Parking patrol

It's Friday, and I'm thinking parking vigilantism. As you do if you live in any sort of urban environment. 

I came by this from one of my best sources of weird stuff, UK Cop Humour.

Honestly, I thought about this the other morning when I was trying to pull into a parking space at the Cupertino Target. Someone had parked her Mom-mobile overlapping the passenger side line by about two feet, and obviously was either oblivious to it or didn’t think the markings were more than a suggested guideline with respect to her personally.

I wished I had some chalk with me. But anyone too obtuse to correct crap parking wouldn’t notice any additions to the groundwork.

But, there is something that I’ve been thinking about for a while—which also came into my Twitter feed a while ago from those merry UK Cop Humour folks:

At the time, I thought: cop shops should have this thing printed professionally, with the [insert condom brand here; as a former Bruin, I always like the idea of Trojans, because at least they’d be useful for something] attached. (Hey—a sponsorship opportunity!) Then sell them for a fundraiser. Seriously—they’d clean up.

I know I'd buy half a ream of them, and probably run through it in two months.

Even Target Mom would notice that stuck on her windscreen. And if she didn’t, her neighbors would when she parked in the driveway.

Of course—it’s already too late for her. But still.

The heart of the story

I’ve referred my readers before to Story Corps, the oral history project that sends recording booths out to various locations across the country and permits people, usually in pairs, to tell their own stories, as though they were in the kitchen having a cup of coffee. Some of the vignettes are broadcast on Morning Edition on Friday mornings. They always, always grab me by the heart and the throat.

There was the exchange between long-time friends Peter Obetz and Jeff Jarrett on the ever-changing landscape of their lives. “Our friendship is really the only thing that’s constant,” is a statement that applies to more than one person in my life.

Or the Valentine’s Day broadcast of North Carolina National Guardsman Tracy Johnson, whose wife, Staff Sergeant Donna Johnson was killed by a suicide bomber in Khost, Afhghanistan. Tracy spoke with her mother-in-law about receiving the notification of Donna’s death, and pushing to escort her home from Dover AFB.

Or the Veterans Day inauguration of the Military Voices Initiative, where Vietnam vet Harvey Hilbert recalled the sight and sound of a comrade who was killed more than 45 years ago; and Justin Cliburn spoke of coming to know two little boys when he was deployed to Iraq in 2005.

Story Corps is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Yesterday, there was the conversation between Will Smith and his daughter Olivia, about how he felt being a 27-year-old single father, raising an infant daughter, at Bowdoin College in Maine. Their initial exchange was recorded last year, just after he was diagnosed with colon cancer. The update recording between father and daughter goes into how Olivia helped Will through his treatment.

You should listen to it. Not just read the story; listen to their voices. Listen to all the voices—Justin Cliburn, Harvey Hilbert, Tracy Johnson, Peter Obetz and Jeff Jarrett.

These are extraordinary stories, and all are—at the heart—about love. We could all use some of that.

Good citizenship

Sorry, folks, but I’m at my wits’ end—I have to revamp my LinkedIn profile, because evidently I’m driving away potential hiring companies in droves; and I also have to prepare a one-page “summary” of myself for a brainstorming session. So I really don’t have much left over to share with you today.

Here’s the deal: I’d rather swallow a family of live hedgehogs (PETA: this is a metaphor) than talk about myself. Ergo the apparently coma-inducing profile. (The brainstorming session is to help out a friend, who’s running an “Uncover Your Calling” workshop. I’m a special guest calling-uncoverer, to give the participants an example of how you go about giving the class an idea of what you're looking for so they can brainstorm on your behalf. This will be my third time brainstorming for Marcia's workshops. Either I'm good or no one else will come back.)

But it’s got to be done.

So I’ll leave you with this heartening photo.

 

It’s nice to know that there are good people out there.

I just wish they could rewrite my profile for me.

Psychic bankruptcy

Death, taxes and change are the only inevitabilities in this life.

This includes storefronts on El Camino Real.

I was driving through Mountain View a while ago and realized that the paranormal part of my iconic “psychic cleaners” had gone. It’s been replaced on the sign by a post box shop (which in actuality is part of the drycleaners). The actual shop space is vacant.

I wonder if the psychic saw it coming?

Gratitude Monday: Not the Library of Alexandria, but...

For Gratitude Monday today, I’m grateful that the Sunnyvale Public library finally transferred the Santa Clara County Library book that I accidentally turned into them back to SCCL.

I admit full culpability—I thought I checked that it was a SPL book before I took it in, but obviously I didn’t check carefully enough. I’m also not sure why their computerized system accepted it—in the past, it’s rejected books from other systems. This time it took it, but just receipted it with a barcode, not the title.

Then, when I got the “you’ve got books coming due” notice from SCCL, I realized what I’d done. I went to SPL to see if they’d shelved it—if they had, surely their system wouldn’t have let anyone check it out, right?

Well—not on the shelves and not in their collection of “books from other library systems”. The person at the information desk said they’d send it off to SCCL, but “it takes time.”

“Time” is apparently nine days.

I renewed it electronically, and kept checking SCCL online every day for its return. And finally—O bliss—it was off my “checked-out” list.

I’m really grateful I didn’t have to pay for it. It wasn’t that good a book.