the Ride Home

I've always liked the ride home. As far back as I can remember I have liked the ride home. Even as a little girl riding in the back seat while my dad smoked his cigarettes and my mom talked in hushed tones I liked the ride home. Staring out the window and shutting out what was in the front seat I would dream, imagine and fantasize. And when I was really little I would pretend to be sleeping when we arrived home so I could be carried to bed.
As I grew older I moved to the front seat and the person in the driver seat changed. Frequently. Sometimes nightly. I never cared to be the driver. I liked to settle into the seat, quietly. Listen to whatever music this man driving the car was trying to impress me with. Often a little tipsy or some other such thing. I would watch raindrops slide down the window or look at the moon. Stare into swirling snowflakes and stare into peoples lighted windows as we drove past. Depending what I saw I would sometimes pretend to be living their lives for a minute or two. I would remember. Old friends, broken hearts, hearts I broke. Where are they now and who is in their passenger seat at this hour and what are they looking at? I really wasn't even aware of who was next to me.
I would wonder. Would this be the last time I would be riding home with this individual. Would this be the only time. Would I be riding home with him forever. It would frequently annoy me when the individual at hand would try to talk and make me carry on a conversation. Let me be. Let me have my moment. I remember when I became aware of this "riding home phenomenon" that I so much enjoyed. I was only 19 years old. A smile had made its way from my face to one of the boys in the bar. It was closing time and he was taking me home. He was a 38 year old Austrian ski instructor and had saved me his passenger seat for the night. I watched the houses go by. It was cold. A few snowflakes danced in front of his headlights. At the time I was living in a frozen mountain town and at 2:00am it was very cold. Part of me wished I could pretend to be asleep so this man could carry me to bed. I can't remember his name.
This youtube link goes perfect with this posting....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm3lWq4s5-U
"And I'll have you back by break of day
I'm going your way anyway
And if you'd like to come along
I'll be yours for a song
I know you are waiting and I know that it is not for me
But I'm here and I'm ready and I've saved you the passenger seat
I won't be your last dance just your last goodnight"

do not disturb

Recently I was discussing with friends the perils of airline travel. If I am traveling solo I do not like talking to people on airplanes. I don’t want to. This is my space, my time. I will bury my head in a pillow, press my cheek against the window, put on my music, close my eyes and just in case there is any doubt there will be a book on my lap. A sort of visual to remind you that I do not want to be disturbed. One of the dangers of talking to people on airplanes is there is no way to get out of the conversation. It keeps going until you land.
My friend Paul insists the best way to travel international is hung over. It supposedly helps with the jet lag. I think it would also make people avoid you. You would have that air about you. I once was on an international flight returning home when a hungoverish looking man got on the plane at the last possible second. He was wearing a sort of navy mechanics looking jacket. He shlumped into his seat. When the plane took off he reclined his chair and put his jacket over his head and did not remove it until we were landing twelve hours later. It was awesome.
Back in the day, when I was 10, I was certain I would meet the love of my life sitting next to me on an airplane en route to some exotic location. But different dreams that choose me came true and I met the love of my life in a black jeep. No airplanes. He drives fast enough so maybe riding in the passenger seat is kind of like flying.

Screen Door, Portland Oregon

Picked Him up from work tonight. Received a tour of the new digs. Way cool. No, lets make that way, way, way cool. (that is three ways) He scored on that gig. Went to eat at the Screen Door. Which translates to later he gets a tour of me. Yum. Was greeted at the door with the great music. It is weird how the music is paired perfectly with the food on the menu. Specifically what I ordered. Then started again with a great cocktail. I am a sucker for any cocktail with fresh ginger. This one is called the Rhett Butler. Makers Mark, fresh pureed ginger and lemon on ice. Mixed by a bartender who truly cares about your happiness. Yum! so I had to have another. The food, superb. Sweet potato fries. I am an expert on sweet potato fries and hands down the Screen Door serves the best. Watercress salad with roasted beets, a sprinkling of some sort of yummy creamy cheese and a very delicate dressing. Yum! Paired this with ever so slightly spicy grits and shrimp. Yum! He had the nightly special. A something pork with a side of savory bread pudding and an apple compote. Yum. Fell in love with the waiter. He built his own guitar. This is the place to be.

I'll protect you

I do not count the backyard sleepovers in tents as camping. I had my fair share of them. They were usually miserable. There were always too many girls, freezing, half the time we bailed and ended up in the house. One time I was the girl flanking the tent door, it rained all night, the door leaked and to this day I can not forget how wet and cold I was. Another time it was my back yard and the tent had a hole in it the exact size of my labrodor retriever's head. We wouldn't let her in the tent so she spent the night with her head through the hole looking at us. This turned out to be a good thing becuase it kept out the swarms of misquitos that plague Minnesota in the summer.

My first real camping experience was after I had left home.
He and I were traveling to from South Central Colorado to meet up with friends at Lake Mead Nevada. We were on a kind of a farewell tour. Planning on going our seperate ways after Lake Mead. This is an account of the beginning of a road trip that changed course daily and to this very day is still going on. Being the perfect gentlemen he had an extra sleeping bag for whoever that lucky girl was. Turned out I was the lucky girl. We had to pick up a tent on the way., It was a three to five hour drive from where we started to a town where we could even buy a tent. Durango Colorado. This included crossing some 10000 foot passes in a snow storm at night. The sporting goods store would be long closed when we got there but he being the charmer that he is, called ahead and convinced the store owner to meet us when we got into town.

We left Durango in the late evening and continued west. Left the mountains and the snow behind us. Into the high desert. Somewhere, not sure if it was Colorado or Utah he drove down an unmarked road in search of a place to camp. "Do you know this road is on an Indian Reservation?" I said. "Yeah, I know." "Should we be here?" "Yeah, it will be ok." He pulled off the road and started zipping the sleeping bags together. "What about the tent?" "I'm tired, it's late, we don't need it." "Why did we make such an effort to get one?" "In case we need it." "But there are snakes, and spiders and...." "I'll protect you." Damn, I am such a sucker for "I'll protect you". I kind of melt when I hear that. So we crawled into our sleeping bags on the desert floor. I was sure I would wake up surrounded by Indians pointing their bows and arrows at me, a rattlesnack in my sleeping bag and a scorpian in my shoe. The stars were infinite. No moon in sight. I was protected.

It turns out you do not sleep late when sleeping under the stars. It also turns out our Indian reservation was part of a national monument. A geographical wonder. I awoke at that time of day as the sun was coming up. That time of the day when everything looks on fire. Strange rock formations jutted from the flat valley floor where we lay. It was amazing. Did this man I was lying beside plan this visual feast for me to wake up to? Is this how he wanted me to experience this eye candy made by God? Did this next to the last of the true romantics just get lucky steering down a random road in the night.
I like camping.

If I had the chance I'de ask the world to dance...

about this Iraq/Muslim/war thing. It does not seem to be working. I am not sure what George Bush had in mind when he started this. It is time to take a look at some alternative plans. Like mine. I heard a comedian thinking we could get the world to mellow out a little if we crop dusted it with weed. This is funny. But why wouldn't it work?
They say it takes three weeks to break a bad habit. So if we cropped dusted Iraq for three weeks with marijuana smoke it could change the face of history. Think about it. Not the home grown shit that makes you want to sit on the couch and eat. The stuff that makes you want to step outside and see a sunset and smile at your neighbor. Think about it. Have you ever scene stoners fight. It does not happen. It is all OK. We would giggle.
You would have to feed them. That is Jesus 101. Good food. Tastes that make you happy to exist. You would need music. Happy music. Not angry music. Maybe that would be my job. I could be drafted by the army to make great playlists. Broadcast them over a country wide PA. Everyone would stand around and groove a little. "with a smile on their face". Then we could ask the world to dance.
If they were really good we would let them have a pillow fight.

He Said...She Said...

We were not supposed to be there. Frankfurt Germany. One of those odd airline mishaps I so often find myself in. Been traveling to such and such and encountered a plane delay. No flights today. A bomb had pushed itself up through the soil on the edge of the runway and it needed some looking into. It is not what you think. It was a WWII bomb that had been hidden for years and resurfaced. This presented the airport with two problems. 1. How to deactivate a WWII bomb and 2. This bomb was now a historical artifact, a piece of history and needed to be saved. The airline put "he and I" up in a hotel for the rest of the day and night. I don’t think it matters what city or country you are in, airport hotels though comfortable and nice are all kind of the same. Not interested in spending the rest of the day watching German TV "he and I" made our way into Frankfurt proper. I was very comfortable with European Mass transit and did not even consider it would be a problem. But it was….

I had saved a few of my spoils from Amsterdam and "he and I" decided to enjoy them en route. Found ourselves at the subway station to purchase tickets and realized how much we were in over our heads. I stared at that ticket machine, he stared at the ticket machine, pushed some random buttons. Nothing on that machine was of any use in helping us, no diagrams, no color coded maps, no words of English. Just random codes. He and I were barely in a position to ask for help. Someone took pity on us put some money in the machine handed us two tickets and we flashed that universal thank you smile. Hopped on a train. It was nice. "He and I" were in that Amsterdam state of mind. I sat down and settled into him. Quiet, the colors were more defined, everything was brighter in a pleasant sort of way, the sounds a little more distinct, houses flashed by as we went from neighborhood to neighborhood to inner city where we disappeared into subway tunnels. It was nice looking out that train window.

Frankfurt is really kind of a nothing-spectacular place. Most of it was destroyed in WWI and WWII. It is very modern and post 1950. "He and I" walked, had a bite to eat, had a coffee. By chance we came upon one little pocket of “Old Germany”. One little area that had not been destroyed by war. It seemed kind of out of place. Disney had come along and tried to give the place a little charm. Again in that Amsterdam state of mind "he and I" decided to make our way back to our room. Frankfurt was checked off my list. Kind of one of those “been there, done that, scene that” experiences. I feel no need to revisit. It clearly has nothing to offer me. Found a subway station and again we were more than lost. Levels of trains and tunnels and signs everywhere. Lit up like high noon with the brightest fluorescent lights know to man and white tiles. We wandered pretty much aimlessly for a good 30 minutes before we decided to sit for a while and study a map. That is when “the man” came along.

The man sat down next to "he and I" and started talking. Said he wanted to practice his English. I don’t know what the man’s story was. He could have been homeless or not. His clothes were a bit worn and dirty but I think mine were too. And I was not homeless. At least I was pretty sure I wasn’t. Things were a little dicey when I left. Sometimes you never know what you’re walking into until you open the door. That is another story. The man started talking about Genesis. Asked if we mind talking about Genesis. This is the funny part. The three of us had a 20-minute conversation together all talking about something completely different and yet our questions and responses and interactions worked. "I" thought the man was talking about Star trek. The movie where Spock dies and then comes back to life on the planet the Star trek crew built and termed the Genesis Project. "He" thought the man was having a biblical discussion with us and it turns out the man was really talking about Phil Collins and his band Genesis. You have to understand this...when the man said him, I thought he meant Spock, my "he" thought it meant God and the man really meant Phil Collins and then we kept going form there. Then the man got kind of pissed off at us. "He and I" started laughing when we realized what was going on and the man thought the laughter was at him. I promise it wasn't. He left with an attitude and shuffled away. Back to task at hand, "he and I" did make it on a train and somehow willed it to be the one that went where "he and I" were going.

espeically on that sun setting into the ocean thing

At work today I read this on the back of a CD cover. (Because that is the kind of stuff i do at work and my job is important.) Kind of liked it and I thought these pictures went along nicely. It was written on the thank you page after a long list of thank yous.
Sincerely,
to whoever or whatever decided
that this world and all our lives
would be such a good idea
nice work.
especially on that sun into the ocean thing,
without a doubt
you are a bastard.....
and i love you
let there be a heaven we will all get in.
thanks,
TS

Life of Pi

I finished a book the other day I did not want to end. That happens sometimes. The book kind of becomes a friend I do not want to say goodbye to so I read fewer pages everyday, fewer and further apart. So I miss Richard Parker and Pi and I am quite confident that I could survive for months adrift on a life boat in the middle of the ocean with a tiger.
I am also pissed off the book didn't answer all my questions and I desperately want to talk about this with someone. For example, what's with the meercats? My family read it years ago and digested it and argued and talked and moved on. I am not ready to do so. So if anyone can share any insights.....

Morning at DMV

I really did not want her to pass. I felt pretty guilty. Here I go again making that carbon foot print I leave a little bit bigger. Besides, does Violet really need to drive? Am I not putting a lethal weapon in her hands. I tried talking her out of it. “Don’t you want to be one of those cool people that uses Trimet and rides a bike”. “We could get you a cute bike, one that would let you ride while wearing a skirt that has a cute basket in the front.” She was not buying it. So we skipped a little school to take the learners permit test. We waited in line to get a number, waited in line to turn in our paper work and waited to take the test. The DMV is such a miserable place. Why do they do that? Do they make it miserable on purpose. I swear I saw Eminem there trying to sort out his car title. I read my book and I am five pages away from finishing “Life of Pi”, but that is another story. She failed (missed it by one question) and I had a little inner smile. But only for a minute. Because then came the tears, and more tears. Poor Violet. She had been kicked in the face the day before at cheer practice and had this amazing black eye. Then you add the tears and she looked like a poor little street urchin. I dried the tears and did my best “I am sorry sweetie”. What are the lyrics from that song? "when you cry, I cry just like you". Driving is a rite of passage and we will get this behind us. In the scope of starving children and disease this does not even register. But sometimes the small things do open the flood gates.