By now most of you have heard that my partner Les Scher has retired and I am opening my own office on Locust Street.  I am taking some office items with me, but we have needed  a new typewriter for some time (among other keys the small “L” doesn’t work, so we’ve typed the number 1 in its place for months now).  I expected to find the widest range of choices at Staples, and once again encountered my not-so-inner quaintness about technology.  I guess nobody is buying typewriters anymore.  But I still run into many  hard-copy forms which either aren’t easily available online or I just don’t know where to find them.  Sure, I can probably scan them in, but sometimes it’s just easy enough to type the damn things out.   But I’m wondering if it’s going to be an option in five years.

Staples had two models, one which had a dictionary and a number of features I don’t need.  So I asked for the more basic model.  But it turns out that they had none in stock and they had concerns about the display item.  So they went to order one for me on their site, but there were none in stock at any of their warehouses.  They had a few of the more expensive model, so I ordered one.  The young woman informed me that there just isn’t demand for them.  But if there isn’t demand for them, then why are they out of stock?  Somebody is buying them, or did demand precisely meet exactly what they happened to have in stock?

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The best clam chowder in Humboldt County?  I love chowder and I’ve tried it in restaurants all over the county.  If you were to ask me for the second best I would have a hard time answering.  Candidates would include the Sea Grill’s, Curly’s, and the Eel River Brewery.  But the best bowl of chowder I’ve had around here I had last night at the Cutten Inn.

Of course, I really miss Keith’s down in Richardson Grove.  Every meal incorporated both soup and salad and I was often ended up taking most of the entree home.  He made killer chowder!   Keith’s daughter Brandy waitresses at the Cutten Inn.

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Literal signs that Bonnie Neely has an uphill fight.  I saw one lawn in Eureka with both a Kuhnel and a Bass sign.  Ron Kuhnel is one of the progressives running for City Council in Eureka and would generally be considered closer to Bonnie’s politics than Virginia’s.  And on Harris there were a couple of lawns bearing Bass and Mike Thompson signs.  I have yet to see a Neely sign sharing a lawn with a conservative with the exception of one lawn bearing a Rodoni sign, but the Assessor’s race is based on issues which transcend the ideological divide, and there are plenty of Mari Wilson signs sharing lawns and fences with conservative candidates.  For reasons I will go into another time, I will be voting for Johanna.

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The Grocery Outlet has several copies of Spike Lee’s Malcolm X for $4.99.

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My son’s soccer team yesterday suffered a rare defeat against a new team from Petrolia.  All but two of their players were girls, but these girls were big, strong, and mean!  Nearly all of my son’s Under 10 team moved up from our Under 8 team last year, and they have only one kid whom I would call a “power player” and many of our kids are on the smallish side.  But they do something many of the other teams don’t do.  They pass.  Problem is, so did these Petrolia girls, and especially one “Meadow” often tore through our players for a couple of goals and many close calls.

I do have to brag however.  My son got two goals and assisted in their third with a great pass to his friend Dezi.  And he blocked a hard shot by one of the girls, taking it in the stomach and briefly having the wind knocked out of him.  But he kept his focus and took the ball from an opponent moments later.

I am also proud of my daughter by the way.  She didn’t get any goals yesterday, but in four games she’s made seven of them.  We’re not supposed to keep count actually, but, well, I’m bad.  I’m coaching her team this year and having a ball, though I do miss the older boys who are being coached excellently by Dan Kulchin.

On that Petrolia team was a funny exchange between one of the girls and one of the boys.  They have black jerseys and as we didn’t have a ref handy I was drafted from the sidelines.  I didn’t know where they were from, but when I looked at the card and saw names like Meadow, Maple, and Cedar, I know they weren’t from Fortuna or Ferndale.  I asked them their team’s name and the following exchange took place.

Boy:  We’re the Black Bears this week.  We vote on a different name each week.

Girl:  No (name I can’t remember), we are the Black Thunder and only the Black Thunder.

Boy: Nuh uh.  Coach said we can vote on it…

Girl:  Just because you don’t like the name doesn’t mean you can change it when you want!  We’re the Black Thunder!

Boy:  No, not this week.

And it went on until kick-off.

This is the first year that Petrolia is sporting its own teams.  They hope to have a field with home games next year.

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Addendum: Forgot to mention, we bought a half a cow from Michael Evensen (maybe he can sponsor a soccer team next year!) which we are sharing with the neighbors.  The Ferndale butcher cut it up for us and I have liver, the heart, and kidneys (but no spleen!) to cook up.  Does anybody have a good recipe for kidney pie?  And how about a heart recipe?

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