Those People...

There are those people you meet and a freight train couldn't have stopped your conversation (only if it ran one of you over). I went out with Amira, the belly dancer whose class I had taken earlier in the year for a drink after her one of her classes that I popped into... We traveled the world with our love of things Middle Eastern; our travels, our understand of how we're really all the same in the world - we want our children to succeed and someone to take care of our parents; we talked about how people living on a rich island have similiar problems to people other places; we chatted of belly dance, samba, speaking different languages, writing plays, the new Sergio Mendes/Black Eye Peas CD and how incredible it is, art, working for government, nonprofits and politics.

We talked about Dahab where my friends and I had visit on our way home from Peace Corps. (Pygmy called me when it the bombing had occurred and we talked about what a tragedy, not that they all aren’t, that is was. Dahab with the Greek families we met; Adam and Habib who worked at the hostel we stayed at – Dahab the place of dirty hippies and backpackers – oh just leave them alone! (I guess there’s a five star Hilton there now but there wasn’t then)). We were sad for Dahab. We talked about creating community; we talked about Bouake in the Ivory Coast where she had visited her cousins years before I was there in the Peace Corps. We talked about the market; we talked about how every place in the world there is something you are giving to compensate for the fact that the vender doesn't have change - in Bouake they gave you a 5 cent piece of candy. In the Ukrane it was gum, in Togo it's extra peanutbutter. We talked about how being a brunette worked better in some instances than being a blond (she’s a blond but has gradually become a brunette and how things have changed.) We talked of civilizations and really, what the hell happened.

How things have changed – how they’ve stayed the same.

It was wonderful. She said it was like meeting someone made of the same fabric, sharing similar experiences and you had been split in two – having so many things in common and sharing them at such different times. It was one of those evenings you go home celebrating.

And she’s a Seattleite to boot.

I'll be taking suggestions....

So it's more or less, more or less official that I'll soon be able to pick out my very own Roller Derby name - and it's a tough decision. It's going to have to be registered and the registry has thousands of names in it - of which there cannot be dublicates. The premise is to have a characteristic name - something fun that perhaps (perhaps not) describes you. Some examples from other teams: Ida Slapter, Hot Flash, Barb Wire, Hot Ta Molly, Ruth Less... So I'm taking suggestions and they can be emailed to me at whereismyshoe@gmail.com. Also, nicknames have never stuck. I don't have one and try as my friends have in the past, they just don't stick. Thanks in advanced.

Other suggestions would be where to hike that isn't straight up as my whole body is still sore from Tiger Mountain.

Low Barometric Pressure, Spaces between Galaxies and places unknown

This week was off - I was out of sorts - could barely get myself out of bed in the morning - found myself too tired for the gym - too tired often to finish the paper at the end of the evening and consequently found my blog out dated. I was blaming it on barometric pressure - low barometric pressure - there were lots of clouds - cloudy clouds clouding my thoughts and clearly blocking my motivation.

Space between Galaxies was how one of the young slam poets described a relationship she was having with her young boyfriend at the Youth Arts Poetry Slam at in the Youngstown Arts Center in West Seattle on Friday. Sue's daughter Maddy is going to NYC representing the group along with four other young women. It was energizing to be at a poetry slam - and though there wasn't a single male finalist, the males in the audience and those acting as emcees were so completely supportive. They were cheering, brah-brah-brah- making noise WHAT?, as these young woman filed their late teen angst in the rusty metal cabinet called life. They were fantastic and I loved everyone minute of it. As someone who has suffered from outrage fatigue before I was delighted to see that there were other really to take on the role. (Sue, Leslie and I went to Salty's afterward to discuss the poetry and look out at the twinkling city rising up across the Sound.)

Places unknown - I finally made it Renton, not Redmond, this weekend searching for skates to secure my future as a roller girl. They were a small forture - they'll have to wait. Saturday, a play at Live Girls! Theater, Sunday a hike on Tiger Mountain. Tiger Mountain - a place that was Kathy's favorite - that she hiked every weekend when she lived here. A place that Listie and I had never been to before. We took the West Trail 3 not realizing that it was 3 miles straight up. But once we got to the top, the view was incredible. We could see Rainier and the Olympics (the Cascades, of which Tiger Mountain is a part, too). The city of Seattle looked a set of salt and pepper shakers off in the distance though the air distinctly smelled like nature - a smell I know. The hike down of course was easy and quick. The ride back was in amusing as we toured Issaquah for the hell of it. I found out when I got home (where my loyal cell phone sat quietly) that Annika got a job in Jordan and will be leaving in July. Yipeee! Another place unknown. My supplier of the Seattle "tip of the day" - one of my few friends here. I can't wait - it's pushed my trip of "Turkey-Lebanon" to "Lebanon-Jordan" up sooner - I'll be seeing her next May - In'Shalla.

A quiet weekend in an expensive city...

I read the business section of the paper today and realized that I'm not going anywhere. I might as well get use to my pink kitchen and yellow bathroom, one bedroom in a complex that I can actually afford. I'll appreciate my migrant worker neighbors more and try harder to ignore the alarm clock in the apartment above me that went off at 4:45 a.m. and kept me awake for hours. (I actually ended up pulling an army cot out of the closet and sleeping in the living room for an hour.) The rent is going up and housing prices are more than I could ever afford. I made a joke that I would have to marry 4 or 5 people to gather an income that would be able to handle the mortage. The average house in King County being around $400,000. It's not even close to the mini-maison I would be able to have for that kind of money in Cleveland. Add $25 to my current rent, and I could have half of a duplex in Cleveland. Add $1,300 and I could have that same duplex in Seattle.

There are basically two reasons I would consider buying a house - I love to entertain and a house is much better for that then a small apartment with cardboard walls, (of course, once I have more than 10 friends) and to garden - planting flowers, peas, butterfly bushes, honey suckles, cacti, etc. Hanging up a bird feeder so the kitties can meow at them sitting in the window.

There are many factors contributing to these high prices: the city is so popular with transplants like me; Californians move up here in droves and because they pay $1 million dollars for a small home down there they don't mind paying $800,000 for one here thus driving up the values (let's not blame everything on California though); it basically comes down to the fact that the city his hugely popular, there isn't enough housing and people want to live in the city and are willing to pay the prices with interest rates so low...There are bidding wars and people buying houses for their family members fearing there won't be anything left. So it looks like I'm not going to be owning a house or condo ($208,000 for 600 square feet in Ballard - yikes) any time soon. Instead, I signed up for a P-Patch so that I could at least grow some flowers or maybe a vegetable to two.

Last night I went to locally owned Sonic Boom to hear the band Pretty Girls Make Graves at an "in-store show" (always looking for "free or cheap"). Annika introduced me to the concept and I actually read in the paper (who reads the paper anymore?) they were going to be playing just down the street. It's a great opportunity to listen to a band before buying their CD or just widening your musical experience. It's a short show - 5 songs usually - but they got me hooked which was the point. I walked out into the very chilly evening with two CDs. So much for free or cheap.

I had an Easter Cupcake at my favorite coffee shop Cupcake Royale. Yum. It wasn't any different than any other cupcake, I just justified that I could have it because it was Easter. Other than that, it was a very beautiful and typical Sunday. A hike through Discovery Park, laundry, a cat nap with the kitty friends, an Easter cupcake.

Commitment, tornadoes and other scary things...

This week I took a big step towards committing to the Dockyard Derby Dames. I love the idea of wearing a costume and skating around with a team to earn points! I love the thought of having a crazy name like "Ida Slappedher" or "Ruth Less" (and will be taking suggestions, please!) It's so odd and so American and for once I don't need another language to help me better understand the music (unlike Samba and Belly dancing) - I can swear like the best of them. It's the time commitment - it getting heavily involved with a group when I'm still so new to Seattle. It's making I set those priorities I said I was going to - like writing. It's two days a week and then some. It's driving 45 minutes to Tacoma each way - though I've managed to find two other people with whom to car pool thus less my environmental impact (so Seattle!) and save some money on very expensive gas. It's going out on a limb, as always, to meet new people - which isn't the scary part - but being accept in a "group situation" always is. We all still dread being the last one picked for the kickball team. . . But I paid my dues for the month of April. I went to the Bomb Shelter today and bought a helmet. I think, I think, I really think I'm ready... so I'll start taking name suggestions.

Tornadoes ripped through my alma mater on Thursday reeking havoc on the small town of Iowa City where the University of Iowa quietly sits. Amazingly, there was only one death. My friend Sandra has been keeping me in the loop. We were in school when the Mississippi river flooded a great deal of the mid west in 1993 - living in displaced house (my dorm was flooded) and taking other classes besides those in the theater (also flooded). I spent 2 summers there, once having to evacuate to the basement because of the chance of tornadoes.

I have a great fondness for the University of Iowa. I picked it at the last minute on a whim. My father and I went to visit the campus after visiting my ailing grandfather in Minneapolis. It was February, minus 15 degrees, but the campus sat on the Iowa River (thus the floods) with a hilly campus and a strong arts campus - it took me a minute to make up my mind. Of course while I was there is was just fine - I wondered if I could have ever gotten in to NYU (could I have afforded it should have been the real question). My fondness started to develop when I was in the Peace Corps I was one of the few from a state school... but I've become very proud of it. I've met more people who know are familiar with its renown writing program which I was a participant. During the last few years, I've actually started to really appreciate the liberal arts education I got there - and the fact that our football team was so awful at the time that I was spared the opportunity to become a Hawkeyes fan.

The other scary things can be found in the news. I don't think I need to list all of them.

Starring Michelle as Moses!

Today is Passover (Pesach)– you know when God killed all the first born sons of Egyptian families where the Jews where living, and not so happily I might add, and “passed over” their houses, sparing their sons. I made this comment once in Egypt when I was there during Passover in 2000 and remarked “Oh, today is Passover. Happy day.” My friend rolled her eye and said “Michelle, I can’t imagine this was happy day for Egyptians”. Oh, right.

Anyway, Passover is one of my favorite holidays as a non-practicing anything. I have spent the last 4 of 6 Passovers since my return from Peace Corps sharing at sedars with my friend Rebecca and her family. (Last year I was lucky enough to also be a part of Honey’s sedar.) Rebecca makes great matza ball soup, charoset (yum); bitter herbs, lamb, chicken (also) and all of the other fixings. I have to bring a bottle of wine and/or juice and get to feast with the extended family, plus we go thru the haggada - a pretty lefty one provided by her father (along with an orange on the sedar plate).

The most delightful aspect of the whole evening is we had a kit designed to make Passover fun for children. It comes complete with all of the plagues including cottonball hail, plastic locuses, food coloring blood, silly sickly moo-cows, tiny rubber fleas and other such plagues. And two hand puppets – one of Moses and the other of Pharaoh. I get to play Moses. Adam, much taller, and slighty more intimidating man (whose really a teddy bear) always plays the Pharaoh. When we get to the part in the heggeda where Moses says, Pharaoh, let my people go! I get to say it, of course, with dramatic zeal. Pharaoh and Moses fight for a while (as hand puppets go). The now-five-year-old joins in by throwing hail, fleas and cows at the pharaoh and general plague chaos ensues. It’s a great time.

Not quite yourself, raging spring and Tuesdays with Morrie…

My colleague has been coming to my office the whole week whispering – are you ok? You’re not quite yourself. Yeah, I’m fine. Tired from the flight, I now know way too much about the Salt Lake City Airport. No, really, I’m good. Just you, know, Tuesday, got out of a conference call. Sure, I’m ok. After failing to reach my by phone, because it is still lost somehwere in the city of Seattle, she deduced today that I haven’t been “quite the same” because I don’t have my cell phone. Interesting I thought. She said, Truly. There are people out there that you need to connect with somewhat regularily, those people you talk to on your bus rides or late at night - you're missing them. You’re just a tad bit not yourself. I think that just may be true.

It’s raging spring right now in Seattle. I go away for one weekend and EVERYTHING is in bloom. The daffodils have since expired but every tree sports a pink or white fur coat covering every limb in the brightest cherry blossoms possible. Warm rain bursts broke up the morning. Even on the highway heading north to Everett today, the air pushed through my vents carried spring. And it’s so welcomed.

I saw Tuesdays with Morrie tonight at the Seattle Rep with my friend Crystal. She had wrangled up some free tickets. I remember when the book came out years ago and I was working at Borders – it was huge – best seller. (I, of course, could not read a best seller but had to read some obscure title that could possibly become a best seller.) It was fantastic - touching and thought provoking. It was also very well produced (with my theater eye it’s hard to watch a show with out wondering about the technical aspects, design, acting). It was filled with young people! (I can’t tell you how different this is from my more typical “big budget” theater experience where it’s all very elderly, excuse me all “blue hairs” – this was aspect also fantastic.)

It was the story of Mitchell and his college professor Morrie and the relationship they rebuild once Mitchell, an extremely successful and renowned sports writer (true story), contacts Morry after seeing him on Nightline talking about ALS (Lou Gehrigs disease). It’s a great story about forgiveness of oneself first and letting others love you. It’s a story of pain and loss, and struggle but coming out the whole situation a better person. It's about marking the points in you life by how close you are to the impending situation when someone else will be wiping your butt.

And when you cry - laughing the entire time.

The Whirlwind Tour, Some perfect babies, and a parade of thousands….

The first thing I noticed when my brother picked me up from Cleveland Hopkins Intl airport was a giant white billboard that read “Let freedom ring. And let it be rung by a stripper.” Howard Stern. Oh gosh, I couldn’t stop cracking up. I forgot how much he made me laugh.

Thursday was spent with Barbie Warb doing some shopping and running some essential errands, like getting me a pair of hipster shoes that were on sale and the cups and plates necessary for the baby shower I was hosting but not attending. Mike cooked up some food and I gave my family some gifts I had picked up from my new hometown. I headed out to meet Cindy and Jill at the Old Angle – my old stomping ground – the place where everyone knows my name and I only end up paying for 3 of the 6 or 7 beers I end up drinking. We fell into our usual habit of closing the place down, offering advice to boys who are afraid to commit and solving other huge, sometimes, worldly problems. Or not.

Friday morning was a bit tough as was to be expected. I made various post it notes and stuck them to the door incase I missed my friend Kathy who was picking me up. Loosing my cell phone on the bus the day I was leaving to go out of town turned out to be slightly problematic. We finally grabbed breakfast, chatted about her impending visit in July and zipped off in the Cleveland rain shortly there after for Duck Cho Chee with Rebecca – my favorite lunch – both Rebecca and the duck. A bus ride and rapid stop put me back at the Old Angle where I met my colleagues for gossip, griping, laughing and general good times – how I missed them!

The Bier Markt was the last stop, where there were just a few too many people to sustain deep conversations and instead I found myself surface swimming. Carol has a great new boyfriend. Mere is ready to leave the hood. Lyman is great as usual. Jen informed me the Cleveland Indians are rumored to be excellent this year. G is in the middle of green card paper work - again. Susan is still dancing and David is planning on coming up with my new roller derby name (more on that later). Jill is opening a wine bar and another one is enjoying her time unemployed. A canceled late night rendezvous worked out and I found myself home, late, but smiling with a pocketful of mostly good news.

Saturday was yellow balloons, strawberries, bagels, cream cheese, green cups, pink napkins, and a baby car seat, as I doomed off to Rebecca’s house to set up for the shower I wasn’t going to attend. More twins! Girls! A cowboy hat for my favorite 5 year old and off to Cincinnati to celebrate the Peanuts’ 1st birthday!

The Peanuts were great! (Though they were a little sleepy and slightly cranky having spent the morning picking the nose of the giant Easter Bunny they went to visit) They are simply beautiful girls each with very distinct personalities, wonderful smiles and experts at that secret baby language. They could do all the one year old tricks: walk with help of your hands, crawl everywhere, play with ice cubes, drink from sippy cups and stare at you with such perplexity. When you put Lucia and Alexandra together you can tell them apart. If you scoop up one of the girls as she crawls with a vengeance to the front windows, you’ll have no idea who you have. I asked Mark if they were identical, he made the good point of saying “does it matter.” Of course not, they have two wonderful parents who love them very much and 30 friends who wished them a very happy first birthday.

The next day flew by as the family and friends disappeared, and I found myself hanging out at the Salt Lake City Airport trying to pace off a three hour layover. I broke down and after having read every single story, article, advertisement, in the Atlantic Monthly; I picked up a People Magazine and go myself caught up on the gossip of the rich and famous. Pyg and Jon picked me up and kitty friends were so happy to see me they started Kitty Olympics at 2 a.m. instead of 4 a.m.

A bright sunny Monday, I took the bus home only to find myself stuck at a traffic light for two runs. I knew that was a sign to get off and boy, what parade I stumbled into. There were hundreds of thousands of people marching downtown with signs, drums, babies, more American flags than you see at the 4th of July, students, unions and old ladies. Signs littered the crowd: I am not a terrorist; I pledge allegiance to the United States of America… with Liberty and Justice for All; I love the USA; We’re all immigrants; We are not criminals; I work for the American Dream; We pay taxes too; I am 4 and do not understand. There were spectators on the street like myself with a shit eating grins on their faces absolutely flabbergasted at the enormity of the rally and the positive energy and spirit of the parade. The buses were stuck at a standstill. Rush hour traffic was a nightmare but it was a beautiful way to attract attention to an issue that needs addressing. When I finally caught a bus back to Ballard, two older ladies summed it up nicely “It was the best rally I have ever been to and I’ve been to many, many, rallies over 50 years.” Welcome back to Seattle.

Lost, Loitering, Lost

One thing I really enjoy about Seattle, the city, is its vivaciousness. I take the 44/43 busses to work in the morning because I don't have to transfer and can people watch, read the paper, catch up on calls. I take the 11 and 18 home at night so I can stroll thru the city which is full of people, every night, until relatively late at night. There are tourists posing, smiling as their friends click photos. There are people selling newspapers and more recently Girl Scout cookies. Women walking by with white Macy bags, red stars blazing, with their new purchases. Pike Place Market's red neon sign punctures the sky line, right in one's sigh line, inviting you to glance into the Sound behind it. There are street musicians (not too many), a couple of crazies and throngs of people leaving work, going to work, milling about, loitering. Its alive and has a pulse that flows in rhythm with the traffic signals allowing the people to criss cross through the city.

This weekend I shopped for some "tokens" of Seattle for the 10 people I'm going to get to see, outside my family, the one day I'll be in Cleveland. I was looking for the usual suspects; smoked salmon, coffee, chocolates, and rain - all the things that make Seattle famous. I got some other great ideas (including local hipster art) along the way and am now trying to figure out how to carry all of this home without loosing anything to airport travel.

I also spend a great deal of the weekend lost - which is something I do quite a bit of here in Seattle. I completely missed the gallery where a friend of mine was having an art opening. I was walking down Pike and kept walking, sure it was around somewhere. I skipped into a corner shop and asked for the phone book figuring I could look it up. A woman informed me that I had been walking in the opposite direction and it was back the way I came - approximately 10 blocks. I did eventually find them and we succeed in having a great evening, discussing the roller derby (one of the stars was with us), paintings of cats (not my friend's art work - not even close), and our best waitresses ever (we had a great one at our after-the-opening-pub-dinner).

I also lost friend's phone numbers. I was going to having lunch with out in Redmond (where I got my favorite 5 year old his 10 gallon cowboy hat) with a friend but didn't have his number on me. The phone company couldn't help and no one knew where the library was. I also lost the number for another friend I was supposed to meet for drinks before the art opening (but that didn't matter because I spent that time lost). Pygmy lost the information for the International Rescue Committee talk we were going to, making us an hour early to the event.

However, I did find $20 running after my bus Friday morning and thought that was pretty lucky.