crazy-train corporate suburbia + yosemite

Thursday, aug. 4, 2005   |   0 comments

Yesterday the alarm went off at 4:45, we were in the car by 5:30, and I was on BART by 5:45. I got a latte and a very berry scone at the Ferry Building Peet’s at about 6:10, then I strolled along the water (1.8 misty, pretty miles, did I tell you I am now 100% pedometer-crazy?) to the 4th and King Caltrain stop, where I boarded the 7:11 train, absolutely on track to get to work (Friendster, I now work at Friendster in Mountain View) at the bushy-tailed hour of 8am. But, sadness, the HORN on the train stopped working, meaning the train, left with no way to announce its pending train-ness, had to crawl the entire way, thereby transforming a 45-minute ride* to a two-hour haul, and hundreds of otherwise silent iPod- and laptop-transfixed passengers into frenzied cellphoning meltdowns. So by the time I walked in to work at 9am my day was pretty much off the rails, and it didn’t really recover until 7:35pm, when Marco and I took in some Hustle & Flow (oops Terrence Dashon Howard sure does make pimping look good, what with his Benicio-nice looks).

Today has been much better. Thursday is free-office-lunch day, and today it was catered by CHEVY’S!/p>

* I refer here to the limited “Baby Bullet” train, which, in my group interview for this job at Friendster, I wondered aloud if perhaps it were a fetish train for diapered adult-babies, prompting Kristin (former Webmonkey boss and the person who alerted me to the job) to say, “You do know this is a job interview, right?”
Oh how spectacularly middle-of-the-middle Mountain View is! Just parks and stand-alone houses and office spaces and Dairy Queens and In and Outs and Chili’s (when I’m feeling particularly scurvied, which is increasingly the case, I pedometer to Trader Joe’s, 1.6 miles each way, for prepackaged salad).

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Last week, Jill, Caroleen, Jeff, and I went to Yosemite. We stayed in a tent cabin at White Wolf, which is on the northern side of things and much higher than the valley, where we usually stay, which meant a great deal more huffing and puffing (37.59 miles total) and also mosquitoes. Plus: shooting stars, white, white wine, “marmadgers” (our handle for the mid-sized lumbering animal that was maybe badger, maybe marmot?), Christians, blisters, glow-stick jugglers, Harry Potterers (including yours truly, “there are a lot of lizards on this trail,” Jeff said, and I said, “wait, did you say wizards?” and Jeff just wearily rolled his eyes), s’mores, flowers, Alpine glory, and one deer.

I did not see: the large cinnamon bear that strolled into camp to steal some food (I was in the shower), they dirty hippie hiker who asked if he could borrow some lotion (I was inside the store, marveling at the egg-holders), and the many splendored penises drawn all over the men’s room (I stuck to the women’s room so had to rely on Jeff’s reportage, which he delivered every morning as the drawings and messages changed every night).