I went thrifting this weekend. Thrifting defined for the non-Regularian is tooling around in search of second-hand stuff that you want, need, or don’t really need but might relegate to a burgeoning supply of extra crap in the garage that one day may be put to use but will probably clutter the sidewalk with a “free” sign stuck to it with duct tape. (Note: If you’ve got something hot, use Freecycle.org knowing full well that you’ll get all kinds of phone calls or emails explaining extenuating circumstances and overwhelming needs that dictate your moral responsibility to defer relinquishment of aforementioned crap to the person whose tearjerker takes the biggest slice of cake. I posted a bunk bed and met all manner of mothers with post-chemotherapy children, special-needs family situations and heart-wrenching drama sufficient to put the writers of After School Specials on furlough for a year.)
The point is that I went thrifting, and other than the odd crystal decanter, the mint-condition martini mixing kit, circa 1925 in leather valise (nabbed it, so come over for a negroni), and the wine aeration device for $1.50 (ehh – they strip aromas away, in my opinion), it was a chance to stock up on batteries and toilet tissue. But a memory came back to me – there’s this one “dollar store” that occasionally pulls in a couple pallets of uber-plonk that sometimes is actually drinkable. I have a contact who has a contact who has another….let’s start again. Agent A notifies me when Agent B spots the plonk and notifies Agent C to buy a case (cases only); then, when Agent C gives it a reasonable thumbs-up (you can pour it at parties and not get the stink-eye), (s)he reports back to Agent B, who inevitably buys a boatload and leaves little for Agent A, who then may get around to notifying me that the stuff ain’t bad and will be gone the next day. I’ve scored before. Again – it is super-cheap and nothing but cooking wine or stuff to pour at the block party whilst trembling over the good stuff you’ve got breathing in the kitchen all the while. So my pals and I stop in at the dollar store and ask after the plonk of the week. Alas, no dice for the past 6 weeks or so. It’ll be back. But it’s out of my way now, with my schedule and inclinations, so no foul, but it woulda been fun for my pals who, incidentally, don’t know pith from pow. I love everyone, so long as it’s a humane, simple kind of love that doesn’t cloy, burden, or play the “mwah ha ha, now I have you where I want you” game.
Speaking of which, there’s something else to discuss when it comes to the ol’ “mwah ha ha”…That’s the subject of who to love and how much to cuddle. This is an interesting state to live in, California. The beaches, the produce, the ability to grow produce nearly anywhere, the cultural diversity, the manifold opportunities, the countless ways in which to exercise one’s freedom to prosper, learn and enjoy the one life given. There’s something to be said for life’s journey. One can stop here, stop there, sniff here, rest there, work here, play there. And once one jumps back onto the freeway, one would think a chapter has passed and that it’s possible to wave “hello” to anyone from earlier in life with nothing but gratitude for what warrants it and a tale of what’s transpired since.
What we find occasionally, though, is that some people we’ve met have a dragon’s mentality that manifests itself as rage, jealousy and a petty dependence upon its own perception of dominance in matters not only dragonly but deerly, fishly and even treely. “Come on,” one says to the dragon, “move on with your life. You don’t even recognize me for my change of hair color. I never even cared about your gold. I prefer silver and I found my own.”
Another way to put it is that when you take intermediate tennis classes, your instructor shouldn’t hate you because you knew how to play before you showed up. And he shouldn’t forbid you to take the advanced class from someone else.
Almost two months ago, the Second Appellate District published a decision about the enforcement of non-competition clauses in California. In Dowell v. Biosense Webster, Inc., 09 C.D.O.S. 13991, it was decided that non-compete and non-solicitation agreements not narrowly constructed only to protect trade secrets are void under California law. The question remains: are the even narrower non-compete agreements legal in California? It’s been an ongoing controversy, and I must admit to rubbernecking.
I learned tennis in New York. Get it? Where did you learn the game? Is your intermediate tennis instructor threatening you or claiming that he invented the game and that if you don’t pick up a new sport he’ll bring the whole sporting world to a screeching halt? …and how does it make you feel? Violated? Aggravated? It should. For now, however, I don’t see teeball or squash leagues springing up like all the rage, so all I can say is that one day we’ll go to Wimbledon and laugh about it all like it never happened, darling.
