What elderly women inevitably say to me when they meet me in person

"I didn't recognize you.  You don't look like your picture in the paper.  That's an awful picture.  I'm serious."

I really, really like that apparently you get to say whatever you want to say as you age.  That's awesome, don't you think?

Utah Humanities Book Festival 2013

I just got back from the library downtown where I heard Kristen Chandler and Kate diCamillo speak.  Tomorrow our friend Sara Zarr will be appearing, as well.  In fact, there's a lot going on with this festival and it's free.  IT'S ALL FREE.

So you should go!

Here's the 411.  Which is the kind of thing Cher said in Clueless.  Man, I loved that movie.

Meter update

The very day after I wrote my parking meter screed, I parked on the street downtown.  I was worried that I was running out of time, so I tried to feed it a little extra money to keep the good times rolling.

But can you guess what happened?

Instead of adding more time to the time I had left, the meter re-set and started all over again, which meant I had less time on the meter than I had when I started.

I started screaming in the streets right then, just like Marlon Brando in Streetcar Named Desire.  

Only I wasn't yelling "Stella."  Because I don't know anyone named Stella.

And anyway that would have just been weird.

This week's column, y'all.

It's all about TRQ's mother, my grandmother, who was probably the single most important person in my life until I was about nine.  As I grew older I sometimes resented her because she was such a human tsunami,  and I often felt powerless in her presence.  But living without her for all these years has had a gentle winnowing effect on my memories, and what I do linger over now was her goodness.

I miss her.

What the doctor didn't order

I promise not to keep harping on this because it's SO MIND-NUMBINGLY BORING.  But as you know, I've been struggling with the onset of fall more than usual.  A lot more than usual.  So I talked to my doctor about this yesterday and went dude.  What gives?  And he said, the problem is you're going into your hard seasons already burned out.

As soon as he said that, I went dude.  You're right.  That's exactly what's going on here.  And you know what else is going on here?  I'm calling my doctor "dude" a lot.

So then I asked for a magic pill that would make me feel excited about everything happening soon.  Halloween.  Fall planting.  Amber light and blue skies.  A pile of good books to read.  Trips to the farmers' market with my granddaughter.  FOOD.  FOOD.  MORE FOOD.  And he said sorry.  No special super magic pills.  Just employ your strategies.  Light box.  Exercise.  Mild anti-depressants.  Friends.  Gratitude journal.  

And you know what?  I found this kind of comforting.  It was like he said, yeah.  This sucks for you.  But it's okay.  You'll weather it, just like you have before.

Here's to weathering!  And now I will say no more on the subject.

Unreasonable

Do you have anything in your life that makes you unreasonably angry?

And by "unreasonably angry" I mean you realize your trigger is small and petty and entirely first world?  And you know your rage is completely out of proportion to the trigger?  But still?  There it is?

Well, I do.  Can you guess what it is?

If you said "Parking Meters in Downtown Salt Lake" you would be right.  I've written about this before, so in addition to being unreasonable, I am also being BORING.  But seriously, every time I tangle with one of those damn meters--and by "tangle with one of those damn meters" I mean see one through my windshield as I'm driving down the street, I feel my blood pressure shoot up like a bottle rocket through the sun roof.

For starters it bugs me that the price of parking on the streets has gone up.  And also now you can't park for free after 6:00.   And also you have to remember what your parking space number is as you look for the pay station.  Which is hard if your brain is old and reluctant to hang onto parking spaces numbers, which you don't see the point of anyway.

BUT WHAT I HATE THE MOST is that you can't draft off the coins the guy before you fed into the meter, because you have no way of telling how much time is left.  So even if there's an hour left, you have to pay for the space again.  Which makes me feel ripped off and pissed.

And now they've even put meters down Edison Street which is basically an alley where employees of Cedars of Lebanon go to smoke on break.

Oh, Mayor Becker.  There are eight paragraphs in this post.  Count them for yourself.  Eight of them.  I never write posts this long.  See what you have wrought?

The True Story of TRQ and the Sunglasses

Ugh.

After all these years and even after football is no longer the Family Biz, I still wake up feeling like shit after an ugly loss like last night's ugly loss.  I just said this to Ken Cannon who remembered when he first married into the family and how surprised he was that TRQ wore sunglasses to church the day after a loss like Jackie O on her way to board the Onassis yacht.  He found her slightly frightening, because it was clear those sunglasses were saying to the rest of the world, "Don't look at me.  Don't talk to me.  And especially don't touch me.  Or. I. Will. Kill. You."

WARNING:  I am wearing sunglasses all the whole damn day long.