Posted by banane on February 7th, 2010 — in technology
Cootie Catcher is a game girls play around the world, and is more commonly know contemporarily as Fortune Teller. I have a nostalgic love for the old name, but should probably start using the more boring modern term. Anyways. This is how it is made from a real paper game to a computer game.
First you take 3 photos of your cootie game in real life: open wide, tall and closed.
Then, I drew on them the numbers and colors, using freeware called PaintBrush.
I virtually cut them into four relatively even pieces – using Preview (also an installed Mac application).
After I was content with the images, I wrote the HTML and CSS so that they would line up and look natural, despite being cut up.
I just learned HAML, so I prefer to write in that now instead of HTML. I recommend it as it’s a lot less code and keeps your HTML very clean and properly ended (if you’re not too hot with details like me!). This is what it looks like:
I’m so addicted to HAML now that I write in HAML, then view the source in a browser and copy it out to HTML when I’m done. Yep. Nerd.
Page Elements
The key to flipping the cootie visually is to show and hide two Divs – one that is wide, and one that is tall. The initial state is the “closed” Cootie with the colors. After the initial selection by the user, though, it’s never seen again. I create 3 of these Div blocks, representing each state of the Cootie. Inside that div are two horizontal regions, one called “row1″ and “row2″. Inside each row are two of the cooties, LeftCell and RightCell. With some tweaking the Cootie appears as if it is an organic whole, not 4 images. I split up the images instead of using a Gif Map because I know how to do it this way. Ha! So much for learning.
I hard-code the first div, “closed” to display, but the other two are set to: %div{ style=>"display:none"}
Each corner of the Cootie is a div and image. The Div is clickable, and it calls to a JavaScript function where the game play occurs- playCootie. The JavaScript application turns on the closed/long/wide divs, imitating the opening and closing of the Cootie Catcher. So I’m using the ProtoType JavaScript toolset, which makes switch commands like show() and hide() of divs quite easy: $('closed').hide()
I store the stage of play- whether they are in the first color round or the second number choice round- in the visible dashed border Progress Bar below the title. I thought this was a neat way of revealing the way the application was built without giving away the fun.
Game Play
An important aspect of this game is the progression from the top level, down to the bottom level, revealing the fortune. To recreate this process I created the progression bar that hopefully communicates the levels of play.
The “playCootie” function in the JavaScript file checks on the status in the Progress Bar. If the first stage is empty, literally, if($('stage1').empty()) then it knows it is at the very beginning, and follows the play instructions for the color round. User selects color, and the Cootie should move to the number of letters in the color.
For round 1, the length of the color is the limit on JavaScript for-loop. for (i=0; i<stage_value.length; i++)
The flipping of the Cootie occurs in the “switchCootie” function, which takes no argument but simply flips the Wide and Tall from show/hide depending on the current state. There is an initial clause regarding “what if it’s at the initial state,” but other than that it’s quite simple.
Upon ending the Color round, the program writes the color chosen to the Progress bar, and colors the bar that stage_value. It also writes to an “instructions” area that will become the Fortune box.
The next user selection is a number- which of course isn’t 1-8, but whatever the Div the viewer saw at the end of the last round. This loop is much simpler, as the limit is the number chosen. At the end it updates the Progress Bar and Instructions.
The third loop- the final loop- takes user input and selects a fortune. We could have made it very random, but I was practicing restraint, and “keeping it simple,” so I made the computer behave just like the real paper game. The number you choose is the index in the array of the fortunes- just as the number you choose, you flip over and see the fortune written in the back.
Fortune selection function sets up the array and also retrieves the appropriate fortune. You pass to it the index (the chosen number, or stage_value), and returns the corresponding fortune to that index position. I.E., You selected 3, you get the third fortune in the list. It is updated to the Instructions area, and the progress bar is filled. A new link allows you to start over, clearing your choices.
What I learned in this exercise:
Mostly some Prototype commands that I’d used before but had forgotten!
- $(element).setStyle({backgroundColor:blue}); took many go’s to figure out the proper syntax!
- $(element).getStyle(backGroundColor); – using no curly braces. It’s in the details, it seems, with JavaScript
- $(element).empty() – very handy
I had built it completely wrong and led my niece through the game a few times. She didn’t question when it didn’t work, but I was frustrated. I think the problem was I hard-coded the stages into the image links, instead of managing them in an object in the DOM. The Wide/Tall visual difference was being confused with stages of play. At one point I was passing 3 argments to the JS script, instead of a single one, or really, I could also do none and simply deal with it all more asynchronously. I think the next change, though, will be user input as that lifts this game from a replication of a physical game to a fun virtual one.
I had started out doing a very complex version in Ruby on Rails, by building tests and starting to code. I was daunted and frustrated by the project, and ended up going back to the very beginning and simply doing what I’d imagined- cutting up photos and flipping objects. I still had it embedded in a Rails architecture, running on a ruby server, until the very last few lines were written. In denial, perhaps, that it wasn’t going to be a complete JS game.
Posted by banane on February 7th, 2010 — in technology
There was an 0.01 but it never made it off my local system. SO … here is a working version! .
Enjoy and please offer feedback. More info on what this is about, here.
Make It Simple…
Went to a great talk on Thursday by GirlGeek Dinners, and Women2.0 on mobile applications. One message and word of advice I heard over and over was: start simple. I’ve been probably over designing this application, and not seeing it through at least once, to a very modest ending. So, here it is in a fully JavaScript/ProtoType implementation. Oddly, started out in Ruby on Rails and then drifted to the completely client-side world. The graphics of course took the most work, and CSS. I will probably do one or two more revisions using more Ajax and JavaScript to make user input available. I’m pretty happy with how this works, in that it:
- Shows the basics of a fortune telling game
- Interested my niece and nephew for about 1/2 hour – in a more decrepit visual state- last Friday
- Is a lot cleaner code-line than the 0.01a version.
To the girls who have already helped make this version happen:
Meghan Oenning Schroeder (watch out for the demise of your pencil…)
The set of girls at She’s Geeky who gave us a little lesson in Cootie making and game play.
To the women who’ve given me lots of advice, input and time on figuring out this ongoing adventure. You’ll see more of their ideas come out later on in its development, I’m sure.
At She’s Geeky last weekend, I put up a sign to propose a talk: “Cootie Catcher, Games for Girls.”
I was running late from other sessions and ran over the semi-circle of chairs and a white board in the center of the room. There I noticed 4 or so girls that had been waiting for about 20 minutes. Ranging in ages from 12 to 7 roughly. It wasn’t the only girl-oriented program on the board, but it might have been at that hour. One of the girls was already making a cootie catcher. I asked her to tell the grown-ups how to make them.
That was great, because 15 minutes later the grown-ups were still trying to make them. I was really winging it, and in the next bit asked the girls the rules for the game, and wrote them on the board. Much discussion over what was a Cootie Catcher, versus a Fortune Teller. The girl-teacher made a simple one with only fleas and no-fleas, and they called that a cootie catcher, but the one that the adults knew as a cootie catcher was what the girls called a “Fortune Teller.”
OK at this point you’re like, why are you writing about this? Or teaching it?
I attended a talk by my friend Sarah Mei on “Teaching Ruby to High School Girls” at SF-Ruby Meet-up a month or so ago. There was a discussion afterwards that was very inspiring- what was it that got women individually into programming. For me, I had access to a computer, was taught through various channels programming concepts at a young age, and due to my Mom, always had access to fun narrative, puzzle-ish games on the computer.
A study group I’m in wanted a project, and during Christmas it was Santa wheel, then I proposed we turn a game that is very popular with girls *already* into a computer game to instruct them on the basics of software development. Using test-driven development, and behavior-driven-development, as well as pair programming, which works great with girls, setup some instructions into how to learn about cmoputers by creating a simple game.
The more I thought of it, the more things started to make sense. Games are great introductions into programming, as they’re fun and interesting, interactive, and a great career option. Anything that shows the “genie behind the curtain” is useful, but games where the overall architecture and construct is simple and well-known helps. The girls told me the rules quickly and easily, almost as if I was stupid.
I’m getting some criticism that this is too complex- and also got some great advice from Sarah Mei the other day to make the application in a few different flavors and iterations before making one that you will teach.
The class at She’s Geeky basically dissolved after we wrote the rules and I told them, “This is all you need to make a computer game, this list of rules.” But I wasn’t disheartened as I’d learned from another teacher that kids at that age basically need instruction in 5 to 10-minute increments. The rest of the class involved the adults getting together talking about how we were going to do this, Sprites and JavaScript, Rails, Objective-C, mobile. Two girls ran around asking each woman individually to play the game, while we were discussing it (ah, multi-tasking.) The teacher-girl and I had this conversation near the end:
her: “Are you going to make this a web site?”
me: “Yes. Would you play it?”
her: “Yes!”
me: “Would you play it with other friends?”
her: “Yes! Can you give my mom the ….” (blank look as she trying to remember the word…)
me: “Url? Sure.”
I didn’t quite get across the idea that she could *make* the game herself. But, this was my first time talking to actual girls about the idea. I have a few other guinea pigs I’ve lined up, for next time.
Posted by banane on January 29th, 2010 — in fitness
This is the second time I’ve gone up to Tahoe during the week. I woke up at 5- my adorable alarm clock (cat) did that magic- and picked up a ZipCar, turned on NPR, and then drove about 2 1/2 hours up to Donner Pass. Ski for 4 hours, drive home. Ta-da. The result is a new outlook on life and complete aura of happiness.
Growing up in the Bay Area, skiing had the aura of something “wealthy people did.” I didn’t like heights so downhill had no appeal. I can’t remember when I decided to be a cross-country skier. That’s how I do things. It’s not like “I’ll try this out, see if I like it” it’s like “I’m going to be this person.”
I went once when I was 7 or so with my sisters and mom, and it was more about falling down in the snow and giggling than actually skiing anywhere. This was a free activity as my mom had bartered some advertising space in her magazine for a stay at Strawberry Lodge, I think.
I went with some friends in the dot-com time, and wore ill-fitting boots, on highly technical trails (lots of hills and turns, up a mountain side). I remember crying unconsoleably a lot, having a rotten time, and yet as we drove away, I saw the trail system pictured above, and told a friend sitting next to me, “I want to come back and ski there” to her totally bewildered stare.
Fast forward many years and I decide to go up for a few days and stay at this really nice hotel. I was a basket case. I bought my own skis (… yes, having never enjoyed skiing I bought some skis. Remember, it’s about “being a person” not “trying an activity,” haha). I snowshoed into the summit area – you can’t get there unless by driving, and a quick trip in a rental car made me realize driving in conditions freaks me out. So I snowshoe’d into the lodge and took a ski lesson. I ski’ed all day. Up and down this tiny trail called Big Ben.
My friends joined me, and like normal poeple they snapped on their skis and shot down the hill, falling down every 40 feet but loving it. I ran across one of them at the end of Big Ben, at this big hill called Rodney’s Run, and she was practicing snowplow. I was still barely walking and shuffling in skis.
OK at this point you may be thinking “Anna has some class issues- this is all about appearing wealthy,” but the reality is, I really like being out there. It’s meditative. You’re doing this cardio sport in this beautiful atmosphere, and you’re exploring. I love coming across animal tracks in the snow. It’s so clean and clear, and breathing the air just feels good (oxygen deprivation? haha).
So a few years later I’ve been going up every season and slowly getting better. Yesterday I tried snowplow again and magically my body got it, or my head, or something. It just made sense. I slowed down and had a modicum of control. I started down one of these trails that always scares me – Yuba – that has a relatively steep descent, and was in control for about 1/2 of it, until Ice and not getting out of the tracks (to do a proper snowplow you have to get out of the groomed track) and a long descent, and I was out of control and going fast, so I sat down on my skis and fell over. And then 6 people slowly skied by, uphill, and asked how I was, etc. very politely. Ah, humiliation. It was OK. I ended up getting helped by a woman who later on I would help when she fell on ice in the parking lot.
In two weeks I go up again with a bunch of friends, and hope to take a lesson in skating, which really seems like ufn, oh, and ski down one of the big trails I haven’t done yet, and snowshoe up to the top of the ridge so I can actually see the royal gorge.
Posted by banane on January 25th, 2010 — in technology
The blogosphere is full of a lot of posts about this particular problem, but I thought I’d chime in with my own insights. This is evidenced by two errors. First, whenever you try to do any kind of rake db task:
Second, you cannot install the Mysql Gem. missing libraries, or other errors, didn’t save them when I got them! Sorry.
Solution Part 1: Know Your Computer
I have an old MacBook2,1 with 64-bit core 2 duo processor. That means, it’s “x86_64″ architecture. It is not “i386″. It took me a while to convince myself of this. I looked up under the Apple at the MacBook’s “about this Mac,” I read the Wiipedia site on the Mac series- FYI all kindsa nerdy details at the Model Specifications section.
Solution Part 2: Re-Install MySql & Gem
I finally got Ruby on Rails to register my MySql installed 64-bit software by doing the following:
Check if there’s any running instances of MySQL > ps -ef | grep mysql
Kill them if you find them: > sudo kill [insert pid]
Delete the old MySql directories (if you have the Startup, go there and delete those. I didn’t.) >cd /usr/local
>sudo rm mysql*
Uninstall Ruby’s MySql gem. >sudo gem uninstall mysql
I rebooted here. Not technically necessary, but it was advised somewhere, so I did it, and I think it’s a good idea.
Note: remove the new line endings, it should all be on one line.
Get the MySql server running –
> cd /usr/local/mysql
> sudo ./bin/mysqld_safe
(Enter your password, if necessary)
(Press Control-Z)
> bg
(Press Control-D or enter "exit" to exit the shell)
To test, go back and run that rake task.
Troubleshooting
If you get an error about hash class detection, that’s an issue with 32-bit running on a 64-bit architecture. The 32-bit MySql and 32-bit ruby gem won’t basically work despite both being compatible with each other. This is in the library of gem data connection classes.
If you can’t compile the gem, that’s due to it not being able to find the classes in your MySQL installation- that’s why we’re sending it all of the paths in the command line gem build.
Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (2) (Mysql::Error) that error is due to MySql server not running as a process on your Mac. So do that- instructions are above.
Did you like the gratuitous photo of my cat? Makes these tech posts more interesting!
Posted by banane on January 6th, 2010 — in language, travel
I had a long car-ride with my sister Amy- Berkeley-SF-Monterey and back a day later. We had some amazing conversations. Mostly, though, they are the conversations that don’t exhaust after 15 minutes. It’s a depth of conversation that I don’t experience usually. Sometimes with coworkers, where we see each other every day for lunch, and we can prolong areas of discussion. But with family, especially, it’s hard. When my mom asked what we talked about, it was readily summarized: her projects at the museum, and my experiences with open source community. But in a quick hello-how-are-you-how’s-the-kids, or a series of Facebook statuses, or even a long conversation on the phone, these things don’t come up. We tend to censor our thoughts or expressions, because of immediacy of time, other demands, etc. Walking with a friend to Sausalito, we had the time and leisure to be quiet, to talk, to say things that weren’t really relevant but came into our head.
My good friend Sarah over at Ultrasaurus got me thinking the other day. I was diving into some open source code, testing it, playing with it, installing it, etc. And I’d bitch about little things that annoyed me. She’d reply, “well, that sounds a way you can contribute.” “That’s an area of improvement you can make,” and “You can patch that.”
I’m not sure when, in the private software world, I started thinking I was powerless and shut out of the process. I used to be a programmer- working on shrink wrapped, licensed software- and then I stopped, and got into managing developers, consulting, sales calls, until I was no longer building the tools but customizing them. I was helping customers understand why software was or wasn’t what they expected it to be. I left development- and returned to it as a hobby, making annaboka.com, movie haikus, other little pet projects. I’m not sure if that was out of a desire to focus on my own control freaky creativity, or because the stuff I wanted to do didn’t pay.
So now, having contributed, and finding gigs that help me contribute, is kind of awesome. Mostly, though, it’s a huge shift in attitude to being the powerless bitchy complainer, to being the “How can I fix it?”
I was talking about the open-source attitude to some colleagues, and how it takes initiative, to fix it and patch it instead of bitching. Here’s the question: could this be the reason not more women are in the open source community? Now, don’t go down the bitchy track, I meant, because we’re often shut out and powerless. So taking initiative and just doing it- with some diplomatic questions and testing out the waters, educating yourself on the lay of the land- but really, women take the initiative in lots of things. Is it the formless structure? The lack of face-to-face interactions? Nebulous rules about what is good style, whether it will be appreciated? Not sure.
I made the tough decision last week to shelve Woodward’s Gardens and devote more time to my open source project- with women in ruby, a group that has been meeting on Wednesdays at the Blazing-Cloud space downtown, with my friend Sarah Allen.
I was out with a friend of mine who is an artist, after a really nice dinner with some other artists. I’m not an artist. Thank god, that is one interest I’ve never obsessively delved into like my other hobbies. So, we’re talking, and I admit that I’m torn between two really engrossing projects- a novel, during Nanowrimo, which requires a lot of historical research which I love. I have to admit that it’s very ambitious to do this in a month and I want to do it correctly (not slapdash) so it’s going to prevent me from doing anything else. The other project is working with another group of women techies on delving into Radiant and Ruby on Rails.
My artist friend Hang laughed, and said it was completely understandable to pursue something that potentially would earn a living (I’m unemployed right now) whereas another hobby, which I’ve delved into before (5 novels and counting) hasn’t really resulted in opportunities.
I love that those in industries like art are some of the most realistic, practical business people I know. That dinner we had, with some artists from Paris (allo Deinki!) and Hang, mostly consisted of marketing your art, business deals, negotiations, space and resources for doing art, etc.
It’s funny too in considering these two paths, as both are done largely for free, during my free time. So I decided to let Nanowrimo go, to shelve it and continue it later when I could dive into the history and do it in the manner I wanted it done.
Well, fate has told me it was a good decision. I’m on my second paying gig doing open source work, and KQED just broadcast a “Madames of San Francisco” documentary that is spot-on my novel idea. So I get to do both- appease my love of research for the historical fiction novel, and work on a subject matter that I really enjoy during the day!
He was the sixth of eight brothers in the An-Wei province in the delta waters that emptied into the Canton district and finally Hong Kong. He was sent to America- Old Gold Mountain more specifically- also named San Francisco. The Italian name never conjured up, for him, the dreams of promise, that came from the beautiful strokes of the characters, written by scribes in the street or on the oddly fanciful writing of his passport. His own writing was splotchy and crooked at that age, “like a crow,” not “like a stork,” his father would ridicule, or his tutor. The Shan- the mountain character- was simple and elegant, amidst a series of ornate characters with too many strokes. It consisted of three simple up right strokes, taller than shorter, showing the rise and fall, from a lateral view. That was the difficult part with learning the characters, he remembered. The horse- the first one a child was taught after counting- it was from above, not sideways. Looking down on a horse, as you are riding it.
He was never good with writing. He had almost failed the only real test for a middle class boy in his country, the diplomat’s test. From that every decision was made. He was full of dreams, though, and promise when he saw those letters, Old Gold Mountain. His father had decided earning money abroad was more lucrative than in some remote province- Mongolia or Tibet- places where low level imperial clerks wasted away their life and married local girls with brown skin and light eyes. His father was rich, and rich in sons, but that made him harder to please. His father defined his life by what dreams had not been realized.
Lui Sing, Lui, the sixth, and Sing, his family clan’s name. He ran through this history, it was not unusual for him to reminisce at all while doing dishes. He let his mind fly wherever it wanted while his hands were soap in the hot water- he made sure to heat the water for his own pleasure- his hands were knotty with arthritis and the act of plunging them in the suds, lavendar soap and sandalwood that he bought for this purpose- eased their constant ache. His hands slowly circled the pans, glasses, knives, and teacups of the brothel. He thought of cycles. This, pan, you were used last night for roast beef and tonight you will be dumplings in gravy. You glass, with your distinctive chip, you have been in the front parlor with sazerac and tomorrow you will be in a punch bowl. We reincarnate each day, we have different tasks. We are not defined by today.
It was odd for him at first, to put his back to the young women and his boss, to stand there for hours doing dishes but they got used to it quickly as he was fast to prepare their porridge the way they liked, the coffee the way madame preferred, and keep a clean and tidy house. They’d also quickly gotten used to his silence.
His other chores were, in ascending order of unpleasantness, fetching water from the pump in the Square, eavesdropping while standing behind other women or the occasional servant. Making up the beds- the smells were the worst- but he himself wasn’t smelling too good lately. That was an unpleasant discovery with old age. No matter the amount of bathing and touch-up sponge bathes in the afternoon he had the smell, the old skin, the sweat, the food he ate making its way out of his pores like he was made of a porous canvas bag.
His highlight in the day was shopping. He’d walk the produce stands of Stockton Street, occasionally hearing the tones of his province and turning, seeing if he could trace perhaps one or two facial attributes to the major clans of his region.
Lui Sing made a point when he was out shopping to stop in his benevolent society, or, more briefly known as his tong, to get mail and light an incense stick for his ancestors. While he wanted to do every day, he usually ended up saving his money for a good shave or some chicken braised with egg in the Mandarin style. He’d linger in the hall sitting on the chairs, sometimes hearing a bit of news from home, chatting with the others or teasing a newcomer. While they knew he worked in a brothel, here he was the 6th son of a wealthy family in An-Wei, and connected in his way. He was the former merchant from Sacramento, the tragic father figure and the respected gentry (or what passed for gentry in this outpost).
Most of the men in the tong- tongmen- were mildly obsessed with women, there being about one to twenty-five women-to-men in the entire area. Worse, that most Chinese were were poor ignorant village girls who had given away their charms by their families. He had hear from his brothers- his tongmen, not his blood brothers- that he’d want their charms more as he got older. But life, he was finding, was more complex as one grew older. Simpler in many ways, but also more complex. Capturing youth for a night, for a dollar, or less if he liked his country women more than the Chilean beauties near Broadway, that was something not quite as comforting as a beautiful painting of a poem by Li Po or the strains of a unique, forgotten melody from the Han Dynasty.
Lui Sing was no saint, and he would be the first to admit it. He loved to gamble and most of his time was spent playing elaborate tricks on himsel to prevent his feet from walking down Ireland alley in Chinatown, a few blocks really from his residence and safe comfort, the small room off the kitchen. If he did head down Ireland he would come back as the dawn was breaking, penniless, IOUs in his pocket, or busting with coins and promise and hopes of coming back that night, probably to lose it all again.
The real reason he didn’t talk constantly about the gentle folds of the charming hinterlands of young women, like his tongmen, was that he was around thirty of them every day, and intimate matters between men and women were occurring simultaneously from every corner of that house. The afterwards, the before, the during, it was replayed cruelly in front of him, and around him, no matter whether he was cleaning or sleeping, cooking or visiting the outhouse. The illnesses of the young women, the awkward walking, the smells and spills of the linens—the realities of love were part of his life every day.
But for a moment, didn’t he want to be part of the life and death surrounding him? He did not think this consciously, but it was more true than any other aspect of his life: when he arrived in Jiu Jin Shan, hired bodyguards and underwent the journey crossing the river delta to Sacramento, and finally up the foothills of the Sierra to the Gold Country, with his cart laden with tools of the Gold Diggers, and his well-chosen wife, pregnant at that time, though he didn’t know. The tragedy that ensued made him never want to protect another person again.
Chapter 6: Melinda
It took Melinda more than an hour to get to Woodward’s Garden that first morning of work. She had to cross downtown, then trolley along the new buildings going upon Market Street- they seemed impossibly tall- more than four stories, and she wondered at the people in those buildings having to walk so many floors to get to work. It quickly became rural with more livestock in the pens out back and ramshackle lean-tos, warehouses, stables and a few barns. Then Mission City began and she boarded the Green Line to Woodward’s. Patrick met her at the front gate and led her to the add-on to the private house, a small room with many shelves, a hot plate, and a small desk. She had gone up to 4th grade and worked or her parent’s shop so she could add sums, copy writing and read quite well.
She took a break at noon to walk the zoo—she bought a small hot chocolate and sipped from the tin cup while standing. Little girls and boys played around their nannies- and some parents- or elder siblings? She couldn’t tell. She stood in the sunshine, between large palm trees and cypress. The gardens were beautiful in a majestic way. She felt it was fancy, and she was fancy just standing among it all. A bear’s roar startled her and she lost half her drink.
“You’ll get used to Mr. —–,” Patrick said, and she turend to see him at her elbow.
“I don’t think I ever will.” A shiver ran up and down her arms. “Are the cages strong?”
“Aye, and he’s a big pussycat. They all are. Mr. Woodward’s kinder than the wild places they come from.” Patrick seemed confident but Mildred doubted that the bear wanted to be caged up in a city, with hot chocolate so close and small children that would make a nice afternoon snack.
She thought the park was very pleasant, fresh-smelling from the woodchips in the cages to the humidity. It was always damp here in the city but this was a different, heavy hot dampness.
She felt herself relax and then got nervous- she didn’t have a watch and wasn’t sure how long it had been. She hurried back to the office, she didn’t want to stay too late on her first day, and the zoo was so interesting she knew she could dawdle there for hours without knowing how fast time passed.
She was adding up receipts in long columns. She did this at er father’s store in Visalia and disliked it, her eyes were always jumping off a line losing her place, and her mind would not obey her and add up odd combinations of numbers quick enough. She was absolutely delighted, though, to sit down all day. She coudln’t help think of the lovely dinner she could buy on the way home, and the nice hat she could find with a lovely ribbon- baby blue and wide, perhaps an inch thick. As well as a glass of honey wine with her sister at the Telegraph Public House atop the hill behind her house.
Danny Humphries worked the docks as a longshoreman and he and his pals were over there every night, it seemed, or every night she went and she saw him on the way near the water pump most evenings. If Mildred had to choose a man to watch the fireworks with, or escort her on a night where marauders or shanghai’ers were out in force, it would be Danny Humphries. He was a big man, for lifting those sacks all day, and had dark blue eyes that were so clear and deep. He also had curling dark hair and black eyelashes. She thought he was a tad too dark- “Black Welsh,” he had told her one night, but no she suspected Black Irish.
One thing she noticed, as she blotted a line of numbers and reviewed her work, this job made her mind go round with very silly directions.
This is the first installment of my Nanowrimo novel, Woodward’s Garden. It’s a story of a few people on the edge of the millenium in San Francisco. Please comment- love to know what you think. -Anna
Chapter 1: Woodward’s Garden
She took the trolley across town and walked a few blocks to the next one, the Green Line down to Mission City. Panting, really, it always got this way, getting a tad too hot until the point that she peeled off another layer. Her skirts in hand and another hand clamped on her head to hold her best hat, she took off her shawl and stowed over her arm to cool down. She wouldn’t want to show up red and sweaty to a job interview.
She finally arrived at Woodward’s Garden, an private zoo and amusement park on the fringe of town, spelled out in fancy large sign over three doors. It was huge, noisy, and a little run down, but she was happy for the work- she’d read in the Examiner yesterday that they needed a: “clean, smart and honest girl for light paperwork and bookkeeping” She wanted to get out of laundering her neighbor’s smelly bedclothes. She was working for prostitutes, but at least wasn’t one, yet. If she wasn’t careful, it seemed any day she could slip into the fold of easy money that seemed to change hands so effortlessly right next door.
She paid the twenty five cents entry fee, then looked around for an official looking building and found it, well a shack really behind large signs for the circular boat ride and bear pit. A man with a huge belly and cigar hanging from his mouth eyed her sideways.
“Here for the job? Molly isn’t it?”
“Mildred, actually. Nice to meet you.”
“Patrick, is my name.” he said, and as she shook his hand, she minutely inventoried who he was. He wasn’t a bad man, and the hand was fleshy, but there was muscle behind it. He probably was guilty of a thing or two but all in all trustworthy.
Mildred was a quick study.
“Well,” He walked away and gestured for her to follow. “I’ll introduce you to the main man and he’ll tell you about the job. It’s just a simple thing, really.” He had a faint Irish lilt. He looked her up and down. “You’re a sturdy gal, ain’tcha.”
She sucked in her stomach and pushed out her breasts, anything really that would help her get the job was fine with her, besides being under 10 men a night with varying level of cleanliness.
The interview was short and before she knew it she was asked back at 8 in the morning- they opened at 8:30 though nobody really came until nearly 10 and then just nannies and children. Later in the evening when they sold beer it got quite busy and fun, and later she would learn of the other businesses conducted – with some aiding and abetting- by the management. The amusement park was far from Tivoli Gardens, but, as she kept reminding herself, it was far from Telegraph Hill and her life there, which she was returning to on this creaky wood and metal contraption.
She climbed up the steep stairs up to the building, on Medau, a back alley off of the main common where a few cows and chickens were always defecating directly where you were going to put your foot. Her sister was the success story, of sorts, who was enterprising and wealthy and the source of this, truly she thought, was that she had no moral constraints. She didn’t blame her, they were both brought out with their parents and then roughly used until her father drank away the money they were saving for a farm.
She dragged piles of linens from heaps on the floor and started folding. She had a few more customers to deliver, and she would get the fires going to start up the vats of water and lye. She rolled up her sleeves, ignoring the large red inflamed sores up and down from this kind of work. The light started to fade as she transferred heavy stickfuls of clothes from one vat to another, and the sound of music and groans began from across the thin wall. She hated doing this at night- she couldn’t see the stains properly, even when she lit the four gas lights she could barely afford- but she wanted to finish up her work before her new job. She had vowed to change her life, to get out of this cycle of back-breaking work, before she turned thirty.
Chapter Two: Fritzer Consolidated Shipping
Franklin clipped his mustache, smoothed his part, and absently checked that he had everything he required for the day. His keys, his wallet, the newspaper for later, his glasses, and the case, and then a few notes he wanted to have written up.
He joined his wife for some coffee and biscuits. His daughter was playing in the other room, and he tousled her hair as he walked through to the kitchen. He picked up a biscuit or two and thought of the night before, too many whiskies down at Norton’s, and that stumbled walk home. His stomach was still a little iffy, but the biscuits had a buttery glaze. His wife had true skills in the kitchen. She disliked cooking, but they had to decide on a nanny or a good cook, and the nanny had won out. She couldn’t cook anything beyond boiled cabbage and grey looking beef.
He stepped on a car counted it as lucky until the jostling of the metal wheels against the cobblestones, combined with jerky movements of a new driver, made him think of tossing his breakfast a few times before arriving downtown. He stopped and had his shoes shined- the Chinaman was chatty this morning and he honestly couldn’t tell what he was saying. He was worried that Gerald would be mad at him- he’d been working on selling lumber shares to clippers – the fastest craft up to Alaska- and it hadn’t gone well. Something last night he’d learned. He couldn’t remember it quite. He’d go down and ask Sam if he remembered. It’s not that he was old, he was the youngest in the firm, but he had a blasted low tolerance for alcohol and it was becoming a problem. Maybe he’d try that tonic each day and build it up, or head over to Aquatic Park and start swimming with that club. He’d never met a man who swam who couldn’t drink a full tankard and still walk a straight line.
His personal intolerance for alcohol was preoccupying his mind when Gerald did come into his office, crack open the window and relight his cigar. The man had a few every day and Franklin, hated the smell. Gerald teased him that he had the sensitivity of a knocked up maid each time he mentioned it, so Franklin tried to keep his distaste hidden.
“Good god man how could you bungle this?” Gerald leaned against the window. Sounds of Chinatown, fish smells and garbage, a bit of screaming in Cantonese, lifted up, to some men arguing loudly on the street about a woman.
“Oh blast it, Gerald. I don’t know. You know I put weeks into this.” Franklin respected Gerald, and he hated to displease him. Gerald had put him up for this job years ago, and that’s how he and May had been able to buy the house out in the heights. She’d had some money from her father, an apricot orchard keeper down the Peninsula. He’d hated that they bought in San Francisco. He wanted the apple of his eye to be close. Franklin didn’t dislike his father-in-law, he just didn’t like sharing May with him. May would get all girlish and fond of her father. It was a simpering kind of love that disgusted Franklin.
But they’d bought the house, had his granddaughter and saw them twice a year, taking the few hour ride down to see them, and bumpy carriage ride. It was always a production, and sleeping with the mosquitoes in that heat. It was not Franklin’s favorite, though he loved the turnovers and tarts his mother-in-law made, and his sisters-in-law were fine cooks. May loved being the urbanite and lording it over her sisters. Franklin was expected to go out among the trees with the brothers and father, and listen to each element of every pest and variety, when in reality he was daydreaming about supper and the fresh chicken he knew they’d kill for visitors.
Gerald was staring at him. “You really have no idea what happened?”
Franklin realized he was hungry, the first time since his bender last night. “Dammit I’m famished. Let’s get oysters, I’ll treat, down at John’s Place.”
True, it had only been an hour or so since he’d arrived, but they may as well eat since his stomach had finally recovered. Franklin liked his food, oh yes he did. Gerald regaled him on everything he’d done wrong in the deal. Don’t get drunk in front of your client, especially when he’s Italian and can drink you under the table. He shouldn’t have compared their rates to the competition or tell them about the weaknesses of their fleet. The Alaskan star was one of the fastest in the fleet, but that wasn’t saying much. Leftover ships from the Gold Rush were retiring, and the Alaska was undeniably one of them, built directly prior in the finest mode but aging. Serious retrofits to decaying timbers would have to be done, and they couldn’t afford to put her in dry dock.
“Don’t lie, just don’t say the truth.” Gerald tapped his 10th cigar on the ashtray at their table. They had polished off two large plates of fried oysters, and were eating slices of fresh sourdough bread.
“Isn’t omission a form of lying?” Franklin gave him a crooked smile.
“If I was a connoisseur,” Gerald had a way of saying it liek: connie-aya-sewer,” of the finer things such as you, my dear Franklin, I would try even harder to omit things so that I’d be able to afford such things.”
Gerald claimed that his less than fine tastes were wine, women, and, well, that was it.
Gerald led the sporting life with a vigor that astounded Franklin. He couldn’t for a day tag along with Gerald, a lesson he only had to learn once. Just thinking of that day of excess made him shrink into his suit and sip more water.
Gerald had a generous wife who kept his home and kept him out of her bed. She was wise, for Franklin was sure Gerald was an encyclopedia of venereal disease. The man knew every whore in town by her birth marks, and every bar by its bouncer. His wife loved that Gerald was a Vice President of a Shipping Firm and probably had some interests of her own, though it was kept from Franklin. He had politely met her once or twice, and May had never mentioned her either. For all he knew she could be hired for the job. “Wife wanted: please cook once in a while, keep the liquor cabinet stocked and be silent.’
After work Franklin walked a block or so and got on the trolley then rode it gazing across the tops of buildings. They’d had a fire a few years ago and here and there you could hear the construction still going on. It seemed like San Francisco had fires so regularly, the only way you were safe was to leave. He wanted to move but he didn’t want to get closer to his in-laws. Maybe they could buy a cabin in a vacation spot and just get away in the months, or May could go with the child and he’d visit on weekends.
He climbed the dozen steps up to their house, and entered an empty house. The dust from the afternoon settled and it was quiet and cool. He sat in the parlor and whipped open the newspaper, he hadn’t read it all day. With his hangover and that lunch, he’d tried to nap at his desk for quick 15 minute intervals. It didn’t take long for him to nod off here in the quiet afternoon of a Monday.
“Daddy!!” Little Bess lifted up the newspaper and giggled delightedly when she discovered her father. “What are you doing hiding under the paper?” She flopped the broadsheet back then peeked under it again. Franklin let her play this game until he finally woke up and heaved her onto his lap.
They read the classifieds together until they got to one large drawing of an elephant. “Woodward Gardens. Maybe I’ll take you down there some day. What about Saturday.”
“Mama has her flower show in the park. And her meeting with those ladies.” May had a quarterly Junior League Auxiliiary meeting on Nob Hill she attended. Bess pouted. “Mama won’t let me go.”
“Tut, tut. We shall go. I am perfectly fine taking my daughter to an amusement park. Would you like that?”
Bess smiled up at her father and gave him a quick kiss, before running to tell her mother of their small victory.
Franklin got out of the couch and walked slowly out to the outhouse, which, through the yard lines hung with row upon row of laundry, was in the corner, sheltered by aromatic cypress trees, now catching fingers of fog as the sun set.He stood and lit a small cigarillo. The smell of these were light with cloves and steadied his always complaining stomach. Thinking of his golden-headed daughter and her wishes and deisres, he patted himself on the back the enchanted life he’d been able to give Bess, after he had had such a miserable childhood.
Chapter 3: May
Franklin wasn’t home yet and she had an hour or so before starting dinner. She covered the meat from flies and pinned on her hat, corralling Bess into another layer and a hat, gloves and an extra doll. She walked up the block to the corner garden where she knew she’d run into Sally.
Sally was a young mother too, married to a bank clerk and had come from some money. She was brunette, chubby and curvy with a corset that left her with a raspy breathless voice. She wasn’t in the League.
May had finally gotten invited to the League from her cousin’s husband. They were initiated last month, and May was trying to join as many committees as she could. If Franklin ever got to Gerald’s level she would be happy, and this network of friendships and acquaintances with the top society in the city would help him ascend that ladder of leadership in the Fritzer company. She didn’t realy know what he did, or what went on there- it was Shipping, and whenever she said that at a party, tea or other social gathering, everyone nodded knowingly and changed the subject. If Franklin were there, a man would corner him to talk about a specific shipment. Women would sometimes ask her if that’s how she got the porcelain Buddha antiquity or the nice wool rug in the entrance, but otherwise she really didn’t have to know more.
May touched up her hair, looping stray curls into the knot and re-pinning a few loose strands. She sat on a bench and Bess ran to two of the Whitman boys, near Bess’s age, that were playing on the field a few yards away. May had sent the nanny home early, saving some money here and there for a new hat she had seen on Montgomery Street near the What Cheer House.
Sally was late. Sally was always rushing from one task to another. May didn’t understand how Sally could be so busy when she didn’t do more than May did. May found her housework repetitive, dull, and uninteresting. Before she thought of joining the League she was seriously thinking of starting charity work in Chinatown with the Church and YWCA. A shudder ran through her as she thought of the dingy rooms, the broken English conversations, the sheer burden of the entire project. The matrons from the church were so disapproving. At least with the League she was charitable and gay. And really, helping out in a much larger way since the members were far more wealthy than anyone at all associated with St. Mary’s or those Methodists.
She saw May hiking up the sidewalk. You’d think it was Mount Everest, the way her face was red and expiring, and the umbrella she brought. May smiled and plonked down next to May.
“I’m so glad to find you here. I wasn’t sure when you said Franklin was out late last night, that you’d have to be home early. So …” Sally continued on her stream of conversation, largely self-propelled. She and May knew each other’s domestic schedules by heart, not because they were interested but because they needed to as they watched each other’s children and met for adult conversation each day. May had the house two doors down and they met while hanging laundry, seeing each other every day in the late morning and sharing little bits of things, honey once and some towels, then later their children assumed, with that knowing that children have, that they could play at each other’s hosues and down the block with no introduction. Penny, Sally’s oldest, was 12 and soon watched over Bess when the nanny was busy with light maid work. Jacob, Lewis and Richard were Sally’s other children, all a year or so apart. May didn’t want a large brood like Sally’s, she liked the ease of one child, and while she missed the feeling of a large family that she grew up with, she visited Sally enough to experience it. She was selfish, she knew, in not wanting more children, and she also knew Franklin fully expected to have a son. He hadn’t said it, but there was a reserve with Bess, like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. He loved Bess and showered her with fatherly attention. May knew if, and really, when, she had a son Franklin would treat him a shade different.
May asked about the League. Sally started in on the details of the next tea and the personalities she had to deal with to organize this one. She loved to be the sole authority on each of these great ladies of the city. She gasped when she described the clothes of Mrs. Hearst. And Mrs. Fremont-Older, the publisher’s wife, down to the details. Sally listened and started knitting, laughing at parts and wide-eyed in amazement at others.
Finally it was too cold, and Sally had to call her children over. Bess came with them and they started the two block walk, Sally teetering on too-tight boots. May wasn’t sure why she wore them, they were probably a predeliction of Mr. Santos, Sally’s husband.
As they arrived home Bess found Franklin asleep on the couch, and Sally started assembling their cold dinner. It was understood a few nights they would have the leftovers, with some hot soup. After dinner she trundled up Bess in her layers of her bed, then went to her own, unlaced herself and threw on an old white gown, then slid into an arctic bed with Franklin already asleep on his side. To calm herself she thought of the cool off-white invitations to the tea that were being printed, and the names of the ladies that she would write in her best hand, on each envelope, the following day. As she envisioned each envelope she drifted off into a deep sleep, the foghorns and seagulls calling through the window, the pine trees rustling and creaks from the cats chasing mice, lightly on the floorboards, throughout the house.
Chapter 4: Melinda
The Dingby’s rooster woke Melinda before dawn, and she, along with her neighbors, trudged down to the water pipe on the steps. She hauled it back up from Broadway and set some tea on. She’d used up all her water last night, and the clothes had dried over night. The fog had gotten them slightly damp, but they’d have to do since she needed to drop them off at the brothel before her new job. She unbuttoned her blouse and washed quickly over her bowl of water, tucked up some stray hairs and examined her face in the tin pan she used as a mirror. She was young and pretty, but she knew her work showed on her face. Brown hair like her sister and mother, but soft and shiny. She never really thought of her looks, trying to keep out of the way as much as possible in the brothel and on the streets of her house. Once in a while in the public house or sitting playing cards with neighbors she’d relax and want to be pretty again, drink some ale and smile flirtatiously. She didn’t fancy anyone on her block as much, there were some delivery boys and clerks in the shops nearby who were good-looking but everyone was working as hard as she, they didn’t have time to think of starting a family. And dependents. The worst thing that could happen right now was to get pregnant. No, syphilis would be worse.
She finished her coffee and folded the series of white shifts and knickers, long skirts and waist-shirts. She had done some starching last night and those garments were on the top. Hauling them the few doors down, she knocked on the back kitchen door of the brothel.
Liu Sing opened the door and took the basket. He left the door open in a complicit invitation for Melinda. Melinda decided she had a few minutes, and Liu Sing’s porridge was a good idea. She scooped some into a bowl and sat at the kitchen table along with a few of the whores who’d risen early. She rarely talked to the Chinese servant, who seemed fine with that. He continued doing the washing up as she leaned back in her chair. The porridge was something he made, that he served to her once without asking. It was savory with bits of bacon and egg. She thought it might be rice, but she’d never asked him, and she wasn’t too good with food. This was probably the only meat she’d had all week, and the taste of fat lingered on her tongue.
Her sister came in wearing a brown skirt and white shirt, hair in an efficient bun and no make-up. She patted the girls on the shoulder and the two of them shuffled out, groggy and (probably) sore, Melinda thought.
“How are you this morning, dear?”
“Heading over to a job in a few. Woodward’s Garden.”
“That old place is still going?”
“Why woudln’t it?”
Rachel sat down and Sui-Ling quickly passed her a large blue and white china cup full of coffee with a dash of heavy cream. “I’d heard old man whats-its, the What Cheer man, he was getting old and a little,” she spun her finger near her head.
“It seemed alright when I stopped by there yesterday.”
Rachel looked steadily at her sister.
“Don’t start Rachel.”
“Liu Sing, how much did we take in yesterday?”
He stood with his back to them, continuing a slow progression through a large stack of wine glasses and tumblers piled high on the pine counter’s drainboard.
“That would be, by my accounting,” and she jostled her change purse, tied to her skirt string and under a protective layer of burlap. “100 dollar coins.”
A rush of feeling, despair, longing, envy, jealousy, disgust, and dreams yet unfulfilled, raced through Melinda making her hot and anxious, and wanting to flee. “I … it’s… you’re not… “
“It’s alright dear, it’s not for everyone. Now thank you for the laundry. This is working out quite well for us.”
Melinda didn’t’ doubt that having a washerwoman a few doors down was a large boon to the house, who was judged by its cleanliness.
Rachel didn’t forget, and before Melinda left, handed her a dollar. Liu Sing could probably get this done better, for half that, by his connections in Chinatown, but Rachel was nice and doling out work to her family. It made Melinda sick.
.
Stumble it!