The Travel Boggle games landed with a little crash, and the girls giggled and looked at me.

Then they giggled and moved along toward the escalator, leaving the games on the floor.

I told my son that he better never knock stuff off display tables at the bookstore and not pick them up.

What lazy, gross girls. I bet they’ve grown up with housekeepers. Or in a barn.

Let’s assume that budget problems in the city resulted in this drop box being more or less a permanent fix. I’m fine with that. But I do wish it was moved to face the street and not the sidewalk. You can no longer have your passenger roll down the window and drop the books. They have to get out of the car to reach the bin, instead.

This makes me sound totally lazy, I know. And it isn’t the end of the world.

But you are parked in a bus zone while you’re doing this. And the idea for the drop off box is convenience.

Right?

Your green wad of chewed-up gum (spearmint?) that you carelessly discarded ended up in front of my seat in Section 129.

Remember how hot it was at the ballpark on Tuesday? Remember what happens to gum when it’s left in the heat?

Your green wad of gum melted and got all over my purse and my shoes before I noticed it was there.

Thank you so, so much for not finding a wrapper to put around that gum before you got rid of it. And thanks for not finding a trash can for that used gum.

I’ll be spending time today with rubbing alcohol, trying to clean up the goo.

Sincerely,

Amy The Ranter Who Thinks You Are A Pig

I’m going to say it.

How many different siding elements does one senior center complex need?

I’m watching them wrap up the Oasis Center on Marguerite Ave., and I’m seeing teak, yellow paint, glass, metal…It’s a total mish-mosh. It’s awful.

I really hope it’s going to come together in the end. Right now, it seems really big and really mismatched.

These days, a walk through a grocery is making me feel old.

What I’m looking to buy aren’t really weird things. I’m not going into my way-back machine and seeking Chuckles gum drops or Leggs stockings in the original egg container or the penny candy of my childhood.

And I’m not talking about things like thimbles, which you used to be able to buy everywhere but now have to find in a crafts store, because people just don’t use thimbles like they used to.

What I want and can’t find are Fordhook lima beans (not baby) and plastic sandwich bags that fold over (not zip).

These are no longer available in any of the five markets where we generally shop. They have not been available for months. Not one store employee knows why, and no one else in the world seems to care. I’m alone in my quest, and I’m giving it up.

The beans, whatever. We don’t eat much frozen produce; we will live. But it’s weird because the baby lima beans are really disgusting and I think it’s strange that those would be available and the Fordhook ones are not.

The bags — I know I should be doing the waste-free lunches for my kids, but let’s be honest. There isn’t a really perfect system. I always used a cheap, generic, fold-over plastic sandwich bag, but those have been gone off shelves for months.

I don’t want to zip closed a sandwich bag. It frankly takes too long. It takes about as long to zip a bag shut as it does to make a sandwich. The goal in morning, pre-camp or pre-school lunch making is to be fast. ASAP. And the time and extra plastic that goes into making those zips for a peanut-butter-honey sandwich seems like too much. It’s like a showy amount of waste.

For now, I’m using a wax-paper sandwich bag. It feels more wholesome — wax paper feels very retro. I can fold these, no zips. But they cost more, and they are a bit hard to find.

I’m left wondering if the random things I look for are just that — random — and if I should take it all as a sign I’m growing old and obsolete. Or if maybe others can’t find the things they are accustomed to buying.

Maybe it’s because the stores are so busy stocking things like 50 different types of gross-flavored potato chips, and 25 kinds of rising crust frozen pizzas, and pre-made salads and pre-cooked bacon.

Tell me: have you ever not been able to find a product you were used to using?

But apparently, a family crisis has brought the project to a halt. And I understand that, I really do.

But what I don’t understand at all is why the owner wants to keep the ugly fence in front of the building.

Have you seen it this week? Someone painted graffiti on it, and then they tried to cover it with green paint to match the green fence material. It didn’t work. You can see where it says “Tooth” just as clearly as you could when Tooth was white.

I happen to know from sitting in on endless meetings in town that city staff offered to try to get a waiver, to let the owner remove the fence since most of the remaining work needs to be done inside the theater. But the owner, or his team, were not interested. The fence stays up in spite of business owners, residents and city officials wishing that weren’t so.

Construction projects, especially complicated historic theater restorations, take time and money. A family crisis certainly can slow things down. I am in complete sympathy there.

But the fence is an eyesore. Frankly, I’m a bit offended that it could be gone — but it’s not.

By the way, last time I checked on permits and inspections, there was nothing new. No one from the city had been by to make an inspection, but that was within appropriate time frames and so nothing was out of order.

It was almost better when there was scaffold, and plywood boards up in front. At least then we got the cute race car driver poster, the one that says “All The Girls Love Earl.”

I love summer, don’t get me wrong. But I have to admit a certain ambivalence when my cozy town morphs into this buzzing beach mecca.

It hit me when I popped into Albertsons this morning for a few things I needed. Instead of seeing my friends shopping for dinner, and being able to chat with them about the mundane things in our lives, there were crowds of strangers. Albertsons has become the summer party center, with people blaring music in the parking lot, picking up bags of ice, ten cases of Coke, beer, picnic supplies, chips and sunscreen.

Not a friend in sight.

In June, even early July, I like seeing the tourists and beach visitors. Yes, they cause traffic jams. Yes, they are strangers when I like seeing friends. But it’s charming, I think, to live in a place that’s a tourist destination. I realize that the Peninsula and Balboa Island are even zooier than Corona del Mar, but we get our share, too.

So now is the time that I remind myself to give myself time for traffic. Not to count on seeing only familiar faces when I go about my business.

Summer will be over soon enough. By then, I think I’ll be seriously glad to see things get back to normal.

She said she loves acts of kindness like this — but who doesn’t?

But today’s circular had the added annoying element of a huge front-page ad, ostensibly for a back-pain specialist — which featured a photo of a naked lower back all the way down and including butt crack.

I really didn’t need to see a nude woman’s butt crack this afternoon. I did a double take to see if I really was seeing butt crack — and I was. But that double take made me feel like a cross between a dirty old man and Beavis and Butthead. Heh heh. Butt crack.

Back pain must be horrible, and I’m sure sometimes it goes down very, very low on the back. But this illustration seemed gratuitous.

Why not crop it just a bit above the crack, unless you wanted to be provocative or silly?