Here’s looking at you, kid

Every year Kevin and I get season tickets to the UW World Music series. We rarely know any of the performers on the schedule and do no research on them beforehand. Every show is an adventure.

Last night in the theater lobby, we realized we were at least twenty years younger than the rest of the ticket holders. I told Kevin it was a good thing he knew CPR. He didn’t think his skills were necessary since every third person in there looked like a retired doctor.

It turned out that the evening’s entertainment was pianist Leon Bates and opera singers Louise Toppin and Robert Sims doing the best of George Gershwin.  I’m not a huge opera fan but who in cold, gray, drizzly Seattle can resist a hot summer night on Broadway? Even Kevin, who would rather eat ground glass than watch any sort of musical, was riveted. It was over too soon.

Walking back to the car, Kevin mused, “Why were so many of those old people staring at us?”

“My theory,” I replied, “is that people of a certain age have the guts to look strangers in the eye because they just don’t give a shit what you think of them.”

In Seattle, looking at strangers all, let alone staring, is an anomaly. Maybe it’s the Scandinavian roots, but the majority of people here are not overtly friendly en mass.They are perfectly fine one-on-one, like when you order your latte. But when they pass one another on the street, sit next to each other on the crowded bus, or mill about in theater lobbies, thou shalt not look at any human being you do not know longer than half a second, lest they look back at you and the dreaded eye contact is made. ¹

What’s so bad about eye contact? Well, it’s the subtlest form of acknowledgment. And no one wants to be the first to acknowledge someone who might ignore them, which is the subtlest form of contempt. This “ignore them before they ignore you” is a passive-aggressive kind of self-protection used by people who care too much about what other people think.

Who doesn’t care what you think of them? Small children. The homeless.

And the old folks, the true pirates in our communities.

When I am an old woman, I shall wear a pearl earring and look into your eyes.

A very beautiful old woman by pedrosimoes7

1. Current graffiti on the Why don’t Seattle-ites Talk to One Another? Facebook group: “If you ever see this face walkin’ down the road, please say hi! I can take it, promise!” [↩]

What are you doing New Year’s Eve? Part II

When last we left the wedding, Kevin had completed his Best Man duties with aplomb and followed the newlyweds as they scampered hand in hand down the aisle.  Their scamper was a short one,  given that the aisle ended at the luncheon tables the caterers had been setting up during the ceremony.  (The smell of roast chicken will always remind them of their wedding vows, which I suspect was all part of the mother of the bride’s evil plan.)

With the newlyweds standing slightly awkwardly at the end of the aisle, the minister instructed us to queue up to congratulate them. Half of us were still waiting in the reception line when he told us to report immediately to the beverage table to obtain a drink for the toast.

Our toasting “drink” turned out to be the sweetest Kool Aid I have ever had — and that’s saying something, given that I survived many a childhood summer in South Dakota.

After another five minutes, we were told it was time for lunch.

“No toast?” I asked Kevin hopefully, wondering how many rot-free years the beverage had already shaved off my teeth.

Kevin shrugged, which is code for “Hold your sugar water, woman.”

So we filled our plates with a variety of free food, which included what the woman ahead of us in line referred to as “Nuptial Jello.” We’d just sat down when our by now harried-looking emcee came over and whispered, “The bride and groom are making this up as they go along–” [I gasped in mock surprise and Kevin gave me the stink eye] “–and they would like Kevin to make a toast after the music.”

All this and entertainment, too!

After a young lady with a nice, if a bit churchy, voice had performed a few songs, a gentleman took the stage.  I recognized him as the elderly Chinese man who frightened me in the hall.  Confused no more, he had the unmistakable bearing of a Family Patriarch in his element, but just in case anyone was fuzzy on that, he opened with, “When Roger came to me to ask if he could marry my sister Pru…”

What followed was his interpretation of Bette Midler’s “The Rose.”

You know that scene from the movie “A Christmas Story” where the family goes out for dinner on Christmas and get serenaded by the Chinese waiters? “Deck da halls with boughs of hah-ry! Fa rah rah rah rah rah rah rah rah!” It was more or less exactly like that.  And you know that high note at “Some say ROVE! It is a hunger…” Well, he couldn’t quite make it but he tried really hard.  Yet the song was so heartfelt that everyone was pretty riveted and he got a huge round of genuine applause when he finished.

Just after the last petal fell, Kevin was summoned up front to give his Best Man toast. It was very good - or at least we think it was. We couldn’t hear it because he didn’t use the microphone until he was mostly done. When he finally did speak into the mic, we got the Reader’s Digest version, which went a little something like this:

“….Well, I was just babbling about how I met Roger. Just to cut this short, I wish him and Pru a very happy life together.”

His applause was a little less enthusiastic but everyone knew his heart was in the right place.

The groom’s brother also gave a toast, which we also couldn’t hear, this time due to the half-dozen children that were running amok on the stage screaming yah! yah! yah! as children are wont to do when they are all dressed up with no place to go ruin their clothes.  At one point there was a loud, rhythmic BANG! BANG! BANG! and I nearly had a heart attack.  Turned out one of the little geniuses had found a basketball (in a gym? no way!) and it was careening its way down the aisle toward a camera set up on a tripod.  Mommy finally appeared and subdued both child and ball; I guess it’s only fun until something really fucking expensive gets hurt.

Charred toast was followed by about ten minutes of dancing, which nobody did except the bride and groom. I am sure that’s because they are awesome ballroom dancers (that’s how they met) and nobody was going to volunteer to look like the Scarecrow from Oz by comparison.

After a while, when there were no more whispered obligations or runaway basketballs, I started to relax.  The end was surely nigh! I swigged my sugar water and ate my Jello with gusto. Which of course is precisely when a photographer hauled my ass up on to the stage with the rest of the “wedding party.”

Naturally, he had me stand right beside Pru in most of the pictures.  So now the poor bride is stuck with wedding photos featuring some girl she doesn’t know from Adam with a red Kool Aid mustache and blue Jello in her teeth.

Shortly after the photo session, Kevin and I went back to our table to plot our escape. “We must be stealthy so they are not insulted,” I hissed. “They mustn’t see us.  Leaving before the newlyweds do is considered very rude!”

Just then the Patriarch booted us out of our chairs so he could remove their decorations and cram them into a garbage bag.

“I don’t think we have to worry about that,” said Kevin.

What are you doing New Year’s Eve? Part 1

About two weeks into December, Kevin said to me, “Oh, by the way, Roger is getting married on New Year’s Eve.”

“I’ll go,” I said, knowing this was code for I hope you didn’t have plans. “Where is it?”

“In a church,” he pouted, holding out his hands. “Look, my palms are sweating already.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll be laid back. Roger is a Buddhist.”¹

“Yes, but his fiance’s family are Mormon.” He paused. “Oh, and I have to go in uniform.”

“Why?”

“Because Roger is wearing his.”

The matching outfits revelation was a little odd, but so is Roger. It would be like him to ask his Air Force buddies to wear their dress blues to his wedding so that his lack of tuxedo would seem patriotic instead of frugal.

The day before the wedding, Kevin mentioned that we needed to get to the church half an hour early because Roger had said he “might need help with some stuff.”

Now I was beginning to get suspicious. What kind of “stuff” could a mere wedding guest help the groom with? I mused. Saying his prayers? Finishing off the bottle of Jack? CPR? But I lost interest in the mystery after a few minutes because I was on vacation and had serious loafing to attend to.

The next day we headed out twenty minutes before we were supposed to be at the church. Neither of us had ever been to there, but we had plenty of time to find it according to our handy Google map.  About forty-five minutes later, we concluded that Dumbledore had made the church unplottable.

Meanwhile, all that driving around was giving me time to ponder the dress blues again. “If you were in the wedding party,” I pondered, “Roger would have told you by now, right?”

Kevin shrugged. “There’s that 7-11 again. We’re circling.”

“And there would have been the rehearsal, the rehearsal dinner…” I paused as a terrible thought crossed my mind. “You’re not…the best man, are you?”

“If we don’t find this God-damned church in ten more minutes, I’m skipping this whole thing.”

Nine minutes and fifty seconds later we drove into the church parking lot. “Ah-ha!” I said, snapping my fingers in triumph. “You couldn’t possibly be the best man because you would have the rings!”  My sympathetic anxiety quelled by my unassailable logic, I got out of the car, took Kevin’s arm, and went confidently into the church…

…where Kevin was immediately set upon by a young woman who stuck a boutonniere in his lapel. Then he disappeared into the men’s room which was doing double duty as the waiting area for the groom and his wedding party, which consisted of his very tardy best man and a five-year-old ring-bearer named Cosmo — who, when he grows up, wants to be a soldier and the tooth fairy.

I still had hope (it ain’t just a river in Africa, folks) that the flower thing was a case of mistaken identity and Kevin would get to be with me during the ceremony, and I didn’t want to sit down and try to him a spot beside me like a brat in a movie theater. So I was hovering awkwardly in the hall outside the bathroom when an elderly Chinese gentleman marched up to me.

“WHERE’S PRU!” he yelled.

“Who’s Pru?” I whispered, terrified. He glared at me and wandered away.

Eventually the music began and I had to go sit down. It turns out that Mormon divorcees who marry Buddhists aren’t allowed to get married in the church proper; they have to seal their love in the adjacent theater-slash-gymnasium.  As I sat primly in my metal folding chair, having my feet stepped on by bored, hyperactive Chinese children, I wondered if some of the “stuff” Kevin was supposed to help with might have included a quick game of hoops had we’d gotten there on time.

After the pianist had played her rendition of every romantic ballad of the 70’s and 80’s known to man, the games began. Kevin preceded the groom to the front looking dashing as ever, though I noticed he kept his palms discreetly hidden from view. Two extremely young, extremely confused little girls stood at the back of the room until Daddy finally walked them up the aisle, stopping once or twice to let them dump white flower petals out of their baskets. Cosmo jumped onto the stage and stuck his fingers in his ears, which is how he remained throughout the ceremony. The two teenage bridesmaids were cute in their black t-shirts under their spaghetti-strapped, black and white satin dresses. And the bride, of course, was radiant.

The ceremony itself was short and sweet. It would have been even shorter if the bride hadn’t reminded the minister after the vows had already been said that they had rings.

“Honored guests,” said the minister after the do-over, “may I present to you Roger and Pru Hodges!”

So that’s Pru, I thought.

The newlyweds sauntered happily down the aisle, and the bridesmaids ran after them like gazelles, lest anyone think for a split second they should be escorted by Kevin.

Tune in again soon for What are you doing New  Year’s Eve, Part Deux!

1. Actually, recently Roger camped out on his porch with a gun and waited for his neighbor’s chicken-eating dog to come around, so I guess that makes him a fair-weather Buddhist. [↩]

Mixing his mythaphors

I forgot to bring home my nice, reusable lunch bag from work yesterday, so this morning Kevin made me take this one. I quite approve of the pose in which I am drawn, long-suffering woman that I am. However, I’m not sure what story he is trying to tell. Hamchrist? The Passion of the Christlet?

Original art by Kevin Potpie

Me for the past three days

On the weekends and on the days I work from home, my neighbors are quite used to the inspiring sight of me watering the gardens, taking out garbage, petting the neighbor’s dog over the back fence, getting the paper from the front walk and the mail from the box across the street, and occasionally mowing the lawn, all whilst sporting my big morning hair and my faded red-white-black plaid pajamas.  They are also used to hearing Kevin yell at me from the kitchen door to “get back in the house and get some clothes on.” But the aforementioned spaces are included in my definition of “the house.” He should just be glad I don’t include the 7-11 up the street.

via Everyday People

Stink-eye

It’s what I got in abundance first thing this morning from Kevin.

Apparently he is unimpressed with my last post. I guess he doesn’t like photos of his nekkid torso posted on the internet without his prior permission.

Sorry, houseboy!

Now take off those superfluous clothes and bring me a rocks margarita. With salt. And a little umbrella.

I’m getting older, too…faster and faster, apparently

May 25th is the day that I, along with my fellow free citizens, take time to honor the many women and men who have served us.  It is also the day that I, along with me and myself, run to the bookstore for a momento to honor Mr. Fix-it’s latest successful orbit around the sun.

Kevin is a year older than me but claims that from some mysterious mathematical perspective, that 365-day length of time somehow gets shorter and shorter the older we get.

So does that mean if we live long enough, we’ll get into negative numbers?  Will there be a brief, shining moment when we were born at exactly the same time, and then we start going in the other direction, like Benjamin Button? Will I be Cate Blanchette to his Brad Pitt?

Anyway. This is for the child within your heart.

My hair totally doesn’t look like that.

This is Kevin’s depiction of our game of hangman we played whilst waiting for our nachos last night.  Legend:

Upper left:  Uppity is dropped from a great height, causing her body to sever from her head.

Upper right: The Big Hand(s) of God.

Middle:  Preacher. Zot. ‘Nuff said.

Lower right:  A spectator reacts to the spectacle; someone named “Fifi” (wearing a cheerleadng skirt) consoles a tearful Kevin.

Opposites attract

This weekend Kevin and I did what is known around our house as Casting A Stern Eye.

This means we go through all our shit and purge as ruthlessly as possible.  We do this two or three times a year. It is generally precipitated by my suggesting that we build another room or excavate a bigger crawl space in which to store our shit.

But this weekend’s activity was inspired not by cascading piles of shit, but by our bank’s annual “Spring shredding event” (wear your party dress!). Rather than the usual closets and cupboards, we took on the  filing cabinets.

We not only went through our financial files but also our personal ones - you know, our separate stashes of random shit that each of us finds meaningful or interesting.

I like to do this once a year to remind myself that miracles do happen. Specifically, that Kevin and I find each other meaningful or interesting in any way for longer than 37 seconds on a daily basis.

Me:  Oh, look, it’s a copy of the Myers-Briggs test. That personality test I made you take and then we got into a huge fight about it.

He:  In my file, I have “How To Hang A Door.”

Me:  I wonder if I should keep this astrology chart…

He:  Hey, here are my military security clearances. I should put these somewhere….

Me:  You should take this test, too [holds up paper] and see “What Goddess Are You Ruled By?”

He:  [resignedly] I am ruled by you.

Me:  “Mold Control.” Hmm. [Thinks for a minute, then shrugs and tosses it in bag]

He:  Don’t throw that out!!  [snatches paper out of bag] That’s perfect for my Duct Air Cleaner file.

Me:  “The Physiological and Cognitive Benefits of Creeping in Infants.”

He:  “Mission: Readiness - A Personal and Family Guide to Deployment.”

And so on.

We took three bags full of paper to the “shredding event.” Alas, they were not serving margaritas.

Happy pi Day

Take the distance around a circle and divide it by the distance across the circle and you get an irrational and transcendental number called pi. Irrational numbers don’t have nice neat ends, but go on as long as you can stand to do the math.  Pi starts out as 3.14159265…. and just keeps on going.  Since today is 3-14, someone thought it would be good to celebrate irrational, transcendental pi.

Carl Sagan’s novel Contact has only one good chapter: the last chapter in which he suggests numbers like pi are the fingerprints of god.  In the book, they just kept wading past all the decimal places until unmistakable patterns emerged; “The signature of the Artist” to quote Sagan.

I like to think that irrational numbers are a philosophical warning sign of how bad we are at recognizing inappropriate comparisons between things. The word used to describe this notion of incomparable entities is “incommensurable.” I’m pretty sure there are other non-Euclidian mathematical spaces in which pi is rational, which goes back to the idea of how you compare, and not what you compare.

Anyway, happy pi day, go eat pie.   And for all you chronics, April 20 only happens once a year, but 4:20 comes twice a day.  Huzzah!