July 18, 1996
Dear Everyone:
Once again, I am in
search of the perfect handbag.
Like the Holy
Grail, I’m not sure that it really exists, nevertheless, I keep
searching. The old handbag
was not so much falling apart
as falling down. Every time I’d set
it down, it would get tired and just sort of roll over on its back.
I know how it feels, but I can’t have these things happening at
the BART station.
Besides, “Jeannie”, my personal shopping advisor, was bored with
the old purse.
So we’ve been
looking at purses, which essentially come in two sizes:
Too small and too big.
The latest fashion seems to be darling little miniature backpacks
like the ones climbers and hikers wear, only too small to hold more than
a compact and coin purse.
Not only are they impractical, particularly if you work in the
City and have
to wear a suit, but they seem to have been designed expressly for
Pickpockets, Inc. What
better way to give away your wallet than to hide it behind your own
back?
On the other side of
the coin is the jumbo bag, large enough to include the kitchen sink.
You could spend days trying to locate your car keys, even if they
have the beeping key chain.
“Jeannie”,
naturally, heads straight for the
Coach counter.
Coach makes what are quite possibly the finest handbags in the
world. Consequently, they’re
locked inside glass cases.
(“Jeannie” has very expensive
tastes.) These bags aren’t
designed to last two or three seasons; they’re intended to last a
minimum of three generations.
(“And to my dear great-grand-niece, Hortensia, I leave my green
Coach handbag, the one with the double-clasp and brass-mounted feet.”)
After looking at the
handbag departments of four major stores, I finally went back and picked
out one that is really too big, but which has lots of nice pockets.
A place for everything and everything in its place.
With enough room left over for a paperback novel and
Rhode Island,
should I ever need to take it with me.
Now the only problem is remembering just where I put everything.
In other news...
It’s official
(again). The San Francisco
people will be moving to “Livermore”.
Having made that announcement last spring, the manager and
supervisors went to work figuring out what the new structure of
Information Management Services (IMS) would look like.
Soon there were rumors that they were re-thinking the whole thing
and maybe the San Francisco people would stay put.
These rumors seemed to originate more in San Francisco than
anywhere else.
But now it’s
official (again) and the San Francisco people, along with some of the
Library people in Company Park, will be moving to “Livermore” sometime
before the end of the year.
“Murray” has already had a preliminary meeting with a floor plan
designer who will try to figure out how to fit 17 more people into the
available space. Most
likely, we will be in some kind of cubicle arrangement.
My only hope is that
my cubicle turns out to be big enough for both me and my purse.
Love, as always,
Pete
| Previous | Next |