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July 27, 2005

Interest

One of my many rules of thumb is that if I have a thought, I reckon it is pretty likely that someone else has had the same one earlier. That is what college (and seemingly, especially art school) is for: to show you that all the really good ideas have been taken and made into famous books, movies, or paintings. Lately, I have been noticing that when people I know are living interesting lives, their blog posts become less interesting. So I have been posting less in the hope that someone will be deceived into thinking that, perhaps, that I have been busy doing interesting things. I have not. Except, perhaps, this.

Mostly, I have been working on rewrites of two term papers for my early-exit Master's degree. A third paper has yet to be addressed. One of the papers was fairly decent to begin with; it required either (a) only a little work to make it presentable and decent or (b) a lot more work to really make it something (e.g. conference paper, journal article). In retrospect, had I been able to start out on the path that that paper was taking me, I might have been a much happier camper at the U. Alas, it is behind me now. As I explained recently to a friend, I may yet find myself in another PhD or JD program somewhere, but not now. I am thinking artist. Or writer. Or skydiver. Something that will really strike terror into my parents (it never gets old).

A friend of mine is one of two musically / artistically inclined children. He says that he is keeping his straight job just long enough for his sister to graduate college and begin her "meteoric" rise as an engineer.¹ I think he reckons that one self-sufficient or moderately successful child out of two is a 50% per cent success rate. My parents would be thrilled with 50%: they have been limping along with 25% for some time now.


¹ This commonly-used metaphor means just the opposite of what is intended. In what direction do meteors always travel? And what happens to them?

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July 20, 2005

Poetry

Friends of mine recently sent a deeply personal essay about the loss of their daughter, who died during birth. Enclosed with their essay is a poem by Mary Oliver ("In Blackwater Woods") and a wonderful children's book. Reading their recollection of the tragedy brought back to me the feelings of helplessness I felt when first I learned of it. I have not found the words to describe the sorrow I feel for my friends, and I greatly admire their courage in sending out the package. Now I am at another loss for words.

This morning, I came across this poem, also by Mary Oliver. Generally I suffer little poetry, but these pwems on sadness comfort me right now.

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July 7, 2005

Odd Pairings

Yesterday while I ate my tamales and sopaipilla's at Los Charritos, I sat facing two people at a table for four. This in itself was hardly unusual, since most of the tables there were four-tops. The man looked to be in his mid-60's to mid-70's, and the woman appeared to be in her late 20's or early 30's. She was blonde, and was wearing makeup. That they sat next to each other rather than across from each other indicated to me a familiarity and a desire for closeness. They appeared to be too chummy for a father-child or even grandfather-grandchild relationship, and it appeared to be a social rather than a business lunch. But who is to say?

This morning, I went to the Flying Star downtown rather than the homier Downtown Java Joe's. The food is better at the latter cafe but they do not have wireless. I was "saving" my trip to DJJ for tomorrow or Saturday morning when Roomie will be here. In retrospect, I should have followed my gut's inclination. Directly behind me sitting outside in the shade is a young local woman with her dog. The latter appears to be a mix of Samoyed and German Shepherd. Seems happy enough shedding large clumps of quasi-matted fur, though every time the woman brings a little paper bowl of water out for her dog (tie-downs and dog biscuits are available for dog-bearers here), the dog moves around and her leash topples the water bowl. I suppose you can bring the dog to water and vice-versa but there is no guarantee the dog will drink.

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July 3, 2005

Why Famous Dave's Is Famous

We began our meal somewhat disenchanted with Famous Dave's. We love the decor in there, even if the look is more antique store chic Gasoline Alley than genuine. It makes me think of all the happy antiques dealers, glad to be rid of those giant rusting "Standard Oil" signs. However, our original plan of Rooster's take out was thwarted by the fact that they are closed on Fourth of July weekend. Roomie orders the rib early bird platter and I the rib and catfish E.B. platter. With two waters, the total is $15.60.

The first slipup was that Roomie's fries arrived on my plate and my cole slaw ended up on hers. This was easily fixed. The food was good, and the corn muffins far superior to the hockey puck rolls at Rooster's. We decide to split a bread pudding (when they do it a slab of almost french toast drizzled in cinnamon goo and garnished with both ice cream and whipped cream). Roomie went up and paid and we waited patiently, reviewing our respective copies of City Pages.

Roomie tells me that they have forgotten our order. I counsel her to keep waiting for a bit; perhaps the order did go through on time and they are making it now. It is a longshot. When a woman in a white polo shirt (instead of the routine black tees) walks by, I flag her. She comes by the booth and touches Roomie's shoulder.¹ "We ordered a bread pudding, a while ago." I say. "I'll take a look and get it out to you immediately." It hardly came out immediately, but I suppose that they had to warm the thing. One of the young blackshirts, a sweet young man, brings us the bread pudding.

A few minutes later he returns with the money for the bread pudding. "I was hoping they would do that" said Roomie. I said that I thought they might. We bask in our free dessert. A while later, the woman in the white polo shirt comes by "My name is Joanie and I am the manager here. I looked at your tag and I noticed that you waited for your dessert a really long time, like half an hour or so. Here's a gift card for your next time here, and I apologize for the slip up."

We accept the card and thank the manager. Over dessert, we talk about how cool it is that Famous Dave's allows its managers to give out gift cards when the staff screws up. Roomie mentions that she got nothing but scowls recently at a cafe when they screwed up her order and all she wanted was what she ordered. But Famous Dave's does more that allow its managers discretion to give away a meal: they make it a policy to give these cards out when they screw up. On the back of the card, it says "Please forgive our foul-up and accept this gift card as invitation to give us another try."

Many years ago at a sales management training session, I was told that if a customer has a good experience somewhere, she will tell about 2-3 people about it on average. On the other hand, if something goes wrong, she will tell an average of 11 people. Smart businesses know that they can afford to lose people no less than their competition. We will go back to Rooster's because the ribs are better and we like to support small hole in the wall places, but there is something to be said for a chain of command and smart corporate policies.

¹ This is a standard management training trick. Any time a manager touches you, it is because she has been instructed to do to disarm your resentment and to establish a friendly bond between the two of you.

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