Angels watching over

It’s not my habit to snap pictures with my camera phone while driving. Today, though, on my commute into work I recognized a woman I used to work with. One thing led to another and I snapped a picture.

She’s a pattern maker and five or so years ago we worked together on the Nike basketball line. Her name is Ella and she’s Russian, accent and all. We were talking about our children when she surprised me with her feelings toward her only daughter. “She is devil, that one,” she said. “13 years old and becoming 23. I hate her.”

“Hate her?” I asked. And then I followed it up because she seemed so sincere. “Hate?”

“Yes. I do. I hate her. She is devil child.” It was uncomfortable and made me wonder who in the relationship was really the devil.

What surprised me when I saw the car she drove was her apparent turnaround. Notice the bumper sticker, and the Jesus fish, and the license plate surround, "Angels are watching over me."

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Complex what?

Last week Linda and I attended parent teacher conferences for our daughter Gretchen. This was our first experience with junior high conferences, which were set up production style. I had imagined walking from class to class, mirroring Gretchen’s 7 period schedule and was surprised to find the entire teaching faculty spread around the perimeter of the gymnasium. Set back from each teacher about 10 feet was a line of blue tape on the floor along with a music stand. These were the cheap black metal ones typically found in schools and I had no idea of their role in the conferences.

The idea was for parents to find the teachers they’d like to meet with then wait behind the tape line for a chance to hear about their child. Each teacher’s desk held a sign reading, “Please Observe a 5 Minute Limit.” Gretchen is a 4.0 student so the limit really wasn’t at play in any of our discussions. On the last teacher, though, we waited for fifteen minutes while the mother of a boy labeled a troublemaker patiently shook her head. It was a bit frustrating and I would have left but we saved Gretchen’s favorite teacher for last. Mrs. Frost, I’ll call her, and she teaches ‘Language Arts’ which is a fancy name for reading and writing. Linda and I sat down and the conversation began much like the others, “Gretchen is incredible this and amazing that.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I thought. And then she did.

“The thing that’s so tricky about language arts,” Mrs. Frost continued, “Is that each child is at such a different level. I have to make sure each one understands things like complex sentence structures and independent clauses. This is difficult stuff for most 7th graders.”

I’ve been writing this blog for about 4 months now and having a good time doing it. I get the impression most of you enjoy it too. I’m not, however, completely sure what either a complex sentence structure is nor how to identify one. Kids these days, huh?

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Droid Does

One of my brothers celebrated a birthday yesterday. I thought of calling him several times throughout the day and then, like an idiot, entirely forgot to call him till the following morning. “What’d you get?” I asked him. He’s much younger than me but still old enough to feel the pull of adulthood and told me his birthday was kind of nice just to have over. Then added, “I got that new Droid phone, though. It’s sweet.”

The ad line for this phone is, ‘Droid Does’ suggesting there isn’t much it can’t do. My brother began listing a few of the things the phone does that his past one couldn’t. “I really just got it though. I’m still getting familiar with it but overall it’s really sweet.” And then he mentioned a feature I’m familiar with, “It even has a barcode scanner that lets you find products both in your area and online and compare prices.”

About a year ago a friend was over and was explaining this same feature on the original Google phone. His explanation left out the critical word ‘barcode’ claiming only, “This phone has a scanner built into it. I can just point it at anything and it’ll tell me where to buy it.” This particular friend has a lot of energy and began surveying the room for an item to scan. In an effort to help I offered, “Here’s an apple, can it scan that?”

“No, but it can scan pretty much anything but food,” his voice rising with a hint of frustration.

“How about the piano right there?”

And again, “No.” Then he added just a bit louder, “It’s really more for finding stuff you’d buy,” before beginning to move from room to room looking for something to demonstrate this new feature with. I bought both the apple and the piano and wondered what his scanner actually did as I followed him into the kitchen. There he found one of my daughter’s schoolbooks and flipping it over began scanning the barcode only to get an “item not found” message.

Exasperated he simply packed the phone up and left.

Apparently Droid does what G phone doesn’t

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Donald Trump, I Presume?

“So he calls me up and asks me what to do. So I tell him to lower the price. Just a little though, but enough to let them know you’re serious.”

This was the conversation I observed the other day during lunch. The man having it wore a badge around his neck. And I say ‘man’ because his friend did little more than grunt a few times for the duration of the meal. It was a lecture, really, which he gave loudly and was endured by both me and his friend. The badge hung from a clear plastic band, which I recognized as a key card typical to one of the many tech companies in the area. He was dressed in faded navy sweat pants that stretched tight through the hip and thigh region and gathered at his ankles revealing dingy white sweat socks with stripes. Up top he wore a thick blue and gold rugby shirt beneath a black leather bomber jacket that matched his heavily worn loafers. I wondered if this was intentional but guessed not.

It seemed he rubbed elbows with a large scale developer who had called desperately seeking advice on unloading what the genius before me referred to as, “A few properties he just couldn’t get a read on.” “He’s like that, you know? He and I have been friends a long time and he’s never been able to see the forest for the trees. You know what I mean?” he asked his lunch mate. “So he calls me up and I set him straight,” he continued as he described a condo here and a home there, all suffering from lackluster features and poor locations. “I mean you can’t fix the location, right? That’s not changing no matter what, so I pointed that out and then we moved on to what he could do. You know, I mean, if he wanted to take my advice and actually move anything.”

Normally I spend my lunches reading and will often move to another table if a particular conversation becomes too distracting. But Baby Trump here was too good to pass up. I was hooked.

“I told this developer friend of mine, listen, with a nice coat of paint in the right color, his properties would practically sell themselves,” he continued. “And don’t use the cheap stuff either, I told him. The ladies can see the difference and they’re the ones you gotta sell. Trust me.”

He continued with his lesson for a bit, describing the difference between a good paint and a poor one, but I began to lose interest. Besides, I had what I needed - a coat of paint in the right color, don’t cheap out, something about location, location, location and keep one eye on the ladies. NBC's The Apprentice here I come.

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Brotherly Love

So I was in Costco the other day taking care of a bit of business. The stalls there are enameled grey and stop about 7 or 8 inches from the floor. Next to me was a young kid who was spending his time divided between beating a rhythm out on our shared wall and talking to his younger brother who was playing in the sinks. From what I could tell the younger brother was bored, passing the time by systematically turning on each of the automatic faucets.

It was the older one, though, that confused me by calling out, “Hurry up Danny.” Danny replied that he was hurrying and for his brother to be patient.

“I am hurrying, John. I’ve got to get it right though so just be quiet or I’ll leave.” This was answered by more vigorous wall pounding.

A few more seconds passed and then I noticed a tightly balled up paper towel roll under my door, landing just on my side of the wall between our stalls. A small hand quickly reached under and grabbed it. “Oooh thanks Danny. And it’s a warm one!”

“Told you,” replied Danny.

I have three brothers. I love each of them. I have three brothers-in-law on my side and four on Linda's side. I love each of them. I will never, ever do this for you. Ever.

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