Baltimore Diary

Overheard at the Double T Diner

I was on line to pay my check. In front of me was a tall black woman, more handsome than anything else. The cashier noticed a book in her hand and noticed that its title was "Diaspora."

"Oh, Diaspora," he said. "What is that book?"

She looked at the book and then at him. "It's Diaspora."

He was pretty excited. "Yes, but what is it?"

She tried to explain, however briefly, the exile of the Jews from Palestine in the sixth century BC, but apparently she wasn't getting through to him.

He said, "In Greece, diaspora means, I was born in Greece, but now I live here. It's a Greek word."

She just looked at him. "Yeah, well the Jews are using it now."

Onions and Egg Nog

Once in awhile I like to check the stats on this blog. I think it's fun to see some of the referring sites. Today, someone came to my blog via Google. The search terms they used were:

gillette mach onion opinion

My site came up fourth, partly because of the McDonald's story and partly because of that meme I got from 9moonsago.com. But what the hell was this person looking for in the first place?

A short while ago I popped up in a Technorati search based on the word "divorce". And one other time it was a Google search based on the terms "John Adams Egg Nog". Uh, yeah, he was pretty famous for that. Egg Nog and that whole Founding Fathers thing.

Weird but Cool Fun

Check this site out:

http://www.2flashgames.com/f/f-1211.htm

Don't let the fact that it's entirely in Japanese throw you. The game is so simple that you don't need to be able to speak Japanese. The little blue dots drift upward and then down again. Time your click carefully, you only get the one (for each of three rounds). When you click on a dot, it'll set off a chain reaction of explosions. Your score is based on how many dots you wipe out.

So far my high score is 101 (after maybe 20 minutes of play). Have fun!

edit: did I say 101? I meant 123.

Lass From the Past

I got a call from a friend of mine this morning.

A and I go back about a dozen years, to when Dinosaurs Roamed the Earth and practically your only access to the Internet was America Online. She and I would spend time in the same chatroom. We got to be a pretty tight group despite our overall diversity of location, attitude, personal situation, economic stratum, whatever. (:::waving to the "thirtysomething" crowd:::) And yeah, I met Wife #2 there, but it wasn't an internet romance. We first met that way but everything else progressed the way a typical relationship would. Anyway, the group would hook up at semiannual gatherings, there were numerous parties in between, it was pretty cool. When we grew beyond AOL, we brought the chatter into the IRC and kept it up. I'm still in touch with a few of them. When Wife #2 and I split, it was A who convinced me to move to Baltimore and basically start over. I still haven't decided whether or not to thank her for that. Heh.

As coincidence would have it, A's lease was ending around the time I was planning to come down, and her rent was going up by nearly a third. She needed a new place to live. I needed a place to live on the cheap, so we threw in together for a couple of years until we were both able to buy our own homes. A cool deal if you plan it out right, and fortunately we did. Except for renting from Regional Management, a company that will nickel-and-dime you to death and do the absolute minimum when it comes to maintenance. I think their motto is "Never let it be said that we didn't do the least we could do." Unfortunately, they're all over the city, so it's not the easiest thing in the world to find a decent place that isn't theirs. It's certainly possible, but watch out for their signs. You Have Been Warned.

Anyway. Because of all this, Wife #2 and A were also pretty tight. In fact, I think that they were face-to-face friends before I met either of them. Then I moved down and the phone calls from New Jersey started to dwindle. And when I tiptoed my way up to the house to retrieve my stuff (there's a whole other story in that), Wife #2 called A in a drunken fit of rage a couple of nights later ("you're covering for him, I thought you were my friend," etc.) and that was the last that A heard from her.

I know that I mentioned that I got the divorce papers in the mail, but the part I didn't bring up is that she called me several weeks ago to get my mailing address. She told me that she was filing the paperwork, that it was going to be real simple stuff: we haven't lived together since February of 2001, we have no children and no real estate in common, she's changing her last name back to her maiden name (this was her second marriage too, so she's winding back two names instead of just one). I told her "fine, but I need something from you. Two things, actually."

Pause. Big sigh. "What." You know how that goes, when a question is phrased without the question mark at the end.

I plowed on. "First, I want [detailed description of an heirloom Christmas ornament I'd missed in the Daring Daylight Raid]." She actually calmed down a bit and told me she'd look for it, if it was anywhere it was packed into the Christmas stuff. OK, no rush. When you find it, you find it. What's the other thing, she asked me.

I said, "Let A out of the doghouse. You're wrong, she knew nothing about anything. "

"That's bullshit; how could she not know anything? Wouldn't she be curious when stuff started turning up at the house?"

"No, because I stored it all at a couple of friends' houses. I kept her in the dark on purpose precisely because I didn't want to jeopardize her friendship with you. I swear to god she knows nothing to this day." All of which is true, and don't think any of THAT was easy to pull off. Unless she's reading this now (which I doubt), I don't think she even knows that I had to go back to NJ to deal with the law.

Let me tell you something, this always kind of weighed on me, that I did what I did, the way I did it specifically to keep A in the clear, and she wound up getting splashed with the mud anyway. So I figured that I owed it to her to at least try.

She still didn't believe me, at least not at the time. But she did take down A's new phone number and that was the end of the conversation. When I got the paperwork from the attorney I happened to see A online and asked her if she'd heard from NJ. Nope.

Today, A called me and told me that she'd heard from Wife #2. Apparently they had a decent chat, although Wife #2 told her that she wasn't going to be visiting Maryland ever again because of the possibility that I could conceivably turn up. Yeah, we in Maryland all know each other, all 5.2 million of us. If that's true, I think I'd have more people inviting me to Ocean City for the weekend, wouldn't I? I'm just saying. She also said that she'd sold the house in Rutherford, which I kinda-sorta knew. I mean, I knew she wasn't living there anymore; what I didn't know was whether she'd sold it or lost it to tax foreclosure or whatever. Yeah, I could actually see that happening. The other thing she'd said was that she had more or less retired. That's kind of curious; the house wasn't worth enough to do that. But OK, whatever. She's found someone willing to keep her in that style of life etc. and more power to her on that. Either that or a really scary premonition I had once is coming true and for her sake I hope that's not the case.

So that's one down; I haven't seen the ornament yet.

McDenouement

My freebies came from McDonald's today.

There were two of them, and they're good for a free Extra Value meal at any one of six locations, one of which is the Dreaded North Avenue location. As it happens, I pass one of them once in awhile, so I guess I can use them. It occurred to me that the restaurants are usually franchised out, so it's not as though I was going to get a coupon good anywhere in the US.

The coupons (which are the size of business cards) were accompanied by a letter from Thomas Bellamy, the Area Supervisor. The letter was basically a form letter with the date and my name patched in a couple of times:

Thank you for taking the time to contact us in reference to your recent experience at our restaurant. Here at McDonald's, it is our goal to provide 100% total customer satisfaction to each and every visitor. Regretfully, our staff failed to meet that goal on the day of your particular visit...I would like to take this time to sincerely apologize for the inadequate service that you received. It is our hope that you will afford us another opportunity to regain your confidence in our staff. In addition, I have enclosed a few McDonald's gift certificates as a token of appreciation for your continued patronage. If you have any future concerns or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

So...yeah. Here's my thing. I don't want to sound unappreciative, because they did take steps to placate me when they could have just said "piss off", but the fact is, I've been to this place enough times that I have no more confidence in them. I haven't turned my back on McDonald's (to the dismay of my physician and my cholesterol level, no doubt), but I'm definitely through with this particular location. If I write back and say that, I think I'd just be snotting at them and what's the point.

I figure I'll use them at the other location I know of that belongs to this franchisee, at the intersection of Harford and Moravia Roads. Then I'll write Mr. Bellamy back to thank him and let him know what a great job they do there. Because you know what? I've been to that one a few times and they've never screwed up my order. Go figure.

And we've got to get ourselves...

...back to the garden.

Here's a story for you. Settle in, kiddies.

I moved down here in 2001 from Long Island, where I was staying with a friend after my second marriage collapsed. I moved here only a couple of weeks before September 11. Those buildings were the view out my classroom window. When I was married I lived in Rutherford, New Jersey.

In addition to teaching preschool, I worked part-time for a local newspaper, the Leader newspaper group. That sounds pretty cool, but the fact is that we had five editions which were all identical except for the front page. Circulation wasn't bad, something in the 20,000 range and my understanding is that it's even better now. They weren't online at the time (despite my trying to talk them into it), but nowadays they are. So, more power to them. I wrote a bunch of news stories at $25 a pop, usually about stuff going on in the towns of Lyndhurst and North Arlington.

Most people don't recognize either of those town names at face value, but Lyndhurst is the home of the restaurant they use to stand in for Artie Bucco's on The Sopranos. It's a Spanish restaurant, so they take down all the Spanish pictures and put up Italian ones. North Arlington is the home of several of the items that you see in the opening credits, including the cemetery with the church in the background and Pizzaland.

Anyway, one of the other things I used to do for the paper, for which I didn't get paid, was an opinion column. The last column I wrote was published on February 15, 2001. It read, in part:

   I planted a garden last weekend.
   You probably think I'm crazy, and perhaps I am. I like the idea of starting a garden in the dead of winter.
   It brings a little hope, holding a seed in your hand and pondering the potential for life therein...
   ...Here's my proposal: take some time this month to offer up some hope. Do an anonymous kindness to someone. Find a person, or an animal, that nobody could love and give them a little positive attention. Give someone flowers for no reason at all...
   ...It's so easy to generate pain in this world. It's no trick at all to make somebody feel badly about themselves, but in the long run it diminishes you at the same time. Take the high road, go the other route and do the hard thing, the right thing. Build someone up, someone for whom it would be tough for you to build up. And in the process, you build yourself up. Don't you feel better after doing a good deed? Sure you do.
   Reach out in the darkness. Plant your own garden of hope.

The day after this saw print was the day my wife literally threw her ring at me and told me not to let the door hit me in the ass on the way out. (Clever, that.)

This all came back to mind when I got a package in the mail today. It was the seeds that I'd ordered a few weeks ago. I still plant gardens but I've gotten a bit superstitious about planting them so early.

A couple of weeks ago I got some paperwork from an attorney in New Jersey. She's finally gotten around to filing for the divorce. I had to get a form notarized and sent back saying that, yes, I've been served with this paperwork. I don't have to go up there or anything to get it done. Nice, peaceful, civil stuff all around. I've accepted that this needs to happen. It doesn't mean that I have to like it.

Maybe I'll start those seeds in a few weeks, somewhere between Valentine's Day and President's Day. I'll give myself an Easter Bouquet. Heh.

Just for the Giggles

Feckin' great. Heh.

McSpin

I heard back from the folks at McDonald's. Twice.

Last night, I got a phone call from the district representative. He had some questions about the email I sent, so I told him the story again in greater detail than was in my original note. (I was relatively brief because I thought I was going to be limited in the number of characters I had to use.) He apologized, told me that he was sending me some Value Meal coupons and said that he was going to find out who the manager on duty was at that time (actually, those times; he'd asked about the previous day as well) and give him a talkin' to. OK, he didn't say that specifically but that was the gist.

Today I got an email from  the corporation, which I now share with you:

Thank you for taking the time to contact McDonald's Customer Service Center to bring your recent experience to our attention.

First, I hope you will accept my sincere apology for your disappointment in McDonald's. I can assure you that we want you to be completely satisfied every time you visit one of our restaurants.

Because most McDonald's restaurants are independently owned and operated, I have forwarded your comments to the franchise owner or local representative for follow up at the restaurant. Please be assured that your comments will be investigated and, if appropriate, corrective action will be taken.

Again, thank you for taking the time to contact McDonald's Customer Service Center and giving us the opportunity to address your concerns. Customer feedback is very important to us as it helps us improve.

Tiffany
McDonald's Customer Response Center

ref#:XXXXXX

...and which was followed by a copy of the note that was in the form I'd filled out at the website. For your entertainment value, I include that here as well. The first paragraph reads a little strangely because, at the website, I've already given out some of the information such as the time, date and location of the "incident" via form fields:

I need to back up a little bit: On the 18th I was at the same location, drive-through. I ordered a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, no pickles and no mustard. When I got my receipt,  I noted that the special portion of my order was wrong. When I pointed it out, I was asked to pull forward and they'd have to bring my food out to me.

On the 19th, I ordered the same meal at the same restaurant. To her credit, the young lady who took my order repeated it back to ensure that she'd gotten it correctly. However, when I checked my sandwich it was wrong. By now, however, I was at least a mile away and unable to turn back to get a new sandwich. I wound up with french fries and a soda for my combination late lunch/early dinner.

So this represents two consecutive drive through errors at this specific location. They've made mistakes before (both via drive-through and eat-in), and clearly comments and complaints don't sink in with the management of this restaurant.

I eat in McDonald's restaurants throughout Baltimore City, including the Broadway/Harford, Frederick/Hilton, on Wilkins Avenue and at the Caton Ave./Washington Blvd. locations. Only at the North Avenue location do I see this level of error, and I write to inform you that I'm basically done with this particular location. There are other choices in that immediate area, and I'll be taking advantage of those choices, even if they're not as convenient.

Thank you very much for your time and attention.

So yeah, as far as email, it was pretty much of a form letter response. But I did appreciate getting the phone call. This guy was polite, contrite and basically made my night (poem!), and I'm sure the last thing he needs to deal with is some knucklehead like me bitching about a cheeseburger. Well, THE last thing he needs is someone from the Corporation coming down on him and saying "Hey, deal with this knucklehead," but talking to me was probably a close second. Especially since he's trying to run whatever restaurant he's dealing with (I could hear the activity in the background--someone had overcooked french fries last night but I'm not taking the blame for that).

I'll update this tale again when the coupons arrive and we'll see if there's any notes accompanying those. I hope I don't have to use them at the North Avenue location.

It's Snow Big Deal

We got the word a little while ago that Baltimore City Schools are closed for tomorrow. I guess because they still haven't gotten all of the roads completely cleared yet. I know a lot of sidewalks are still invisible, which means that kids would be walking in the streets to get to school. So despite our not getting more snow today (as was predicted), keeping school closed for a day isn't too crazy an idea.

Someone told me that a couple of years before I came here, it was very hard to get a snow day around here. New York City schools can be that way, but most of the kids in NYC are taking mass transit to school rather than yellow buses. And the streets are cleared quickly just because of sheer volume using them. But Baltimore has buses, and a lot of walkers. The mass transit kids are usually high schoolers. This policy (according to this person) changed when a couple of kids got hit by cars sliding on the ice. So BCPSS is a little more willing to let the snow day thing happen.

The other benefit is that my other school was scheduled to go through the self-monitoring thing tomorrow. Since it has to be scheduled weeks in advance, doing it at all during this quarter has become pretty much impossible. I look upon self-monitoring as a kind of necessary evil, but the thing is, I've been through it once, and whatever mistakes were made in School #1 are likely to crop up in School #2 also. I don't need to be beaten about the head with them again. Better to put School #2 through it at the end of third quarter and they'll see what a good school we are at that point, and re-do School #1 (as we've already been told will happen, but it has nothing to do with how we did last week) to demonstrate actual improvement. Hey, it could happen.

Elsewhere in the world, I bet that the death of Rose Mary Woods is totally overshadowed by that of Johnny Carson. It's a media conspiracy, I tells ya.

For those who don't know, Ms. Woods was Richard Nixon's secretary during Watergate. She was the one who might have erased the crucial 18-minute segment of tape that addressed what Nixon knew and when he knew about the breakin. They know for sure that she created a five-minute tape gap, but I'm pretty sure she was cleared of any malicious wrongdoing. You have to give her credit, though: from the day she left Nixon's employ until the day she died, she kept quiet about him. And here's a bit of heresy for you: Nixon wasn't that bad a president, really. He was fabulous with the foreign policy, not so great domestically and that hurt him. That, and his weird-ass paranoia that led to the whole Watergate thing.

McFeh

I like to cook. I like good food. I'm kinda-sorta brave about new foods; I'll try most anything once and maybe even twice if I like it. Don't get me started on sushi, though. That's just bait; I like my mercury fully-cooked. The Moroccan food that my artist friend made on Friday was fantastic. I'll have to drop her a note to ask what it was called. It was oven-roasted chicken with a gravy/sauce that she made on the stovetop, which had some vegetables and roasted almonds in it. A little (okay, a lot of) couscous on the side and some veggies, and we were good to go.

I also like to experiment in the kitchen, usually to see what cool things I can do with the same-old, same-old stuff. I figure that's a little more difficult than going out and buying exotic crap from the store. But you know, even Julia Child enjoyed a Quarter Pounder once in awhile. She even said so (scroll down about 2/3 of the way). As do I.

I wind up eating at McDonald's maybe once or twice a week, usually in the name of expediency but I'm big enough to admit that I like the food, too. It's a kind of comfort food, and when I was a kid and we were usually broke after my parents split up, going to McDonald's was kind of a big deal, besides. The closest location was several miles away, so it was a real pilgrimage. (Back then, there was a great concern on the part of the corporation that one store not cannibalize the sales of another, so they were flung fairly far apart, at least by a couple of miles. Not so much, these days, although the Smithtown, NY McDonald's is still the closest one to the place where I grew up in Kings Park, NY. Go figure.)

OK, so here's the thing. My life vastly improved when they started making burgers more to order. I don't like pickles, for whatever reason, and I've always thought of mustard as more of an ingredient than a condiment. So I don't put it on anything. And as a native New Yorker, mustard on the burgers is just plain wrong. You got that, rest of the USA? Wrong!

On Tuesday, I went to a the McDonalds which is on North Avenue near the Board of Education. Because I was short on time, I went through the drive-through and ordered my Quarter Pounder with Cheese, no pickes and no mustard, etc. When I got around to the window, I paid the guy and got my receipt. I noticed right away that the person taking my order had put in for a sandwich with no pickle and no onion. I told him right away that this was wrong, and the young man (who didn't take the order) immediately called it to the attention of someone else. Ultimately I was asked to pull forward and they'd bring it out to me. So, not so much with saving time by using the drive-through, but at least I got my burger.

Incidentally, here's a rule for you: If you see more than three cars in the drive-through, just go inside. It's invariably faster.

Wednesday was the day with the first snowstorm and there were meetings for special education staff all over the city. I got a call that my meeting had been moved, and with the snow this all added up to leaving early and moving slowly. I wound up maybe five minutes late to the meeting (five minutes earlier than my usual ten minutes late, heh), so by the time I got out of there, I was pretty hungry. Hey, that same McDonald's is on the way back. So I go again through the drive-through (only two cars, yanno) and order the same sandwich. To her credit, the girl who took the order double-checked with me and enunciated: "No pickles and no mustard?" Yes, indeed. I go around, pay for my food, check the receipt and all is well. I get my food and off I go, munching french fries and negotiating the U-turn to get back on westbound North Avenue. Since the fries are the first to get scary when they've cooled off, I always eat them first. Which means that I'm nearly a mile away when I open my sandwich and find that it's no pickles and no onions. Nearly a mile away, in the snow, and again I'm short on time because of a chiropractor appointment.  Suddenly I flash back to Joe Pesci's character in Lethal Weapon 2:

They FUCK YOU at the drive-thru, okay? They FUCK YOU at the drive-thru! They know you're gonna be miles away before you find out you got fucked! They know you're not gonna turn around and go back, they don't care. So who gets fucked? Ol' Leo Getz! Okay, sure! I don't give a fuck! I'm not eating this tuna, okay?

Yeah. So this is not only two screwups, it's two screwups in a row, as far as my experience is concerned. And it's not the first time. So I'm basically done with this particular location. If I'm in that neighborhood, I'll hit the restaurant on Broadway, near Harford Road. They're not speedy but at least they get it right.

I sent an email to the company via their website. I'll let you know what kind of response (if any) comes.