A Grain of Salt

I hate my postman.

Mailman update #3: After not receiving my mail since last Thursday, despite repeated calls to my local branch requesting that someone out there PLEASE GIVE ME MY RSVP POSTCARDS, I decided to take matters into my own hands: I stalked the mail man. 

After seeing him go into a nearby apartment building, letters in hand, I scurried down the stairs and waited next to his truck for him to emerge, attempting to adopt a casual stance ("Oh! Funny to see you here!") to encourage a casual, unconfrontational conversation. He came out of the building, I said, "Excuse me, I had a question about my mail." Without even asking my name, he simply said, "Oh yes. I cannot give it to you." 

"I understand that you are having a problem with my neighbors," I said, "But see, their mailbox is at the top of one set of stairs, and mine and my landlord's are at the top of another." I pointed at the two staircases in question. "I was wondering if you could please come up our stairway and deliver our mail." 

"I cannot do that," he said.

"Do you see what I'm talking about?" I pressed, still pointing. "There are two staircases!  You can come up ours and deal with your problems with them separately." 

"I cannot do that," he said again.

"Why?"

"I cannot go up two flights of stairs. It is a waste of time." 

"But you don't have to go up two flights of stairs," I continued, flustered by the fact that he was being so matter-of-fact about something so patently untrue. Was I the crazy one? Had I missed some invisible fence in front of my stairway that permits only permanent residents access to our mailboxes? "You can just come up ours." 

"I can't do that," he repeated again. "You can get your mail at the office." 

"You mean I have to go to the post office to get my mail?" 

"Yes."

"But you're the mailman!" I said, in a tone too aggressive to use with someone who wields so much power. "Your JOB is to deliver my mail!" 

"Sorry," he said again, still smiling. "I cannot do that." 

Then, sensing my exasperation, he suggested a compromise. "Okay," he said. "I will bring your mail. DO NOT TELL ANYONE. If you see me down here you can come to the truck and get it." 

I pointed out to him that with the exception of today, I normally do not sit at my window watching for the mail truck to pass by. 

"Sorry," he said. "If you see me, I will give it to you. Do not tell anyone. Anyone." 

By this point, we were so far past rationality that I decided to roll with it. 

"Okay," I said. "Thank you, sir." I extended my hand for him to shake. "Thank you very much. If I see you in the street, I will come and get my mail." 

"Do not tell anyone!" he repeated, as I made my way up my inaccessible staircase and walked inside. 

This is the blog for Salt Magazine.

Vigilante Postman

Hello, friends. It is now Thursday. Would you like to know the last time my regular postman delivered my mail? Last Thursday. (See previous post.)  On Tuesday I saw a different mail carrier on my block and actually ran into the street to stop her. "Are you going to deliver our mail?" I asked. She looked at me as if I were stupid. "Yes," she said. "Oh, good!" I said, and started blabbering on about how our other mailman had gotten into a fight with my neighbors and was insisting that their potted geraniums constituted a fire hazard. "He is not allowed to do this," she said, as she sorted out three days' worth of mail. "He is not allowed." 

Well, unfortunately, rules or no rules, that's the only time we've gotten our mail in the past week. I've seen the guy outside but every time I put shoes on and prepare to sprint downstairs to stop him, he pops back into his little white truck and drives away. Instead I've been calling our local post office and lodging complaints, first with a very friendly man named Dave who, when I told him I was particularly worried because I was planning a wedding, said "Oh, well that's not good at all," and continued, "welcome to SNAFU-ville!" Welcome, indeed. Yesterday I spoke with Mary, who originally refused to speak with me because while she was sitting right next to the phone she was on her "eating break," as her coworker put it. When she finally picked up she, too, was quite nice, explaining that from what she understood the situation sounded "silly" and that she would speak with her supervisor again about it. Fair enough, but when I got home last night? Still no mail. My current plan is to arrange large speakers at the window and start blasting the Beatles' "Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman!" out my door when I see his little white truck. Perhaps humor will sway him? 

This is the blog for Salt Magazine.

Another Cockatoo Bites the Dust

There are days when you're not too psyched about getting back to work -- you're having trouble selling a story, no one will write/call you back -- and then you discover YouTube videos of a cockatoo named Snowball dancing to Another One Bites the Dust. And then, inexplicably, your day just becomes . . . better.

This is the blog for Salt Magazine.

A green waste of time?

There are times when I start to worry about where my life is headed. No, I haven't started drinking too much or hanging out with a biker gang. I'm worried about how amazingly happy it has made me to see that the city of Oakland has finally made good on its promise to send me a miniature green bin for recycling food scraps. If the sight of a small green bin at the bottom of my stairs can put me into a good mood for the morning, what's next? Shouldn't I be aiming higher?

Yup, apparently the sixth grade environmentalist inside me is alive and well, since about two months ago, a switch inside of me flipped and I became obsessed with the idea of recycling green waste. I think it may have had something to do with the copious amount of leeks I was consuming (leading to a copious amount of inedible leek stems) -- but whatever the trigger was, the result has been a mess: an assortment of plastic bags around the kitchen filled with strawberry stems and avocado pits that I leave around for a week till they start to smell. I'm not sure if they'd smell less if I put them into a green bin, but whatever. Something about it seems more hygenic, more secure. And it's a hell of a lot cuter than a plastic bag filled with rotting avocados.

This is the blog for Salt Magazine.

The post office? Or seventh circle of hell?

I am going to break my self-imposed blog silence for a momentous occasion: a trip to the post office. Don't get too excited. I'm just hoping that by writing about it, my blood pressure might drop back to normal.

See, I needed to mail an application for a fellowship that I'm applying for. It's due Thursday. Today is Tuesday. I figured I'd drop it off, do a little express mail action, and be on my merry way. After all, the last few times I've been to the post office my experiences have been, if not pleasant, at least tolerable. But then again, I'd never been to the Grand Lake branch.

Oh my fucking god. I'm not sure where to start. Perhaps I'll first ask you to stare at this computer screen for twenty-five minutes without doing anything or reading anything, to simulate what the first half of my experience was like. Then I'll invite you to imagine the following:

-three windows, two of which were staffed by people who probably rocked the "How Slow Can You Go?" part of their entrance exam

-a third post office employee behind the other two, who emerged from the back room every few minutes carrying what looked like the same package out to the front and then back to the back, occasionally looking toward the 15-person line with an expression of bemused interest, as if to say, "Gee, will you check out that line? Someone should really do something about that!" before picking up her coffee cup and disappearing into the back room again

-Some of the stupidest people I have ever seen in my life. Including:

-one grandmotherly woman (I wanted to like her, but wait) who tottered up to the counter and asked to see the entire stamp collection. She wanted flowers. And not just flowers, but a particular flower, a flower that apparently was extremely difficult for the extremely slow woman behind the counter to locate, moving, as she was, at .00000002 of a kilometer per hour. After about seven minutes of stamp inspection, the woman pulled out her credit card to pay. The line, growing by the minute, sighed in relief -- but we were too soon! For some unknown reason, she took her credit card back and repeated the ENTIRE PROCESS again, starting with stamp examination and culminating in a painfully slow extraction of money from her gigantic purse, and then another 7 minutes of waiting. Meanwhile, at the other counter . . .

-Another woman, bearing a Trader Joe's bag full of packages she wanted to return, was handing them over to the woman behind the counter, by which I mean placing them, excruciatingly slowly, on the bullet-proof plastic Lazy Susan separating the customers from the postal employees. Then the post office employee slowly, ever so slowly, began typing each into the computer, and coming up with registered return receipts and insurance tabs for each one. Then, after this had gone on for about ten minutes and the woman (presumably) was about to pay, the post office employee looked at the addresses on these packages, and noticed that they were all addressed to the woman. Yes. She was sending them back to herself. "You know, these are all going to just come back to you," said the post office employee, as an audible groan erupted from the line. "You need to readdress every single one and bring them back." I had a moment of sympathy for the woman, but it quickly evaporated when she continued to stand at the counter, asking follow up questions ("What do you mean they will come back to me? But I would still like them to be registered receipt!") and insisting on buying her insurance for the packages ahead of time.

Then, just as she was sent away to do her re-addressing and I took a triumphant step forward to buy an envelope and send one item Express Mail, another woman -- heretofore lurking on the sides, waiting to bring back up some packages that she, too, had mislabeled, announced that it was her turn. I stepped aside. The line grumbled.

-FINALLY, I was called. To be honest, at that particular moment I was feeling a little sympathetic toward the woman -- after all, she had been dealing with the flowered stamp lady -- but that, too, quickly evaporated when we had the following exchange:

Me: I would like to send this express mail, and get postage for a 2-pound envelope going to New York.
Her: (Blank stare. Then, finally) So you mean you want postage for this for 2 pounds, going to New York.
Me: Yes.
Her: You know, you're going to have to come back to mail that. Anything over 13 ounces you have to come back and mail in person. You can't just drop it off in a mailbox. You have to come back.
Me: Okay, that's fine. I'll come back and drop it off.
Her: Because, you know, if it's over 13 ounces I have to ask you questions about it. You can't just drop it off and walk away. You have to wait on line and I have to ask you questions. Like, for example, is it hazardous? Or fragile?
Me: No. It's a book. It's fine. I just want to buy the postage now. I'll come back later.
Her: I'm just warning you about what you're going to have to go through. You can't just drop it off in a mailbox.
Me: Okay.
Her: (Putting postage on my express mail envelope) You know, you missed the cut off for today. It will get there in two days, guaranteed. 3pm. But you missed today's cut off.
Me: When was the cut-off?
Her: It was at three pm. You missed it.

*Side note: It was now like, 3:07. I'd been at the post office for about 20 minutes.*

Me: So, it'll get there by Thursday then.
Her: (blank stare) What's today?
Me: Tuesday.
Her: Tuesday, Wednesday, yes, Thursday. Yesterday was my day off. I have no idea what day it is. Yes, Thursday then, by 3 o'clock.
Me: Okay, that's fine.
HEr: You could still go to the main post office. There it's four o'clock. But here it's three. Because they have to come and pick it up. You missed it.
Me: Okay.
Her: Your postage for the two pounds will be $8.99. Priority Mail.
Me: I just want first class.
Her: (Another blank stare. Then) It's over 13 ounces. You can't send anything first class that's over 13 ounces. It bumps up to priority mail.
Me: Is there anything cheaper?
Her: You can do ground. Or media mail.
Me: It's a book.
Her: You didn't tell me that.
Me: It's a book.
Her: You can do parcel post then.

An interminable amount of time passes as she scans my credit card, carefully folds up my receipt, and passes my paperwork back through the slot. By this time, the line is still well out the door and the other postal worker has worked through three separate customers.

As I walked out, a man stuck all the way at the entrance looked at me and said, "What, did it take , like an hour?" I tried to make a joke or some lighthearted comment about the craziness of the post office, but instead all I could say was "Yes, yes it did," with what could only have been a crazy smile, and pushed past him into the sun.

This, my friends, is why the Soviet Union collapsed.

This is the blog for Salt Magazine.

The hummingbirds your mother warned you about

I just spent the morning blogging for Broadsheet, but what I really wanted to be writing about was not feminism, but hummingbirds. See, because thanks to Peter's weekend efforts, we now have not one, not two, but (I think) four hummingbird feeders hanging on various eaves around the house. And I'm worried about our influence.

It took the hummingbirds a long time to find our first feeder -- they would flutter around the jasmine and lavender blossoms and ignore the the feeder hanging just several feet beyond their natural reach. In doing so, they were continuing their work as pollinators, stepping in to fill the role of those mysteriously disappearing bees and keeping nature's magical homeostasis in working order. But, the thing is, they were really hard to see.

So imagine our delight when we saw the first hummingbird at the kitchen feeder. At first it seemed to think its discovery was too good to be true -- it would hover, take a sip of the sweet, sweet sugar water, and flit off to real blossom to drink some actual nectar -- only to find itself inexplicably pulled back to those huge red plastic flowers that just tasted SO FUCKING GOOD. A few days later, we saw the same hummingbird -- except that instead of nervously flitting around the feeder and darting off, it was now sitting on the edge of the feeder, drinking. It didn't seem to care when I walked up to the sink and stared at it from three feet. Just kept sipping. I'm no ornithologist, but I didn't think hummingbirds were known for their abilities to chillaxinate.

Anyway, we just put a feeder up on the front porch this weekend and they've found it already. Something about this seemed wrong to me, but I tried my best to reframe: maybe our new feeder was essentially a franchise of a successful restaurant -- you know, like we've got Chez Panisse out back and this is the new Cafe. We had good reviews on Yelp. The people love us. What can you do?

But I watched another hummingbird out there this morning, and it seems a little less like we're running a restaurant and more like we've opened a crack house. There was a different bird out there, also sitting, taking big swigs of sugar water as if it were an alcoholic nursing a bottle. I counted as it took at least ten hits before another hummingbird flew up, attacked the guy drinking, and they both flew away, chirping angrily. I think it's the start of turf wars.

This is the blog for Salt Magazine.

Holiday Cheer

Gene here.

Last week, I went to my girlfriend's Xmas party. (Saltines may know that my girlfriend is Miss Procrastinator Toolbox herself aka Kyoung Kim.)  It was at a swank social club establishment in midtown, very classy.  Dinner was scrumptious.  About halfway through our meal,  Miss Toolbox tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to a very tall blond woman.  "You see her?  She's Carl Bernstein's wife!"  "Wow," I thought, "I wonder if she ever compares her husband to Dustin Hoffman." 

A Tina Bit Fey

Catherine here. After a weekend of maxin' out and relaxin', I am back to pontificate on several recent events in my life.

1. About a week ago, while working down the street, a construction worker referred to me as "Shorty." Usually, assuming it to be a reference to my diminuitive stature, I would have taken offense to this. However, his tone was complimentary, and I suddenly realized that I had been called "Shorty" in the same way that Fifty Cent uses the term in "In Da Club" (and, likewise, Usher in the melodic, "Yeah, Yeah" when referring to the woman he cheats on his girlfriend with). This led me to a. feel strangely complimented and b. wonder what brought about the surge in popularity of referring to a girl as "shorty." Is there a height limit? If I were to be, say 5'10 instead of a lowly 5'4, would the Shorty distinction still apply? Comments are welcome; I am intrigued.

2. Tonight I got a touch of stardom when a friend invited me to come with her to a party for Bust magazine, of which I've been a long-term fan. It was in the bottom of the Chelsea Hotel and included, among other things:

-free vodka tonics
-Tina Fey

Sadly, the presence of the former did not lead to conversing with the latter; instead, Kate and I gazed at Tina adoringly and made up fantasies of alternate lives in which the three of us were friends. But still. It's a matter of time, people. Tina, if you're reading this, please know that I love you! And your red hooded sweatshirt!

My pinched nerves.

1. Dedicated readers of this blog might recall yesterday’s entry about Kelis and her milkshake. This entry was actually a reworked version of a pitch that Catherine sent to Nerve magazine for their “Raw Nerve” op-ed section. Last night, it was cruelly rejected. That’s gotta pinch.

2. Last Friday, while Catherine was changing her insulin pump injection site, she hit a nerve in her right hip. This nerve apparently terminates somewhere on her outer thigh, just under her butt, because ever since the fateful injection (the site of which she has since changed) she has had a dull and throbbing ache in her right leg. This is not unlike the pain that housemate Max was experiencing prior to Monday’s partial root canal. However, unlike a root canal, there is no surgical procedure for “aching right haunch.” Perhaps more frustratingly is the nerve’s strong reaction to Catherine’s rolling over in bed, twisting into certain yoga poses, or engaging in “light jogging.” In these instances, “dull and throbbing” is replaced by “sharp and acute” and leads to frustration, additional pain, and excessive use of quotation marks.

ESL Textbooks, Part Deux

This morning my assignments included:

-writing hands-on, interactive, ESL activities to illustrate the concept of friction.

-evaluating whether the term "kinesthetic activity" was appropriate for second graders' reading levels.

-developing a lesson plan about levers and fulcrums. Reading over the old version of the lesson plan, I got the feeling that people who write textbooks have never actually been in a classroom. Who, exactly, decided that it would be a good idea to encourage a roomful of second graders to use broomsticks and wooden blocks to create their own levers--levers that they then are to use to lift their classmates off the ground? (An image comes to mind of a classroom full of second graders flying through the air like exploding pieces of popcorn.) What's more, the directions indicate that "smaller" children should experiment with fulcrum placement to lift their "larger" classmates. Do we really need to incorporate "making fun of the fat kid" into the nation's science curriculum? I was tempted to put an additional instruction at the end of the lesson plan, explaining a follow-up experiment in which the smaller child sat on the lever's seat while the larger child jumped onto the other end, launching the smaller child nimbly through the air. I thought this would give the lesson a certain sort of poetic justice.