Eminence Grise

[Happy Pearl Harbor Day. Here's what I did to celebrate...]

[OK, so Mom and her cronies are going on this two-week cruise thru the Panama Canal, right? And you remember that I'm housesitting for one of the cronies, who I'm calling Friend of Mom, over on Russian Hill while they're gone? So the plan was for Dad to drive Other Friend of Mom's (elle s'appelle Annabelle) vehicle down to the city from Sonoma, drop A. off with F.o.M., spend what I assume was whatever passes for a romantic farewell night for my parents at the downtown hotel where they always stay after buying their still penurious son dinner, then (Dad - still this sentence's subject) drive Mom, elle s'appelle Annabelle, and F.o.M. to the airport this morning so they can fly to Miami. After that errand, he'd drive back to Sonoma and do whatever it is he does do with his free time.]

[(That's totally fatuous. Both of my parents lead really busy lives. They feed more poor and shut-in people in Sonoma Valley most weeks than practically anybody. Plus the golf and the gardening and the sitting the Niece Audrey two days a week. They're not "retired" - they're just not getting paid anymore.)]

[All went according to plan, and I asked Dad to bring his laptop with him so I could show him the website. (You better not be asking "what website?" I will cutchoo.) This is he did, I showed up at the hotel at about six, and we proceeded to have no luck getting a strong enough signal from any of the nearby hotels' wireless networks. Grrr.]

[Solution: have Dad come by the office after dropping the cruisers off at the airport, show him around the place (he and Violet are old buddies; they're both such flirts), show him the site, and get him signed up. Maybe lunch.]

[Well, everything again went according to plan, and how! I think Dad's going to be named Honorary Consultant and Eminence Grise at the Red Room. First, Violet had the class to remember and talk up the fact that he and a partner started the first ISP on the Oregon Coast back in 1994, and successfully sold it a few years later. Yep, a pioneer in the very business plan every internet startup crafts was standing among us. Everyone was looking at him like he was Moses or something, and you know he charmingly ate it up.]

[So we sat at my desk, got him signed up, and it turned out to be a totally useful test of what a new member's experience is upon first viewing the site. My supervisor stopped what he was doing and took copious notes. Dad had all kinds of suggestions, and it looks as though some of them will be implemented. How cool is that? Everyone wrote me sweet emails about Hunt Sr. and Hunt Jr. after he and I got back from lunch at the crepe place across the street.]

[I get to my desk and my phone rings. It's Dad, who can't even have gotten to the Golden Gate Bridge yet, with yet another suggestion. I have created a monster! Stop him before he butts in again, or crashes his truck while trying to drive thru the toll plaza and talk on his cell at the same time! I joke; as Allen would say, a nice problem to have.]

[OK, I'm off the F.o.M.'s spacious Russian Hill flat. The Cat Hedwick has been without companionship for about eight hours. I hope he hasn't left an angry little present in the bed where I'm supposed to sleep.]

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