This Ain’t My First Time at the Rodeo

Though appalled by behaviors I saw on the news last night ─ where the peaceful protest in Los Angeles morphed into rioting, I wasn’t all that surprised because this ain’t my first time seeing such a thing.

I was a young woman during the Watts Riot ─ dating a cop, of all things. The cop that later became my husband, fathered my Twins.

I remember the looting and burning of businesses. I also remember how there was a favorite Mexican restaurant I’d frequently ordered from. That restaurant was right in the epicenter of the unrest and the white woman whose restaurant it was, along with her mexican husband who did the cooking, were much respected and liked by the neighborhood. So liked and respected that groups of neighbors stood outside the restaurant to protect the business, stop those looting and burning from destroying that business.

I also remember how quite a few of those looters were hunted down after-the-fact and charged. Best I can recall, looters were found through house-to-house searching of homes in that area for stolen goods.

Was that search legal? I don’t know. It’s just what was done at that time, which makes me think that, after things settle, license plates, seen on news feeds, will be tracked to looters and surveillance cameras will be looked at to determine those looters who let their masks slip during the looting.

I was very happily divorced, my Twins were living on their own, and I was at work in the law firm when the verdict on the officers that beat Rodney King was announced ─ not guilty of excessive force.

All of a sudden, the office manager ran up to my desk, told me riots had sprung up all around us and told me to go home immediately, as I might not be able to get out later.

I was completely oblivious to the verdict and the smoldering anger on the streets, but took her seriously because she didn’t like me (no reason, just one of the many evil humans I had to tolerate in the working world) and the fact she looked concerned about me, a woman she didn’t like, carried a lot of weight. I took off and headed for the metro. Just in time because, inasmuch as the train travelled straight through the rioting areas (I could see looting and burning from my window seat), service was discontinued after the train I was on reached end of the line.

I was home/off work for a week, with pay ─ which was pretty sweet and, from my patio, I watched tanks rolling down the street. The National Guard set up their command post on the roof of the old J.C. Penny building at the mall, adjacent to where I was living. We were under curfew orders and there were armed (rifles) guardsmen stationed at intersections to enforce the curfew.

Now here we go again.

I’m in a safe place ─ no protests, no riots, no curfew but, when I saw where businesses were being destroyed in Los Angeles and the posh Melrose area, I became concerned for the guy who makes my glitter masks, as his business is near those epicenters.

Checking on him, I find he’s okay, his business is okay, but I feel for the businesses that are not, as they were already under water due to the pandemic, now this.

I’m no expert, but it’s been my experience that though peaceful protests will continue, the rioting runs it's course in two/three days.

However, if they don’t do something about having charged murder cop with only third degree and/or if he goes to trial and is acquitted, I’ll be worried about what is yet likely to come.

Again, I’m no expert about the justice system, but it seems to me that when you’re kneeing an individual on the neck, all lackadaisical like with your hand in your pocket, the individual is pleading “I can’t breathe” and you’re taunting him with “Well, get up. Get in the car” knowing full well he can’t get up because you’ve got you knee in his neck and your buddy cops are on his back and legs, that’s Malice Capital Murder, murder cop intended for Floyd to die.

So anyway, amidst all the chaos on the television screen, I gathered supplies and assembled a week’s worth of tamales.

I steamed them in the instant pot, as I didn't have a tamale steamer. The instant pot could only hold so many at a time, so it took some time to get 'em all steamed in batches, and the lid squished 'em down a bit, but they came out delicious. However, I'll be purchasing a tamale pot for next time so they can spread out and fluff up.

Today Was THAT Day

Today was a perfectly pleasant day of running errands ─ got Jeep’s tire pressure checked, stopped by bank’s ATM, stopped by Home Depot for cricket glue strips to lay by the patio window to keep crickets from coming in ─ when I open the patio window for air in the late evenings, and was headed to Sprouts, bopping and singing along to music on country/western station KFROG. THEN I saw this.

My mood changed and I found myself trying to telepathically transmit the thought ─ “So, how’s it going?” to the driver of that car.

If I were she, what with the pandemic, murder of Black people ─ though not a new thing but a thing getting a lot of attention because it’s become so openly egregious, and the subsequent rioting, I’d have been too embarrassed to sport that bumper sticker, would have scratched it off.

When the light changed, and I saw the car looked to also be turning into the lane leading to Sprouts, I told myself that, if she parked near me, I’d point to the sticker and ask her in person, “How’s that working out for you”.

Unfortunately, or lucky for me to save me from my now off-centered self, she turned away from Sprouts and towards Burger King.

I don’t even remember what I’d gone to Sprouts for, but I lucked up on gluten free hot dog buns and organic masa ─ which is the same as gluten free, nothing in it but yellow corn and a trace of lime, which purchases put me back on center, out of thinking about the ugliness going on and that MAGA crap.

Back at the complex, I ran into Next Door Neighbor coming up the stairs same time as I. She indicated she’d gotten onto Yelp, read the review and said, “It’s a good thing they didn’t hear from me!” 

She then went inside her unit, I opened my door, walked in and, before I could put the groceries down, my eyes went to the smoke detector still hanging from the ceiling since January 9 ─ in spite of management saying, “We’ll look into it” at the February 24th Community Meeting, well before the lockdown.

Funny how it is that I’ve become so accustomed to the hanging smoke detector that I stopped noticing it ... that is until today. Something inside rose up and said “Today is that day”.

Suddenly remembering what I’d said about companies paying attention to Yelp reviews, I didn’t even wait to put groceries away. I booted up the laptop and posted a review.

“I’ve been living here 8 years and, although overall it’s a nice place to live, there have been annoying issue that go unresolved. One, like the previous reviewer, is the call box not working … for years. Another, for me, is a defective smoke detector in my unit, reported so many times, with no permanent resolution, that I just gave up reporting, purchased batteries and learned how to replace batteries myself to stop the hours and hours and hours of incessant beeping, every few seconds, every few weeks. When whatever is wrong with the detector caused it to fall out of the ceiling on January 9, I didn’t figure anyone would pay attention if I reported it so I've been living with it. However, at the Community Meeting on February 24, I took a chance at being heard and reported, in that meeting, in front of resident witnesses, that it had fallen out of the ceiling. It was the same ole same ole “We’ll look into it”, and I’m still waiting. It’s been like this since January 9.

I attached that photo to the review and, the only rating options being a low Meh ─I’ve experienced better or a middle A-OK or top Yah! I’m a fan, gave the complex what I thought was fair … the middle rating.

Though I’ve had good results with Yelp reviews producing resolutions in the past ─ once at a car dealership where us customers waited for hours and hours and hours, after our cars were serviced and ready to pick up, before we were told our cars were ready and had been. They even lost one woman’s car. Told her she’d picked it up already. LOL.

I was contacted after that negative review and not charged for several future maintenance services.

Will be interesting to see if management pays attention and finally does something about my smoke detector.

I’m not holding my breath.

So anyway, with buns to freeze for the next hot dog day ─ 4th of July and, with chicken now in the slow cooker for filling, tomorrow will be masa day and tamales to the freezer so I won’t have to cook again for days.

Not Moving?

Now that word on the new interface changing from “default for all users” to “legacy interface will still be optionally available”, looks like I’m not moving after all.

Inasmuch as I’d already purchased space at WordPress, I’ll just freeze it, not go live, keep it on the back burner ... just in case.

Must have been an enormous hue and cry to cause the change from “default” to “optional”. I don’t know what others didn’t like about the new interface, but for me I didn’t find any bugs, it was just such a convoluted set up, definitely not user-friendly. And the having to go back/forth through a separate portal to read blogs was for the birds. The little bit of time I was stuck in it, before Plain Jane pointed to the way out, reminded me of the time, in my teens, I went into a hall of mirrors at the Pike.

The hall of mirrors was too much, overwhelmed me, I felt trapped, I didn’t know which way to turn. Same with that new interface, it was too much, my eyes were darting this way that way to locate what should have been obvious but was not, my fingers didn’t know what to do with themselves, it made my head hurt. When I got back to the legacy format it was like everything in me settled down and there was one huge WHEW.

Do they still have Halls of Mirrors? Do they even still have a Pike at the beach? I don’t know, but I never went back into the hall after that one time and, though I’ve always been interested in visiting a Maze, I know not to because I know myself. I’d freak out, get frantic, start screaming for help. LOL.

So anyway, back to our normally scheduled program ... there was a knock on the door yesterday. Oh Good! thought I, my gluten free masa is here.

It wasn’t.

It was a Meal Relief Kit from the California Food Bank.

A delivery person was dropping one off at every door.

Nice, but though everyone here is limited-income, not everyone here is poor/needy. I drove the box over to Apache’s unit ─ drove instead of walking it over because the box was heavy and it was 100˚ outside. Apache wasn’t home, probably at the casino now that the doors have reopened, so I left it at his door with a note to pass on to residents who might be in need.

Before dropping it off, I did open to peruse the contents ─ grape jelly, 2 canned carrots, 2 canned tuna, pasta, lentils, 2 oatmeal packets, some kind of non-fat milk that doesn't or didn't require refrigeration ???? 

And a chicken/rice dinner.

Not a bad care package at all.

I’m not clear on whether this care package is an every week or every month thing during the pandemic OR if one has to sign up for it though the organization that sponsored the delivery.

Time will tell.

When I opened the door at the knock, Next Door Neighbor (NDN) simultaneously had received a knock, a box and opened her door ─ NDN is the socially conscious one, the outspoken one, had a career as a State Commissioner of Education and is now involved in local politics, always has so much to say ... even after getting herself impeached as President of the Volunteer Residents Activity Committee for treating others on the committee like servants.

She and I haven’t connected since long before the shutdown ─ she busy with her away from the complex activities, I with my keeping to myself, but she enjoys a little gossip just as much as I do, so I took the opportunity to ask, “Have you been reading the Yelp reviews?”

“What’s a Yelp?”, asks she.

OMG!

Moving

Made the mistake of pushing the button that said “try” the new dashboard, which is going into effect June 1.

“Try” turned into I’m stuck with it now and I really don’t care for the new setup ─ a lot of unnecessary steps, setup is too confusing, not to mention the dashboard is not attractive.

As soon as I can figure out how to do so, I’ll be moving to Wordpress.

Hopefully, I can manage to do so without losing everything, but already I’m running into a problem with the domain name. It might end up bootsbraids.wordpress rather than bootsandbraids.wordpress.

Either way, I’m outta here in a few days. Hopefully, I’ll see you on the flip side.
And good luck to those of you who will be stuck with the new dashboard setup in June.

If At First You Don’t Succeed

Happy belated quarantined Memorial Day.

In the good old days ─ good old days being ten/twelve weeks ago, us seniors would have gotten together and given ourselves a BBQ outside in the patio area by the pool.

There’s still a lock on the pool gate ─ rightly so, and we’re all in masks staying away from each other so instead, craving a Memorial Day themed meal (slaw, potato salad, turkey dog in a bun), I spent time in the kitchen.

The yeast having arrived before the gluten free masa (thanks again Anne Marie), I put tamales on the back burner and went back to my original plan of baking gluten-free hot dog buns. That project ended up being a waste of time, energy, flour, eggs.

The first recipe allowed the dough to be shaped as a bun before baking, but didn’t translate well substituting all-purpose flour with gluten free and baking powder with soda. Epic fail.

If at first you don’t succeed, try again.

The second recipe was specifically developed for gluten free flour and translated well with soda instead of powder, but called for a hot dog pan ─ which I didn't have. Substituting a cake pan for the hot dog pan turned out a bread cake. Taste wasn’t bad, but impossible to shape, after baking, into a useable bun.

If you don’t succeed a second time, go with what you know. I just wrapped those turkey dogs in a tortilla and called it a Memorial Day meal.

Before logging off last night, I checked Yelp to see if the complex received any further reviews, other than the two.

It did not.

However, instead of two reviews there was only one ─ the original negative review. The positive review from across the quad neighbor Quiet Old Guy, had been moved off the main page and, in its place, were the words “1 other review that is not currently recommended”.

How interesting.

My inquiring mind had to know why, so I Googled “Why would Yelp flag a review as not recommended?” Google replied, “According to Yelp, their algorithm chooses to not recommend certain reviews because it's believed that the flagged review is fake ...”

WOWIE WOW!

I can’t imagine that positive review did not come from Quiet Old Guy. It read like something his strait-laced, deferential to those in authority self would say. However, I can’t say it’s beyond the realm of possibility that management would have been so stupid, so desperate, as to have posted their own positive review posing as him.

Either way, there are no further reviews and seems there won’t be. It was incredibly ostentatious to ask residents for reviews in the first place. Especially when folks have other things on their minds, like surviving this pandemic. Management will now have to live with the one negative review, and suspicions they faked a positive.

Say Hello to My Little Friend

Having no access to the scale in the Game Room to check myself since the lockdown, and curious to know how I’m doing, I invested in one.

The good news is I’m still at my pre-pandemic weight. I haven’t gained.

The bad news is I’m still at my pre-pandemic weight. I haven’t lost.

I’m not on the Weight Watchers program, but ended up choosing this scale for no special reason. It arrived yesterday and, looking at the box, I found it’s one of those fancy scales that has fitness modes, which modes tells the user all kinds of body analysis stuff, i.e., fat, water, mass.

I have no idea how the scale can go into that level of detail, and looks like I’ll never know because, once I opened the box and began reading the manual for setting fitness mode, I read … “The age range for fitness mode is 18 to 75”.

At 76 years of age, I’ve aged out of fitness mode. LOL.

No matter, I probably wouldn’t understand all that data even if I could get access to it. I just want to watch my weight — preferably watch it go down.

With no walking competitions on the horizon, because of restrictions on group activities, I’ve been depending on Virtual 5Ks. I’m getting emails every day about this one and that one, but few have caught my fancy — other than the Wonder Diva I just completed, and one other coming up soon — the Covid 19 Over it 5K.

I’m certainly not over Covid. I don’t think any of us will be over it in many years to come. I think we’ll just learn how to survive in it. So, though not actually over it, I registered because of the fabulous “over it” hair buff they’re offering, as the words tell the story of a great many things in life I am actually over. LOL.

THEN, on Thursday, another interesting virtual popped up in email.

Interesting, not because of any special bling. Interesting because I did the ridge run September of last year, was looking forward to this year’s run — which Covid put a halt to, and thought their virtual worth participation.

While registering for the event, I saw that participants are expected to pick up race packets.

Really?

For a virtual?

Expecting participants to pick up race packets for a virtual — especially when the reason going virtual is because of a pandemic, makes about as much sense as when the bank originally had us spaced out in line, but too close at the teller windows.

I backed out of the registration process, and thinking this having to go virtual is new to the organization — they just didn’t know, I emailed the organizers — “In case you didn’t know, it’s customary to mail packets to participants in virtuals”.

That was bold of me, I later thought, not knowing what, if anything, would be coming back at me. Surprisingly, they replied … nicely.

“Thanks for connecting. We were trying to at least have a little contact with runners so we could at least say thank you for participating. Also then we would not have to charge the participant for the mailing. I think shipping would be six or seven dollars. What are your thoughts? Are you local?”

Well that’s just silly — the wanting contact to say thank you. I ignored it and addressed cost of mailing with … “One of the advantages of a virtual is race packets are mailed to participants with cost of mailing included in registration fee. Since you’ve already posted pickup, I guess it would be difficult to change now. However, I’m thinking maybe you could have two registration fees – one pickup, one mail to cover cost. Or at least an option button to have mailed, at cost. Thanks for replying. I’ll check the site later to see if any changes. If not, good luck with the virtual. Hope it’s as successful as last year’s event was.”

It won’t be, as successful that is. Not with having a package pickup, I thought to myself. But that was that.

Then whatdoyaknow. I wake up this morning to a reply … “Shirley that’s a great idea”. 

Look at me … being an influencer. LOL.

I don’t know which idea, but they are going to change the registration process. So, I guess I’ll be adding that 5K to my workouts.