be in, what time of day I'll be doing it, and no – you cannot participate. You can come watch, if you'd like – but from a distance. And, since I believe thus far this is only being read by guys, tailored suits will be required.

A mouth only a mother could love.

In preparation for my trip to Mississippi next week, I visited my folks on my way home from work last night. I wanted to give my mom a copy of my 4th journal, as well as a copy of the articles that have appeared in the New York Times and This Old House Magazine that feature the home my group worked on in April.

My mom had just returned from the DMV, aglow in the fact that she got a 100% on her written drivers test. It's been a long time since she looked over the drivers handbook (heck, it's been a long time since I looked over the handbook) and in CA, no matter how clean your record, you can only get an automatic renewal on your license so many times before you MUST return to redo the written exam. My mom is fine with this. She's a good driver and I know it's been more than 3 decades since she was even pulled over, let alone given a ticket for anything.

(A quick aside – my mother is in her early 70s. She's about 5 foot 6 and completely white-haired, which is always well coifed. She doesn't wear makeup, but always wears lipstick. The neighborhood areas where my parents live are filled with families that are … "well-off" would be accurate here. There are NO bad parts of town. Oh, and she was driving Natasha, the gold German-engineered tank that is her every-day car.)

As she was leaving the DMV, she was in the slow lane of a well-traveled four lane road. There are signs posted that indicate the far right hand lane becomes a right-turn only lane, and there was a large brown SUV in that lane. The driver was in his late 40s and (according to my mom) didn't seem to be on his cell phone. There was no reason for my mom to believe he wasn't going to turn right, but when the light at the intersection turned green, he went straight, and merged into the space my mom would have been in, if she hadn't been paying attention. No signal, no "whoops, I'm sorry shrug", nuttin.

Still "high" from her 100% on the exam, she decided to follow him for a few blocks, with the hopes of maybe calmly pulling along side of him and pointing how what she'd done to avoid his stupidity. And her patience paid off – he pulled into a grocery parking lot after a few more blocks. So she pulled up behind him, essentially blocking him into the space and called out to him with "Excuse me, sir?"

She proceeded to calmly and rationally state something to the effect of "do you realize what you did back there, and how your huge vehicle would have caused massive damage not to just your automobile but to mine as well, if it hadn't been for MY intelligence and reactions?" The individual blanched, and responded that no, in fact, he didn't notice the signage and didn't realize what he'd done and thanked my mom not just for her good judgment but also for having enough nerve to point out what had gone down. He promised to look around more, and they parted on good terms.

As she finished telling me this, she became a little sheepish and said "I guess that it probably wasn't really very smart of me to do that – it really could have turned out very badly." And because I am my fathers' daughter … because I have a quick sense of humor … because I have no internal "editor" … I couldn't stop myself. I did a once-over at my mom standing by my side … literally scanned her from top to bottom … and said "well yeah, 'cause he was probably terrified you were gonna go all 'Grandma gangster' on his ass. Did you blast him with some Barry Manilow as you slowly drove away?"

My mother … she loves me, in SPITE of my mouth.

Next week I'll be in Biloxi. Pray for snow, or at least for temps lower than 90F.

Flat in the front, screwed in the back.

Twice a week, sometimes more, my commute is double what it typically is. Meaning when I head to my "big city" office, it's about half the length of my "HQ office". I don't *always* take Jake on my drives to HQ. It depends on if I think the weather will be worthy of driving topless, on how much gas is in which car, or (as has been the case this month), what Jakes mileage is. Jake's 7th birthday is August 13th, and he will celebrate it with 34,998 miles on his odometer. I intend to own Jake for a long, long time to come, so I'm very judicious about the mileage he sees.

This means that I've been driving my other car, Lula Mae. She's also a Mazda, and I purchased her with 40k original miles. She's been with me now for 14 years, and if there were any way for me to keep her for the rest of my days, I would. Her appearance notwithstanding, she has features that NO other vehicle has. For instance, somewhere on her chassis is a parking karma (or would that be "car-ma"?) chip that GUARANTEES I will be able to park in the front of whatever building, venue, or other location I'm destined for.

Scoff if you must, but I've tested this for more than a decade. I get to park in front of the busiest business, café, office building, post office, library, hospital … it makes no difference at all. I have literally watched as not one but four prime parking spots have opened up when she and I enter a parking lot. It's remarkable.

She is NOT glamorous. Her clear coat is pealing so soon her paint will have issues. Her lapbelt alarm will constantly go off if you don't know to wrap it around the shoulder belt once. (I consider this a security PLUS. Who the hell could drive very far with that kind of annoyance?) But she is a real jem. She's never let me down or left me stranded. In fact, her favorite place to have issues is in my driveway, which is FINE by me.

Which is why I didn't bum out on Thursday when I walked out in the morning to take her to HQ and saw the flat tire – passenger side front. I was kinda expecting it, because I've been hearing a "tick tick tick tick" in one of her tires as I've been driving, but I couldn't pin down which tire, and I'd check them all each time I parked but couldn't find anything.

So today I played auto mechanic. I jacked her up, put on her full-size spare (I refuse to use donuts), and drove her to the tire shop to have them repair or replace the flat. Turns out that it wasn't a nail, but a failure in the tire wall, so once again, she was REALLY kind to me. She could have easily let that blow out on my drive or, heaven forbid, on the bridge(yikes!) so again, no harm, no foul. I picked up the replacement from the shop a couple hours later, and drove her home and again heard "tick tick tick" from her wheel base. When I parked this time, I found it – a large screw in the tread on her back drivers side tire. *sigh* So jacked her up AGAIN, put the new tire on the back, rolled the "screwed" tire into her trunk and went back to the shop.

How do I know that Lula Mae is a she? 'Cause of the way she goes through shoes.

See - ya’ click on the horse & it sings ... oh just nevermind.

So I've talked about my friendship with Tim, but I haven't mentioned Jen. When I interviewed with the company I'm working for now, Tim and Jen team-interviewed me. Tim and I hit it off right away, but Jen was a little more reserved. I learned later it's because she takes a bit to warm up. Like about 3 minutes.

I inherited part of her gig when I got my job - the part that she wanted to let go of, which was great. We both got exactly what we wanted, which in the job world rarely happens. We worked amazingly well together, the three of us. So well, in fact, that when my boss moved on to another job, they just let the three of us continue to do our thing, un-managed. (We all joked that we were unmanageable. Of course, we now realize that … well … we ARE.)

In his spare time, Tim is a professional singer. (I know – "spare" vs. "professional" kind of argue against each other. Get over it.) In her spare time, Jen is a professional actress. In my spare time, I cook. And eat. The three of us have all of FUN vices covered – food, music, and entertainment. In fact, Jen's professional spare time moved her to NYC, which is where she's been for more than a year – still working for our company, just elsewhere. It's a bummer not seeing her all the time, but we exchange email rants and fun websites (for instance, this http://svt.se/hogafflahage/hogafflaHage_site/Kor/hestekor.swf just KILLS us. About three times a year, for no reason at all, one of us will send this to the other two and we'll giggle for hours.)

Anyway, I busted out from my HQ offices today to head into my big city office to see Tim for about 10 minutes prior to having dinner with my other favorite co-worker Scott. I consider it a two-fer. I get to see Tim AND hang with Scott. It can't get better than that! Tim and I caught up in about 2 seconds, talking over each other … as all couples do. I walked with him out the office as he left for the day. I stopped off at the ATM and walked back into my building, and there was Jen walking out.

We're gonna catch up on Thursday "for real" instead of screaming "omyfriggengodhowcomeyourbadgestillletsyouinyouskinnywitchyoulookincredibleareyougettinglaidregularilycauseyoulookamazingandIgottago" at each other. But just before she hopped into her cab, she turned to me and said "singing horses".

I LOVE friends like that. I hope everyone has friends like that.

Fontella Bass was a genius.

Last night was spent with 1 ear on a phone, 2 hands on a keyboard, & 1 heart in 1 throat. I was glued to my monitor from the moment I got home until the moment I was FINALLY allowed to exhale & shut down, shortly before 11pm. A bridge in a state I've never been to – where co-workers I've never met were PROBABLY driving across to get to their homes – collapsed. Happily, everyone from my company has been accounted for & the biggest thing they seemed to suffer from the collapse was inconvenience & shock at the incident happening at all.

For a few years, while my step-men were still young, we had an emergency plan - where we'd meet in case of a fire or earthquake, that kind of a thing. Eventually the designated empty parking lot became home to a business & by that point, the boys were grown & living elsewhere anyway.

I don't recall having an emergency plan while *I* was growing up. In spite of the fact that my parents home sits at the top of a hill that was, at that point, surrounded by open space & LOTS of grasses & trees, we never decided what to do in case of a fire. My dad was a firefighter – if we had a fire, he's swoop down, swing his cape to one side, the theme music would fade a notch or two while he would openly laugh at the fire, daring it to come any closer. It wouldn't, of course, afraid of his power – & all would be right with the world once again. We didn't worry about earthquakes either, but for a far more realistic reason. The first 10+ years of my life, my family spent weekends digging out underneath the house for what would become the "lower level garage". My parents home sits on a hill of solid rock, & no earthquake will have an effect on it, the walls that hold it up, nor the foundation that it sits upon – short of shaking the entire thing to the ground.

I'm now (for all practical purposes) a grown-up – & I have no emergency plan, no "what if" or "emergency contact" list. I don't know if that's a gut reaction of knowing that I really can't rely on the government to help out should the need arise – or if it's just my own special case of paranoia … "no, I'm NOT gonna share with you what's wrong – I'll deal by myself thankyouverymuch". I know that I'd *like* to think that I'll be strong enough to ask for help if I need it. I think that it takes FAR more guts to do that than to just power through solo on most things.

Nearly every little girl grows up with the notion of eventually being rescued by a strong, capable "prince". I just wonder what, exactly, they think they need to be rescued FROM? As for me, I'll tell you what – rescue me from me. Rescue me from taking on too much or biting off more than I can chew. Rescue me from being too proud to ask for help, or from being too hard on myself when I don't live up to my own expectations. Do those things and you'll have rescued me.

(Who is Fontella Bass? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWzWTqjW0_0&feature=related)