Molly Goatwax

Prying off the veneer

If you were to be offered the choice of spending your working hours with office politics and cubicle neighbors who drone inanely on the phone or nattering drunks with the same narrative heard the twentieth time, where would you toil? While it's true that not all the cubicle neighbors droned, snored, played noxious music or otherwise annoyed, and not all the thirsty people who belly up to my bar natter, threaten or otherwise misbehave...I just don't see myself frog marching the gym-toned corporate team leader to the door and kicking her, bitten nails and all, to the curb.

And she laughed at my startled screaming

The sun came out, the temperature climbed into the sixties and my blood was starting to bubble with joy at the long delayed arrival of more appropriate seasonal weather. First I was singing "Younger than Springtime" from South Pacific and then the "The girl from Ipanema" while driving the eight year old to pick Stix up from Molly's when she reached over and pushed the CD player's button on the dashboard. My reverie was interupted by Pearl Jam shrieking "I'd rather be with an Animal!" at volume ten. Serves me right for letting her sit in the front seat.

Instead of cigars

This is sweet. And, I'm jealous.

Soggy outside and spongey within

How many weeks has it been since we've seen the sun in Baltimore? I don't know, but this gloomy weather has contributed to my unsettled state of mine at least as much as having to prove a rather uncooperative client's competence. I would find the irony delicious were it not making my mental illness act up. I have a letter from his doctor and one from his lawyer, and now await one from the Social Security Administration. Maybe then he'll get to play with the big boys.

Behave

A parody of the city's boostering "BELIEVE' program, this sticker appears on an official state sign (perhaps illegaly re-)located in an alley between Maryland Avenue and Howard Street.

Swimming in insanity

I have been mentally impared all day, unable to drive and only with difficulty able to dress. Anxious and fearful, hubby took me to Little Italy for a restorative rack of lamb. I'd never been there, to Little Italy, in all the time I've lived in Baltimore. The next time my wits are scattered, I'll go look for some of them down there.

Twilight

This is one of those days where your trash does not get collected, but you still have to feed the parking meters or go to court if you have a case. Banks are open but many businesses are not. All the schools are closed and my babysitter has shuttered the doors on her daycare. Yet, what? I have no observances to attend. Time to crack open a beer and plug in the power tools. I gotta show to put up on May Day.

Officing as an active verb

Looking for something else in the big yellow telephone book, I happened upon a condo association's listing for its elevator phone, with no other point of contact. Do they take all their calls in the elevator? Do they assess association fees between floors? There was a sculpture instructor at the art school who had the key operated elevator to his third floor classroom perpetually locked open so that he could take calls-the institution had not furnished a telephone to the studio. This ticked me off as a lowly security guard who had to climb into the north elevation to make sure his (perpetually left on) hot wax bin had been turned off, and who once answered the elevator phone to take a message for the imperious instructor. I suppose with the advent of cell phones, fewer people are taking up offices in elevators...

Funny Pappers, pt. II

This week's City Paper slipped in a few kind words about Molly's in some other establishment's food review...we're on the map now!

Imagine that!

"It's hard to imagine, isn't it? The whole world being made out of cream cheese..."

"Mom, the world is NOT made out of cream cheese!"

"Huh. I guess that's why it's so hard to imagine."

"Ha Ha. Very funny."

"But what if the whole world were made out of cream cheese?"

"Impossible! We'd sink right in!"

I know she's getting older by a certain bored and defiant tone, but the eight year old still lets me call her binky head and kiss her.