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Sunday, June 08, 2003
This weekend brought Seattle the most glorious weather of the year so far. In fact, I'm writing this to you from my sun-drenched porch, my tanned face basking in the warmth of the summer evening as I look out over the sparkling waters of beautiful Lake Sammamish.
OK, that's not strictly true. I've been imagining that scene for most of the day, and I fully intended to make it happen. Then I fell asleep on the couch for about an hour, and now it's too cold to sit on the porch. So now - I kid you not - I am sitting in the living room in my foldy summer chair looking through the sliding glass door at the porch, which if you think about it is just like being outside, except inside.
We did have some amazing weather, though. I spent a significant portion of my self-made three-day weekend outside, which was very fun and a nice change from the air conditioned caves of the office building I work in. It felt like I was on vacation in some tropical paradise. I'm always really cold, so I hope we have a very hot summer. 85+ is a-OK with me.
The Summer of Photography has officially begun - I shot about 50 photos in a half day on Friday. I am 90% sure that almost all of them will suck, but the Summer of Photography is all about volume, not results. I figure that if I take enough pictures I'm bound to get a few that are good, based on the following universally-accepted photographic axiom: "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while." (I think Ansel Adams said that.) I will foist the pictures (mine, not Ansel Adams', much to your chagrin) upon you when I get them back from the lab.
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From the "Horror Stories of Modern Suburbia" file: I had a disturbing experience at the mall today. I went to Nordstrom to return a pair of shoes. On my way out, as I walked by that silly Select Comfort air mattress store, I heard a voice behind me say, "Do you want to register to win a free bed?" Without slowing I turned my head to issue the standard "I'm not interested", but before I could get the sentence out my throat constricted in horror. My feet became leaden, and I stopped in my tracks. Standing in front of me was a grizzled 65-year old man wearing blue flannel pajamas.
He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye as he proffered a slip of paper. "Would you like to win a free bed?" he said again. My mouth moved wordlessly, and as I backed away I shook my head vigorously to indicate that, no, thank you, I did not want to win anything from the strange old man in his pajamas.
I would like to offer a friendly note to the people at the Select Comfort Corporation: although you might think that the idea of having your retail employees wear their pajamas to work is cute and will make the customers feel more like buying one of your overpriced beds, it won't. What it will actually do is cause your customers to flee in terror, knocking each other to the ground in their rush to find the nearest accessible fire exit. If you choose to continue this policy, however, please allow me to make the following suggestion: the general feeling of rest and relaxation you hope to communicate with the sleepwear uniform will be greatly enhanced if said sleepwear is not accompanied by black dress socks and loafers.
There are no words that can adequately describe the queasy feeling of seeing an old man in public in pajamas wearing beat up dress shoes, his black cotton socks drooping pitifully around his bony ankles. At first I thought the man was confused, and that he'd forgotten to put on his clothes when he got up in the morning. For a concerned moment I thought maybe he needed help, and then a rictus of pain contorted my face as I realized that it was, in fact, part of a clever in-store sales event. The marketing manager who dreamed up this promotion should be forced to come to the mall and feel this poor man's pain as penance for what he/she has unleashed.
Then again, perhaps I shouldn't be too hard on the good people at Select Comfort. After all, he might not even work there. I just assumed that he did because he was standing under the sign, but maybe that's not the case. For all I know he's just some crazy old guy who walks around the mall in his pajamas and Hush Puppies, occasionally ducking into stores to subdue the sales staff and give away their merchandise in an impromptu sweepstakes.
For some reason I like that idea better. It puts the responsibility for the situation on the random insanity of one person instead of the organized insanity of an entire company. I feel that this bodes far better for the future of mankind. Large groups of people wearing their pajamas to work is one of the final signposts on the road to a species' extinction. (If you check most of the major archaeological digs, I'm pretty sure you'll find giant fossilized nightshirts right next to the dinosaur bones.) Let's all hope this is an isolated incident.
OK, that's not strictly true. I've been imagining that scene for most of the day, and I fully intended to make it happen. Then I fell asleep on the couch for about an hour, and now it's too cold to sit on the porch. So now - I kid you not - I am sitting in the living room in my foldy summer chair looking through the sliding glass door at the porch, which if you think about it is just like being outside, except inside.
We did have some amazing weather, though. I spent a significant portion of my self-made three-day weekend outside, which was very fun and a nice change from the air conditioned caves of the office building I work in. It felt like I was on vacation in some tropical paradise. I'm always really cold, so I hope we have a very hot summer. 85+ is a-OK with me.
The Summer of Photography has officially begun - I shot about 50 photos in a half day on Friday. I am 90% sure that almost all of them will suck, but the Summer of Photography is all about volume, not results. I figure that if I take enough pictures I'm bound to get a few that are good, based on the following universally-accepted photographic axiom: "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while." (I think Ansel Adams said that.) I will foist the pictures (mine, not Ansel Adams', much to your chagrin) upon you when I get them back from the lab.
From the "Horror Stories of Modern Suburbia" file: I had a disturbing experience at the mall today. I went to Nordstrom to return a pair of shoes. On my way out, as I walked by that silly Select Comfort air mattress store, I heard a voice behind me say, "Do you want to register to win a free bed?" Without slowing I turned my head to issue the standard "I'm not interested", but before I could get the sentence out my throat constricted in horror. My feet became leaden, and I stopped in my tracks. Standing in front of me was a grizzled 65-year old man wearing blue flannel pajamas.
He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye as he proffered a slip of paper. "Would you like to win a free bed?" he said again. My mouth moved wordlessly, and as I backed away I shook my head vigorously to indicate that, no, thank you, I did not want to win anything from the strange old man in his pajamas.
I would like to offer a friendly note to the people at the Select Comfort Corporation: although you might think that the idea of having your retail employees wear their pajamas to work is cute and will make the customers feel more like buying one of your overpriced beds, it won't. What it will actually do is cause your customers to flee in terror, knocking each other to the ground in their rush to find the nearest accessible fire exit. If you choose to continue this policy, however, please allow me to make the following suggestion: the general feeling of rest and relaxation you hope to communicate with the sleepwear uniform will be greatly enhanced if said sleepwear is not accompanied by black dress socks and loafers.
There are no words that can adequately describe the queasy feeling of seeing an old man in public in pajamas wearing beat up dress shoes, his black cotton socks drooping pitifully around his bony ankles. At first I thought the man was confused, and that he'd forgotten to put on his clothes when he got up in the morning. For a concerned moment I thought maybe he needed help, and then a rictus of pain contorted my face as I realized that it was, in fact, part of a clever in-store sales event. The marketing manager who dreamed up this promotion should be forced to come to the mall and feel this poor man's pain as penance for what he/she has unleashed.
Then again, perhaps I shouldn't be too hard on the good people at Select Comfort. After all, he might not even work there. I just assumed that he did because he was standing under the sign, but maybe that's not the case. For all I know he's just some crazy old guy who walks around the mall in his pajamas and Hush Puppies, occasionally ducking into stores to subdue the sales staff and give away their merchandise in an impromptu sweepstakes.
For some reason I like that idea better. It puts the responsibility for the situation on the random insanity of one person instead of the organized insanity of an entire company. I feel that this bodes far better for the future of mankind. Large groups of people wearing their pajamas to work is one of the final signposts on the road to a species' extinction. (If you check most of the major archaeological digs, I'm pretty sure you'll find giant fossilized nightshirts right next to the dinosaur bones.) Let's all hope this is an isolated incident.