It's official. They have gone over the edge.

And by "they," I'm specifically referring to Dumpster Muffin and her tree-sitting friends, but collectively I'm including all residents of the greater San Francisco area by association.

(I do this knowing full well that a number of regular readers are San Franciscans, and we'll all be hearing from them in the comments section very soon, these defenders of Dumpster Muffin.)

First, I freely admit that I enjoy San Francisco and visit regularly. (Mostly to see friends, but it's worth noting that there's an Indian restaurant in Oakland which serves, literally, the best food I've ever eaten.) I say admit because there exists an undeniable NoCal/SoCal rivalry. It's a general air of misunderstanding and distrust amongst us Californians, each group regarding the other with a "poke it with a stick and see what happens" sort of mindset.

(As an adopted Californian I can say with some authority that the rest of the country regards us a uniform entity - i.e. those crazy people in California - while we two groups feel we have about as much in common as hamsters and eggplant.)

A couple of weeks ago I attended a reception thrown by the Southern California/L.A. chapters of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime for a handful of Northern California authors, a sort of cultural exchange. It was a lot of fun, but I'm not sure it worked. One of the writers, honestly I can't remember which one, remarked that he had no idea people in Southern California read. The SoCal crowd hissed. This is worth noting because we writers, in general, are not big hissers. It takes a lot to move us.

Now, I know this person was kidding. I know he knows people in L.A. are as hooked on phonics as the next group. Just as I know that he doesn't actually sleep naked in a hammock while burning sage to cleanse his chakras. But then again, knowing and believing are different.

It's hard to bridge that knowing to believing gap when confronted with Dumpster Muffin.

Dumpster Muffin is sitting in a tree on the Berkley campus with an unknown number of rotating cohorts in an attempt to keep the university from cutting the oaks down in order to build an athletic facility. The university has sworn on its mother's grave that it will replace each tree with three new trees, but this has not assuaged Dumpster Muffin. Dumpster Muffin continues to sit, despite the fact that any number of other trees are surely being felled left and right throughout the Bay Area. Dumpster Muffin and her friends have become particularly attached to THESE trees. Why is not clear.

What is clear is that she calls herself Dumpster Muffin. She does this of her own free will and to reporters who have indentified themselves as such, knowing full well that this moniker will appear in print for her parents and third grade teacher to read.

Dumpster. Muffin. Not Pretty, Pretty Princess or Fuzzy Bear or Happy Unicorn Girl. Nope. When confronted with endless possible nicknames, she picked Dumpster Muffin, recalling rotten, discarded food festering away in a back alley trash receptacle.

San Francisco, I blame you.