The Adventures of Bloggard

As expected, I met Tim W., the last known paid web designer in San Francisco, in Townsend Center hallway. I carried a blogging book; still studying, you see. He suggested to search out favorite blauthors. Good idea.

Sure enough, Jon E. almost escaped. Due to the enslaving nature of the cell phone, however, he was impelled to return, and I signed paperwork on May Day. New home for voicemail numbers coming soon. This will make me mobile. Or, as we say in our slogan from the Abe’s SuperBudget VoiceMail brochures, “Freedom to Move!”

Tomorrow I will go to San Francisco to arrange an equipment rack in San Jose. A new home for all our voicemail lines.

Although my appointment is for lunch at noon, I had a vision, in which I see Jon E. slipping away for a ball game. In this vision, I will catch him at a bus stop at the last minute.

I also imagine that I will arrive early, and will by accident meet the last actual web designer in San Francisco, standing in a hallway.

This is all just a premonition, of course. Let’s see how it turns out.

Come to find out, there’s a better way to set up voicemail lines than what I’ve been using for the last fourteen years.

I don’t know if this always existed, or has just emerged from some new technological marvel. But it’s here now, so I’m changing.

One day at a parade, Layla’s Greg told me about this. Following up promptly a year later, I discover that my cost immediately drops in half, and by chance the cabinet is free.

But that’s not all …

In addition, through some magic they can give me local numbers from Santa Rosa to Santa Cruz, coming into the same machine. I can even bring in numbers from Seattle or Atlanta or Chicago. I don’t know how they do that.

Lunch last week in SF’s SOMA with Jon E. Got paperwork. Got homework. Completing arrangements next week. It will be Full Moon and May Day. What you make of that, kemo sabe?

Adrienne and I are sometimes just not on the same wavelength. We had a disagreement, regarding funds and moving costs, and it left us both in the dumps. While I feel clear about what needs to be done, it’s also clear that the talk was damaging. I hate that, and don’t know any better way of proceeding.

I’m quite concerned about our financing of our move, and maybe this is making me too edgy. I’m not sure. I wish I could be more loving. I’m just not quite sure how.

From time to time, I miss that Mogo.

Looky Back: San Francisco 1988. Charlie was a thin gay guy with black hair, manager for a time at Network Answering Service on Geary Boulevard. One day our operator Anita came to work with a small paper bag. Inside a kitty. Someone had abandoned it on the street; she’d found it near the bus stop.

It needed nursing, from a tiny bottle. I did that. But couldn’t really keep another cat at Network. We already had Rosie, who had founded Network, and Cosmo the wild refugee hitchhiker from Mendocino. So Charlie said he’d take her home, and named her Morgan.

Just a few months later …

Charlie got the bug to travel; and, giving away excess possessions, said he had some nice towels for me. He insisted; he arranged that I’d pick them up after he’d gone, a Saturday I think. I showed up at his ex-apartment. His ex-roomate led me in and said, “Here are your towels. And here is your cat.”

Mogo outlived Cosmo, moved from Network to Lyon street, where she and Rosie would block the hall so little Holly had to leap over them to avoid swatting with kitty claws. Mogo outlived Rosie, who just one day wore out, and could walk no more, sweet modest little thing. True of heart Rosie was, and uncomplaining.

Mogo moved to Marin and became a tough trailer-park kitty, where she and the new kid, Percy, formed a gang. Later, becoming genteel, they moved to upscale San Anselmo, and claimed to be members of a literary society. But of course they were just the same gang members.

One day in October 2000, Morgan wasn’t so well. The vet made some tests, gave her a cortizone shot. That day she came up on the deck, and just started talking to me. Talking and talking and talking. That night, for a time she was missing. I searched. Finally Adrienne spotted her. At great leisure, Morgan was rolling around in a patch of moonlight, taking a little moonbath. What a scamp.

But the test result was grim. She became unable to move around much, and lived only a couple more days. I would place her on a pillow near the window, but she lost interest. Finally, one day she went to the vet. Then she was gone.

Durn ol kitty.

Ha, ha, ha! Today is April Food Day! April Food!

Adrienne brought them in when returning from dogsitty Izzy. Clearly I’m going all to hell here.

You wouldn’t know, of course, but Adrienne is very allergic to poison oak. And we live in San Anselmo, in what’s called the Valley of the Oaks. Ignorant me, I didn’t know that poison oak is related to oak trees, found around oak trees, maybe is some kind of evil-spirited oak tree, I dunno. Duh!

It appears that one of her dogs got into poison oak, and then applied liberal doses to her body. It was painful just to look at, and she was clearly itching out of her skin for about a week. But now …

It seems much improved, thank you very much.

We hired a fellow to cut it all out of the back yard. Costly. Haven’t seen him since. Hope he’s OK.

We’re moving. I’ve had it with this place. Poison oak … it’s for the birds. Strickly from hunger. Adios I say. Bring on those tall pines for us city slickers. Coming right up!