I’m an Easterner who grew up on a solid, non-shifting granite base. I know how to dress for weather and which storms not to spend on the beach (with or without Shelby Scott getting drenched and Natalie Jacobson back in the studio freaking out).

Tectonic plates shifting out from under me? Nope, nuhnhuh, I don’t know nothing about surviving that shit.

In the last few days, some quakes have been rolling spots on this the Left Coast. The other night, as we took a friend out for his birthday, there was a tsunami warning that thankfully became merely a warning, although the quake was real. Some expert on TV explained that it was cool, what with the ground shifting side to side not up and down, so no wave.

Both M. and some smart egghead, UC Berkeley seismologists are saying no big deal. Sometimes they just come like that. But, on the other hand, the same egghead, UC Berkeley seismologists say “Duh, San Andreas Fault, what do you think? Hello. Earthquakes.”

Meanwhile, I strongly suspect this weekend I’ll be stocking up on emergency preparedness supplies. And since he’s the one who got me into it, I’ll have to think hard about whether I share my emergency “personal care and hygiene items” with M.

Tomorrow at work, I might actually open up and look at the emergency kit in my desk drawer.

By the way, mensch that he is M. comforted me with the following: “Don’t worry about earthquakes. You have a statistically much greater chance of getting hurt by a spouse or boyfriend.”

My mother had a peculiar script inside her head that would determine
good deal from charity, which she would be too prideful to accept.

For example, scholarships I received to attend a private university
were a good deal. Money for college based on my scholarly endeavors.

However, financial aid in general, charity and gd-it if we were
charity cases. Instead of helping me by sending in the paperwork the
semester I was in Europe, she clipped more coupons and otherwise came
up with the needed cake herself.

Today, I involuntary lived inside her head for some indeterminate
moments. The snacks and beverages at work, good deal (although Pat’s
voice tells me not to let anyone see me taking "too much"). However,
the free tampon I just snagged in the women’s room felt like charity.=20
Like somehow, you don’t want the boss subsidizing your body.

One of the hard parts of living with someone who’s not just a roommate you can tell to fuck off is that you gotta be caring and shit.

Nah, that’s not really that bad, because M. seems to bring a little bit of nurturing out of my badass self. The hard part is when your days are out of sync, and his rough day precludes your gloating.

Take today. His work is all tense as hell as they plow through the first quarter of VC funding, trying to make sure goals are met, demands faced and ultimately, despite the respite given with funding, no coasting is allowed. Meanwhile, I’m still discovering the little bullshit, happy dance moments as a newbie in a new person honeymoon period.

Today’s joy was barbecued. They told me when I started that there was barbecue on the outside patio during the summer. I expected shitty, catered, pseudo-barbecue, like when my old place cafeteria would have themes — “turkey with all the fixin’s” for Thanksgiving or fishnets draped over the counter for a “New England clam bake” with fake lobster roll and clam strips.

I was wrong. It was the ultra-friendly Facilities guys rolling out a gas grill and cooking up Carne Asada and chicken, as no doubt they’ve done in their own backyards. And, for sure the steak wasn’t the bargain rubber you find at cafeterias.

It reminded me of back when, a million years ago, I worked for a research lab with a rich benefactor’s name on the building. When I first started the entrepreneur turned philanthropist who founded the place was still alive and seriously kicking. (A dapper old dude living large and occasionally just hanging out at his building and visiting.) When he had his last hurrah (during a tennis game with his hot, young wife nearby) there were perceptible changes in the corporate culture without his touch.

I’ll tell you what I learned from those days, rich people sure know how to live.

If you’re a philanthropist, you’re not exactly doing a “let them eat cake” Marie Antoinette schtick. So, while you’re giving back there’s no sense in drinking from the faucet, when Calistoga water is chilling in the fridge.

Relatively content is fucking with my mojo big time. I’m still struggling with how to get these shitty ass posts back to something interesting, instead of something so sweet I want to suck a salt shaker dry just to recover from my own prose.

But, what can an old girl do when her muse starts sounding like “I learned everything I need for my chicken soup soul in kindergarten where I didn’t sweat the small stuff.” Pick your favorite up-lift marketing tool, self-help book and I’m living the lie, but genuinely and for real.

Today’s lesson is the little things. I’ve decided it’s the little things that matter. F’rinstance, take today. I shuffled into the den of the new employer, where I’m still poking through different doors and staircases trying to master the labyrinthian floor plan. I amble on by the mailboxes, where surprisingly there was one with my name on day one. More surprisingly, there’s something there for me. A box of real-live, grown-up business cards and some personalized notepads.

I mention the grown-up bit about business cards, because in my last gig I had the kind of title and responsibility where business cards might have come in handy. Like when I had to meet with people oustside who would need to get in touch with me, or someone came into our office and asked me for one, or maybe when I embarked on managing a multi-site, gargantuan beast of a budget and a little reminder of my contact info in a portable size might have been handy.

I inquired about getting some, since in the grand scheme they were not that expensive, given that there were standard designs, and, I dunno, I thought maybe my own sense of responsibility warranted a little professional polish on the gig. The reply was, instead of the anticipated sign off on the official order form, a suggestion I go talk to the guy who was pretty good at doing that kind of thing on his printer.

Thing is, for once I didn’t want the hand-me-down, home-made, make-do version. I wanted the real deal, and I never understood why I didn’t merit it. So I went without and continued providing my number on a yellow post-it note if asked.

Now, today, I have a job where I’m not sure if I will need to hand out cards. My level of responsibility is clearly a support role and quite possibly cards may only be requested of the folks I support.

Nonetheless, this time around, I got the little boost of someone thinking I might need them, and I didn’t have to ask. For a buck or two, I’m a happy camper with something to pin on my shirt should my brain lose some functionality and I need a reminder.

The little things are also what I realized is keeping my personal life relatively happy. I hadn’t anticipated the kind of life where I mention gas in a post-work caravan and two minutes later I’m being led to a gas station. And, upon arrival M. hops out of his car to wash my windshield.

Little but sweet.

Shit, I think I’m going to need insulin if I keep up this tone.

I had an email exchange with an East Coast buddy about my alleged edge. She was worrying that without anything to piss me off, I wouldn’t have quite the same humor, I think.

I do have the freakish Wacko Jacko getting a free hand to, well, have a free hand. Another fine example, along with Fatty Arbuckle, OJ Simpson and Robert Blake of California juris prudence.

Do you think M. maybe invited me out here, because it seems so much harder to get a conviction? Of course, he ain’t a celebrity, so he could go the way of Scott Peterson if he offs me.

With things going well, though, I don’t have the lemons life hands you to make lemonade and all that other happy horseshit. Nope, out here I got real lemons.

M. mentioned to a co-worker my fetish for Cali flora. I walk around in utter amazement at trees especially, because they, like, have fruit and shit growing off them. Not like crabapples either, but fruit you could actually enjoy. (One thing that surprises me every time I go out on my bike is riding by a freshly groomed lawn. In so many piles of lawn clippings are what look to me like perfectly good pieces of fruit. I first think something along the line of “Someone must have dropped some groceries,” followed by a “Duh.”)

I know, I sound like an idiot or maybe some kind of edited out character transplanted in Gulliver’s Travels, but, hey, I’m an ex-pat of sorts.

Given my fruit freakishness, M.’s co-worker presented him with a garbage bag of fresh from his tree, organically grown lemons. And, for the first time, I’ve held in my hand a lemon bigger than a softball (or as M. pointed out larger than my rack).

Check out the relatively normal-sized lemon on the right and the mango for scale and for a non-fruit comparison, the cell phone.

It’s damn good I’m not gay in a repressive and closed society.
Instead, I was born straight in a repressive and closed culture but
within a mostly accepting family (at least judging by the fact that my
mother would literally have kicked the ass of anyone who tried to
ostracize her son).

I mention that pointless paragraph above only because it’s the closest
correlary I can think of for keeping my website going, but being
chicken-shit scared (or cautiously wise) to make any mention of it at
my new job. I was just thinking of it, when I scanned The SF Chronicle’s website for updates on
Michael Jackson, kiddie diddler extraordinary (or not depending on the
verdict).

The Chronicle has an article on corporate
weblogs and weblog policy.

It makes me think that here in the Bay Area, especially since they
mention a corporation that has some relationship to my new employer,
things would likely be cool. Yet, I’m pretty sure I’ll have
difficulty ever trusting whatever Big Brother entity for whom I might
work.

My case, unfortunately for me, doesn’t fit neatly into the
cookie-cutter policy world. More importantly, I believe now that
regardless of policy and transparency within organizations, the
small-minded and mean can and will use words against you. The
downside of writing in the public eye is that I’m giving the
small-minded a lot with which to work their mischief.

Sad.

This morning no one from my "team" is here for a variety of reasons,
so it’s blissfully peaceful. I’m using the time to organize and think
about organizing everything so it seeps into my little comprehending
gray matter.

Since I was feeling so productive and humming droning bee-ish, aka
busy, I figured I’d skip the usual weblog bullshit blather.

But then, right there in the kitchen cabinets as I was snagging some
more free morning joe, there was something post-worthy staring me in
the face. Among the ample free snacking opportunities here at the
work farm — FREE BEEF JERKY.

Jerky, motherfuckers. While you tool in your workhouses (especially
you all "backeast" in the gloom and torment of New England), I could
be munching on dried bits of animal hide (or whatever it is).

I’ve always wanted to taste the jerky, but never wanted to spend any
of my hard-earned cash on it, lest it prove as disgusting as it looks.
Now I have opportunity. I just have to figure a time and place.

Food, snacks, beverages, yada yada yada.

Finished lunch and went into the kitchenette (different from the main
lunchroom from which the food came). After throwing away the last
soggy leaves of lettuce clinging to the plate into the trash, I
realized each of these little rooms has a garbage disposal in the
sink.

Not just a garbage disposal, but <a
href=3D"kitchenaid.com">Kitchenaid.</a> Man, that ain’t Home Depot DIY.
Kitchenaid is top of the line, Cadillac disposing, and that don’t
come cheap.

If anyone from the new employer should stumble across this bullshit,
they are likely to only shrug, scratch their heads and pronounce me
"Queen of the Dorks."

Dork? Because yet again, I must comment on free food. (You would
think from reading the posts these weeks I just left a workhouse where
orphans subsisted on gruel.)

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays lunch is served in the cafeteria.

(Here’s something I never saw in the east — imagine a basic
corporate-like lunchroom, OK, they have them in Boston. But, there
are NO cash registers. No signs at all of life transacted in the
commerce sphere.)

At my old place of employ, there was "Baked Potato Bar," where you
could decorate a spud however you liked. It was sold by weight, and
taters being weighty tubers, I could easily smack down a 5-spot or
more.

Today, I am eating "Baked Potato Bar" in a parallel universe. Beyond
the main event of a hearty baked potato with stewed tomatoes and
sausage and a little cheese, my plate overflows. There is green salad
with romaine, not iceberg, and your basic salad veggies. In addition,
there’s freshly steamed asparagus with a light vinagrette.

A varietable feast of vegetables, and it doesn’t end there.

There is also the ubiquitous for Northern Cali, sourdough bread.=20
(Honestly, while sourdough bread is edible, I really can’t fathom it’s
cache. It is everywhere here, however, and Pepperidge Farm is no
where to be found. I do suffer my little hardships.)

Finally, I decided I needed to toss in a little sweetness to the mix.=20
Remembering that California has a whole lot of sunshine and
agriculture, for today there are lusciously red strawberries, neat
slices of perfectly ripe mango and a small corner of lemon square,
just because it was there.

And, this plate that would certainly have exceeded $5 and may have hit
double digits in my old world cost me what?

Nada. Bubkis. No thin dimes at all.

Stranger still, the HR woman who welcomed me on Monday spotted and
greeted me. As I commented on the unusual sight of free food, she
explained that among the reasons for its existence was to lessen the
environmental impact of the assembled staff driving out for lunch.

Cynically, I had been assuming free lunch only equated with keeping
you at your desk toiling. But, the gas emissions thing makes sense if
you factor in that I’m sitting in a room dedicated to good works.=20
Among their missions, and one for which they are willing to write
really big checks, is to help solve pollution.

Best perq to date, the motherfuckers actually paid me in this my first week=
..

At my last gig, through a combination of administrative incompetence
and the fact that I was the administrator to be taking over HR
paperwork, it was almost a full month until I got paid (and they were
on a weekly schedule).

This time around, there are only two pay days a month, and they STILL
managed to squeak me in…

Rock on rich people and your wealthy philanthropic organizations. Rock on.