The Cafe

 How to describe E_______ Cafe? That's tough, for me, because I've been there too many times. It sits off the street in an area that used to be a vital little stretch of stores long since gone out of business and re-opened lately in the form of little art studios and a puppet museum, a Mexican restaurant, and a hair salon, maybe some others. 

E_______ Cafe has been there probably throughout all of this from the very beginning. A one story building in an L shape, with long windows and neon signs identifying the cafe and declaring it "open." There are a couple of entrances. It's not shiny clean inside, but just clean. The tables, the floor, the acoustic tile ceiling, the counter, the little kiosk where the cash register is, they're all old but serviceable. The food is good, if not healthy, strictly speaking. Gravy is involved. The pancakes are huge and hang over the edges of the plates they're served on. This is the Midwest. 

The waitresses don't wear uniforms--they wear jeans and tops beneath a variety of hair-dos. The customers are mostly regulars, and there's a lot of them. They talk across tables at people they know. Old couples, some with walkers, but most not. Men who work outside and are on break, or who stopped for breakfast on their way to the first job. Sometimes small families with kids. Everyone's wearing jeans. If it's winter, the men are also wearing flannel shirts and canvas Carhart jackets, probably, and give-away logo ball caps. These, the caps, stay on, walking in, seated, eating, talking.  In warmer weather it's T-shirts, some with messages printed across them. Don't read them. 

On the way in, you see a coffee can set on the sidewalk by the door with cigarette butts in it. Inside, in the men's room, at least, someone thought it appropriate to hang a "no smoking" sign. 

And the prices are reasonably low, the service impeccable if not elegant, and the food really is pretty good. Eventually, if you visit often enough, the waitresses know you and say hi when you walk through the door, and usually bring coffee the way you like it without first asking. 

Instagram

I enjoy my Instagram account for a couple of reasons: 1.) I get to post pictures of mine that I like, and b.) I get to look at others' pictures that I like. The genre, the nature of the pictures has evolved over time. I mean, I didn't realize it until a few days ago that I've been posting stuff here, I mean I.G., for years. 

Mine aren't particularly inspiring. I might take a picture of something odd, like a sparkly little girl's shoe perched all alone on top of a fire hydrant--I like the idea of a story or a mystery behind the picture. Sunsets which almost always fail to invoke the feeling of the original real one that took place in front of the lens. I post them anyway. Sometimes I take a picture with no particular meaning or content to it except I liked the shapes in it. I try to put hashtags on everything I post, but sometimes I just fail to, knowing that almost no one will see them. I don't really care. Too much, anyway. 

Here are some but not all of the types of pictures that I have to say I don't like, or at least that I think are over-represented:

Overly photoshopped, fantastical pictures, including those created with the use of high-dynamic-range processing that NEVER looks natural even though they are, I fear, intended to. A bicycle posing in front of a scenic view. Food, unless I'm really hungry at the moment. Decrepit buildings. Girls of some indeterminate age posing with lips pouting while wearing something vaguely, but definitely not legally defined as, pornographic, and girls wearing same while posing in front of decrepit buildings. Doorways/entrances of said buildings. Most sunsets, as mentioned above. The moon all by itself. I mean, what's the point? Fake moons photoshopped onto other scenes, especially when the fake moon is way too fucking big. C'mon! Knock it off. 

Special mention to video clips that are too long, where the intended "punch line," if you will, is the last two seconds of the video. I bring up video clips because I noticed, just today, that there is, (or perhaps has always been) a new thing. Short video clips with audio depicting just one small, pleasant moment. Three seconds of the sound of a bird chirping while showing a tree branch moving in the wind (assuming sound quality and visual composition is good/interesting.) I just saw one of a foggy street at night, a person and their dog crossing the street while a lighthouse swept its spotlight around one time, and the sound of a foghorn. Short and sweet, like a pleasant memory of something that, for some reason, just stuck with you. I really like these. It's like adding just a little more dimension (of sight and sound, as Rod Serling would say as he introduced that evenings Twilight Zone episode,) to the typical IG post. 

I don't mean this to be an ad for my Instagram account. I'm rdegr, but don't go looking if your domino set needs dusting or anything of equal or greater importance. 

Foghorn/lighthouse IG post I'm talking about: https://www.instagram.com/p/CW2YdIFq3el/

Well, OK, Then

 I think I said somewhere that I would post my progress on NaNoWriMo. So here it is, almost the end of November, and it was a dismal failure. I take full responsibility, of course. I can say I did some writing and figured a few things out, etc., but, bottom line, dismal failure. 

That's OK. 

I can throw up a defense. We got involved in selling our house and in finding the apartment we wanted downtown. I'm very happy about that. It wasn't so much the time that took, but the mental diversion, the distraction, that affected Nanowrimo so much. Negatively impacted, for those of you who work at big corporations. 

Thanksgiving was good. Had turkey, prepared and cooked by the good people at Brio Italian restaurant at the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. The chef threw in a piece of what I guess could be called pumpkin spice cheesecake. Somehow, and I'm no cook, but they managed to put three pounds of sugar into a one pound piece of cheesecake. Mmm. Bent the needle on the carb-o-meter. 

Nah, I'm doing OK.  After being prescribed some evil medication that causes the pancreas to produce insulin, and taking it for a month or two and then gaining a bunch of weight, because that's what that does, and then stopping taking it on my own, I have lost the weight and am now back down to where I was and I feel pretty good. I'm a little pissed that my doctor just mailed me the prescription with my HbA1c test results with no explanation of either the need for it or its possible side-effects. 

So, I am thankful that my illness is not so advanced nor severe that I can't get away with this, that I am holding my own, and I could get a new doctor and all that. I'm getting a little disenchanted with "modern medicine" where, it seems, so much of the time the cure is just as bad as the disease. 

I shouldn't bitch, but, damn. 

I hope a-aaalll of you out there had a good Thanksgiving. 

Nano Cont.

 Day 6 of the festivities is about over. I'm far short of where I ought to be on the word count (7,813 when I should be at 10,000) but I have to admit I've made a great deal of progress on the WIP. There is something to be said for typing mindlessly as fast as you can. 

That's not exactly how I've been doing this, but, close. The impulse to stop and edit is hard to resist, but in this context only hampers progress. Hardest are the times when you realize that to go forward, changing something two or three pages back is necessary. Now, if that was written on a previous day, apparently it's impossible to alter the word count on the progress report for the Nanowrimo web site. So, there's another one of those things that doesn't quite work, but it shouldn't bother you unless things like that bother you. 

Earlier today I rectified all that and just figured the total and assigned all that to the first five days. Which means two things.  I see that I'm about 2,000 words behind for today, which, technically, I haven't started on yet, according to Nanowrimo. I guess I don't really care, but I like for these things to be tidy.  Else, why bother? 

So why am I writing a blog post instead of working on the November novel? Because I haven't the slightest idea where the story goes from this point forward. Something's got to happen about now--I've pretty much introduced all the characters, laid out the premise, etc., and now, something's got to happen. 

OK. That's all for now. 

NaNoWriMo - the Accounting

 Disclaimer: this post may seem disjointed, because I am also trying to watch the World Series. Not that I have the slightest idea who to root for. I find the "Braves" moniker and the "Indian chanting" and the ridiculous tomahawk chop exhibited by the fans to be deeply offensive. I also think the decision of Major League Baseball to "excuse" the previous behavior of the Astros (cheating: pitching signal stealing) to be a bad one, and hurtful to the MLB in the long run. As always, I couldn't say what I would have done here had it been up to me. But I love watching  baseball, so here I am watching Houston in the clutch with their 2 - 3 standing so far. At least the next two games (?) will be in Houston and there won't be too much of that stupid fake Indian chant. 

So. National Novel Writing Month is upon us. I have tried and failed a couple times, and demured and whined and obfuscated on others. This time seems different; I have nothing else in particular to do this month--that's a first--and for some reason it feels like a good idea. Other bloggers have indicated posting updates on my blog will help with accountability, and that sounds right. So I'll do it. 

Today is Day Two. Yesterday, Day One, I wrote 1,896 words. Today, Day Two, I wrote 2,141 words. 

The end goal is to write 50,000 words in the month of November, so and average daily count of 1,666.7 words must be met. 

If it's within my scant computing capabilities to do so, I may put up some sort of chart with this developing data over in the right column. As always, keep expectations low. 

The Adventures of Missouri Karen

Having just written a post about the subtleties of the Karen phenomenon, I thought it might be interesting to explore some regional differences regarding it, here in the Midwest, and in Missouri in particular.  People do things a little differently around here. 

I submit for your approval and edification:

The Adventures of Missouri Karen

 Missouri Karen walks into a restaurant. She isn't wearing shoes, and she has her unleashed Pitt Bull with her. She is coughing effusively and is not wearing a mask. She parked her 1992 Dodge Ram facing the big window of the restaurant, and because it was a hot day, she left the engine running with the A/C on "high," and the headlights set to "bright," effectively blinding everyone facing outward at the four tables by the window.

She sits down and orders black coffee, and a bowl of gravy for her dog. The waitress brings the coffee and the bowl of gravy to the table, sets the coffee down on the table and the bowl of gravy on the floor by the dog.

The dog tests the gravy with one delicate lap of its tongue and then sits and stares at Missouri Karen, as if something is wrong.

Missouri Karen reached down, gets the bowl, and, holding it with both hands, tilts it toward her mouth and drinks about half of it down.  She sets the bowl on the table and calls the waitress over.

"This gravy is not hot. It's just luke warm,”  she says.

The waitress picks up the bowl and tilts it to her mouth and takes a sip, and then sets the empty bowl back onto the table.

"You're right," she says, and then apologizes profusely, leaves and returns with another bowl of gravy. It is steaming hot. She sets it on the floor.

The dog tastes the gravy and burns its tongue, expressing its displeasure by running through the restaurant barking and snarling and biting people on their ankles and calves.

The manager notices the commotion that ensues and comes out onto the floor. He tells Missouri Karen to pay up for the coffee and two bowls of gravy and take her damn dog and get out. 

Missouri Karen takes it in stride--been here, done this before. She pays and starts out the door when another customer speaks to her.  He is a leathery, middle aged man with a long, white ponytail and a white beard and mustache.  He is dressed in a black Harley Davidson tee shirt and old denim overhauls. “Is that your piece of crap Dodge Ram?" he says.  "I had one once but I finally got smart and pushed it off a cliff.”

Now Missouri Karen glares indignantly at the biker, walks out and gets in her truck and backs into the Harley parked across from her and knocks it over. Gasoline gurgles out of the upended tank and forms a puddle. 

Missouri Karen lights a cigarette, gestures at the crowd forming at the window and drives off after flicking the lit cigarette butt into the puddle of gasoline.  There are flames, and a small explosion. Missouri Karen drives away.

No one makes a video of this because everyone has flip-phones from 2003. No one sues anyone, and no lessons are learned. Two patrons ask if there is any more gravy left. There is, but the waitress has already quit her job over an unrelated incident in the rear dining area. 

The End

In Defense of Karen, but not too Much

I just finished working my way through one of those click-bait memes featuring a bunch of funny "Karen" incidents found on the Internet. And most of them were pretty funny--like the woman who got mad at a restaurant because she and her little dog were not allowed to dine and that policy was not mentioned on the company's web site. Stuff like that. 

My question is, where do you draw the line?  When does complaining to a store employee become a "Karen" incident, and when is a complaint justified? Under what circumstances does asking to speak to the manager become too Karen? 

Everybody has a story. Everybody has several stories, to be more precise. I won't bore you here. And I've been a Karen, myself, on occasion. I think to be honest we all have at one time or another. So, has this always been this way? Is it just the Internet that highlights what is and has always been a sort of universal thing involving businesses and customers? 

When I was in high school I worked as a gas jockey and encountered lots and lots of Karens--people who if they acted that way today would have been dressed down properly so many times it seems they would have been embarrassed to go out in public anymore. At that time, though--it was the Sixties--gas stations in particular advertised heavily in a manner that tried to make the customer a sort of King for the Day. Now, my gas station didn't make us wear little military style uniforms, but the idea was, we were the Privates, the customers were the officers. And they knew it. 

Somewhere along the line that went away, and I suppose the driving force behind the Karen phenomenon is that disillusionment, that lagging realization that Corporate is King now, and your request to see the manager is not a cost-effective scenario for it, and our $7/hour employee will (perhaps gleefully) show you to the door. 

But it can't be that the customer in these sorts of situations is at fault, or is being unreasonable, every single time. 'S'all I'm sayin'. And, as is the case almost every time I start to bitch about something and start writing it out, it sort of dawns on me that the issue is more complex than first perceived. Of course nothing on the Internet is allowed to get too complex. Gawd. Who are you to write long paragraphs about stuff?  That's not entertaining me very much. Get a life.