Reading: John Fowles, A Maggot

Christmas: CLH's stocking

Learning: Jamba Juice is great when it's cold out!

Moving: A browsing stroll up and down the 16th Street mall.

Viewing: Sunrise again.

14 December 1999: A well-named person

Today making a service call, I asked the person on the other end of the line her name and position.

"Ivy Carson, General Sales."

Really? I was so pleased. "Do you know there's a children's book with a main character named after you?"

"Yes indeed, I read it."

"Oh, I'm so pleased. It's one of my favorites."

"The Changeling, right?"

"Yep, Zilpha Keatley Snyder."

Now let's hope what information she gave me was right so I can believe she deserves her name.

---

I scampered out at 10, taking my lunch hour early so I could do CLH's stocking without a line, I hoped. I wish there were CVS here, but lacking that I use Walgreen's. I got keychain editions of Twister and Operation and a keychain-sized ViewFinder. I had never seen those before. And hooks for ornaments, and glue sticks for her glue gun. A little bottle of baby oil and a little bottle of hairspray. A bag of Wint-o-green lifesavers. Fake tortoise-shell hair sticks. Plus the miniature garlic grater and the seals for her stationery. I'll have to brave an MBE tomorrow to send her stuff UPS. Yoikes.

Plus AEW's present has to go from MBE in its own box.

And I have to go to Safeway for BDL's hot sauce. I can't believe that's what he wants for Christmas, but I can easily believe it's not available in Connecticut. Or at least not those sections of Connecticut he might frequent. What is hot sauce anyway? Over time, I have tried to inure the boiled-potato palate of my youth to food with a little bite, a little kick, a little flavor--to date, sadly, but little of those; my supposition about "hot sauce" is that it delivers heat with no nuance or delicacy of taste. This could be just me.

My cunning plan to go to Walgreen's before lunch hour to avoid the inevitable queue of a score or more impatient foot-tappers wasn't cunning enough. Off-peak, with fewer customers expected, there are fewer cashiers, and thus the line-inducing proportion remains the same. I didn't get impatient, surprisingly. I tend not to in such situations any more, which pleases me. Driving to Dot Org's holiday fest last night, inching from one traffic light to the next, I danced in my seat (I was driving) and pulled forward when I might. I got myself into the situation by driving; I am as much a cause of the congestion as the next person (if the next person has a car of reasonable size); and I am in no hurry.

If my hour were closer to being up and I had to get back to work, or if I were in such traffic twice a day trying to get to work on time or home as quickly as possible, I might get impatient.

Aha, here's a counterexample. Yesterday I left the office running for the bus, as usual. In such cases I flatly despise anyone who rings for the elevator down from the second floor. Do you have a heart condition? Is that heart condition the result of insufficient exercise? Do you have the use of your legs? Take the fucking stairs. I race through the lobby, impeded by the cosmetic overhaul thereof and people idling in the middle of the vestibule. If you're going to stop walking, or walk slowly, please observe general U.S. traffic rules and hie yourself to the right. Next, the escalator. I take this because it's faster than the stairs--if two people don't stand side by side, again ignoring the simple courtesy of standing to the right. Burst through the doors of the bus station, confronting two guards in the vestibule whom I by rights should have slammed with the swinging doors to cure them of their rudeness but instead wasted seconds getting around them without bodily injury. Last stop, through the doors of the station into the busramp, where three people wait in a loose clump for the next bus due at that gate--and impede my way getting to the current bus at that gate, since I must circumscribe the clump rather than dashing through it. Why people wait in the bus ramp, full of noxious fumes, rather than in the bus station, which does not smell very much at all, let alone as bad as most bus stations, is beyond me. I was impatient there. I should leave just a minute or two earlier.