A lot happens in a day. Take Saturday for instance, a relatively typical Saturday, nothing special but the sunshine. (O.K. Sunshine does make it more probable to do stuff... so I did... but that only means it was atypical for the season.)
I woke up around nine-thirty, as I usually do, and the sun was shining, as it's usually not at this time of year, which made my plan for the day that much easier. I had already planned to walk down to the MAX station, ride up to the Expo center, and pay the eight dollars for the Portland Motorcycle Show. I knew full well that eight dollars was more than it was likely worth, but guessing how much more is all part of the fun. However there's usually something at these things that seems worthy of making at least part of the trip. At the very least I might find a pair of riding shoes (not boots - I have giant man-calves) or maybe pick up a card from someone who can do the custom paint I want on my bike, or (the holy grail of expo finds) a great deal on a Metro scooter. I knew I was going to have to wade through a few dealers, a couple displays that have absolutely nothing to do with motorcycles, and maybe even a few groups of unruly 12-year-olds; but overall I figure it's a decent way to kill some time out of the house.
So here we are, bright sunny (and frigid) day, with a bike show to go to. I was sick late last week, so this honestly was the only thing I had planned for the day. It's a little better than half a mile to the station, which is just about the perfect waker-upper walk, and it has the added bonus of a coffee shack for hot bevvies while waiting for the train. Of course I ordered coffee from the functionally retarded teen in the shack.
Me: "I'd like a large, quad, non-fat latte please."
Her: "That's four shots? In a large? With milk? Right?"
Me: "Four shots, correct. Large, as in 20 ounce. With non-fat milk. Please."
Her: "Four shots and non-fat?" She's holding a 20 ounce cup in her hand, looking at it like it has the answers to everything in the universe, "This size. Right?"
Me: "Right." Seriously, how difficult is this? Her features don't give away any sort of syndrome, forehead seemed normal, eyes looked focused and clear. She appeared so perfectly average in every way that I have to wonder if her level of intelligence is also average, and then I begin to worry for the fate of mankind. But the sun is shining and I'm easily distracted.
While she's figuring out how to get shots of espresso from the machine, for what appears to be the first time in her life, I read the little sign next to the window. This coffee shack is run by a group called COFY (Creating Opportunities For Youth) and is designed to not only teach basic job skills like customer service and making change (both lost arts, if you ask me) but also to teach the complicated, and apparently valuable, "skilled" trade of Coffee Getter. (Barista, if you want to be particular, but whatever. Be realistic people, there's really very little skill involved. You get over-priced coffee for people and you rarely deserve a tip. Deal with it.)
Finally she manages to create a hot cup of milky caffeine, and then gets confused all over again.
Her: "Um. Large? Four shots? Latte?"
Me: (slightly perturbed that she makes everything a question, like she's completely unsure of what she just did) "That's what I ordered," trying to sound perky and upbeat. She seemed so lacking in confidence that I felt the need to reassure her.
Her: "Um. Do you know how much that is?"
Me: Crap, crap, crappity crap. Just bite your lip and help her figure this out. If she gets frustrated and leaves this job without learning how to do anything with confidence then she'll probably never learn how to say no and wind up living in government subsidized housing with a few kids who all have different dads, wondering.... Stop it. Maybe it's her first day. Maybe she's a super-shy honor roll student who is preparing to subsidize her Harvard scholarship with an easy, yet profitable, job at Starbucks. I take a deep breath and smile, "The menu out here says a regular large latte is $2.75, and extra shots are $0.25 each, but it doesn't say how many shots normally come in it."
Her: "Um, two? I think?"
Me: I cannot believe she made that into a question. Is she asking me what she thinks, or how many shots come in a large? "So that would be $0.50 extra..." I let my voice trail off, hopefully cuing her to do some simple math. She blinked twice, but otherwise there was no sign of life. "$2.75, plus the $0.50 for the shots, makes a total of..." I did it again, suddenly feeling like I should track down and hug every teacher I ever had. If this is what they deal with on a daily basis then they definitely aren't paid enough.
She blinked again. My coffee is getting cold, I'm fidgeting with the five in my hand, and I'm beginning to wonder if I'll miss the train.
Her: "Oh!" blinking several times in rapid succession, perhaps a bit surprised by the light bulb that just flicked on. "$3.25," I had hope, this seemed like a confident statement of fact, "right?"
Me: Crap. We were so close, but at least she finally settled on a price. "Sounds right to me," I smiled while handing over the $5.00. She fumbled with the cash register for a bit, finally got the correct numbers entered in, and painstakingly (as well as painfully) counted out my change. Needless to say, I didn't tip.
But I do make it to the train on time. Nearly noon, and finally I've reached my goal. The abundance of available parking does not bode well for the show, but I've come too far to turn back. With the cold winter sun somehow making it over the top of my sunglasses to scorch my retinas I fight the midday wind across the empty parking lot to find myself at the back of a line so endless that it hearkened to the days of youthful summers whose Saturdays were filled with water slides and half-priced matinees.
So maybe it wasn't quite that dramatic. But it was bright, cold, windy, and the line seemed unreasonably long. Especially when I finally made it in and found out that I'd over-paid by about seven dollars... not counting the train fare. There were several dealers there, but none with the new Ninja 250 that looks so hot online. And there was a manufacturer I'd never heard of who seemed to specialize in knock-off bikes. There were damn few choices in riding footwear and none of them included a shoe (I know they're made, I've seen them online), no one who actually did custom work, and absolutely no (and I do mean none) bikes for sale that could even be considered on sale, let alone a "deal". But the coffee had kicked in, the day was young, and my ticket was still good for another hour; so I headed back to the train.
Here's what I was thinking: hop off the train at Saturday Market, where I could swing past the Herbal Hobbit booth for some more foot cream for Dad then maybe get some lunch from a vendor. And since I was downtown anyway, I may as well swing by Powell's for a field guide to Costa Rica.
The car started filling up with hung-over hipsters and semi-clean crack-heads around Albina/Mississippi. Fortunately it was the one of the first group that decided to sit next to me, but the odor that poured off of him was overwhelming. It seemed a bit odd, because his clothes were clean, his beard was trimmed and well-kept, and he looked freshly showered, but he smelled like a brewery. And then I realized that the girl who sat across from him was his girlfriend. She was once a part of the hipster crowd, but appeared to be making a rather rapid descent into the crack-head group and something about her "I have daddy issues" voice coupled with a probable total lack of inhibition was sucking him down along with her.
Finally we arrived at Skidmore Fountain, the heart of Saturday Market. The fountain itself was overflowing with Santas, which I though was odd, until I remembered SANTACON! Seriously one of the best events ever. Hundreds of drunken Santas wandering around downtown. Next year I must participate. (What do you say faithful blog readers, care to join me for drunken Santa fun next year? It would be awesome to have both of you along for the ride. They have a site, check it out here.) I was unprepared this year though, so I stuck to my original plan and started looking for the Herbal Hobbit. They weren't where they were last year, so I continued looking... and I looked some more... and more... and then I got hungry and found a booth of English food where I ordered a tasty and delicious sausage roll and cup of tea, and then I went on looking...
All that looking and I finally had to admit defeat. Dad was not getting new foot goo today.
Whew! It takes a lot to write an entire day. Judging from how long (not very) it usually takes me to get bored when I do anything that requires concentration, and combined with how thorough I tend to be when describing something, I knew it was going to be quite a bit of work. (Thank god I'm goal-oriented or I'd never get anything done!) But I thought I could handle it. I'm finding it difficult to not just wrap this story up and call it good, but I'm trying to push through it to the end of the day. Hang tight! I promise this whole thing is going, well, nowhere!
So where was I? Um... coffee girl, check... bike show, check... methies on the train, check... Santa soiree, check... English snack, check... Herbal Hobbit (or rather the lack thereof), check... I guess that brings us to Powell's.
I should probably start off by telling you that I normally avoid retail outlets at this time of year. I don't generally do well in a crowd. As the lines grow longer and aisles get more and more crowded with consumers who are in desperate need of more stuff I become less and less patient and have frequently had to talk myself out of sporking some hapless shopper in the eye. But the sun was shining, the tea had kicked in, and blah blah blah.
I took the train to 10th because it's free and I was feeling a bit too lazy to walk up the hill myself. (I justified it by reminding myself that feet and train had been my only transportation thus far.) But once at 10th I walked the five blocks to the bookstore, waited patiently in the wind with a dozen other people to cross Burnside and spend a bit of time in the City of Books. What I didn't know was that Sharon Wood Wortman was scheduled to give a reading and sign some books at exactly the same time I was walking through the door. But I dealt with the slow flow of bodies headed to the Pearl room and made my way to the Nature section.
An hour later I had what I needed; a fold out laminated guide to the most common birds and mammals in Costa Rica. I grabbed a few post cards to put in geocaches while I'm down there, (I'm so excited to log my first international caches!) and a Street Roots from the guy outside and made my way to the streetcar stop on 11th. Yup, only five blocks back to the MAX and I chose to take the streetcar. Why? I was getting hungry, but I had no idea what I wanted to eat so I figured I could scope out some places from the protection of the car. Turns out there's no place that even looks remotely good on the track line back to Pioneer Square. Although being on the train gave me the opportunity to meet a gentleman who apparently works in the super-secret-sub-basement of OHSU as a Special Agent in the Psi-Ops division of the CIA. Fortunately my stop came up before he could tell me much more; I'm pretty sure he'd have to kill me if I had any more information than I do now. Not that he couldn't track me down if he needed to. He's a psychic, for god's sake.
Meal plan number two: walk down Yamhill until I either find something tasty or return to the Saturday Market where I can hop onto a train bound for elsewhere. Seven blocks go by and I still can't make a food decision. I'm fighting my way through holiday crowds and street performers preying on the generosity of the season when a sound comes to me over the cacophony of the street. A fiddle, so clear and true, that it immediately whisked me back to Christmases as a child, with my uncle Howard playing a jaunty tune while the kids danced around the family room, and I knew what I wanted to eat. With more purpose in my step than I'd had since the bike show I hooked a left on third and headed to Kells. Lamb stew and hot tea (with a wee dram of Jamesons) always restore holiday cheer.
Braced with stew and good whiskey I was finally ready to head home so I jumped back on the MAX. At the next stop a guy got on, maybe 50, trim, well kept, and wearing a bicycle helmet. No bicycle in sight, just the helmet. That he's wearing. Buckled. I love public transportation.
Cheese and crackers! 2.300 words and I haven't even touched on the night yet! Josh, I dedicate the retelling of this day to you... and you'd better be reading it.
Back at home I showered off the grime of the city and tried to decide what to do with the rest of my evening. My cousin was in town, usually fun to drink with, but typically not convenient to anywhere I'm willing to drink at, so that was out. My firefighter friend was having a party at her house, but I didn't go to the liquor store, so that was out. Another girl was having a birthday party, but I don't really like her, so I'd already politely declined the evite. Last (but oh so definitely not least) was another birthday party hosted by one of the craziest bitches I know, but it was for the brother of someone I don't know at all, and I was somewhat afraid that Vince would be the only person there that I knew. So I finally decided on swinging by Ben and Josh's to see what their plan was. I probably would not have felt like I missed anything if instead of heading out we'd all crashed on their futon and watched movies all night. But I would have been wrong.
Ben's sick, so it's just Josh and I leaving the house, and the heater in the Honda works better than mine (all heaters - with the exception of the original VW's - work better than mine), so that's the car we decide to take. Because Josh has been drinking all afternoon I take the keys and, after adjusting the seat and scraping the windows, we set off down Killingsworth. We'd only gone about two blocks when I saw flashing red and blue behind me. Life's tough on the KW and cops usually have somewhere to be, so I nudge the Honda over to the right a bit and wait for them to pass. I was honestly surprised when the lights parked behind me and I heard "tap tap tap" on my window. Turns out Josh's plates are expired and we didn't scrape the section where the trip permit resides. I learned a long time ago to smile and be nice to the po-po, so I did, but I think if I'd winked I probably could have had a date next weekend. Too bad I'm not really into girls.
A friendly warning, and some extra-mild flirting, later we finally made it to the Alibi for some birthday karaoke. Despite the multitudes of birthdays being celebrated Vince's party wasn't hard to find. Josh and I grabbed some chairs, ordered drinks, and introduced ourselves to the birthday party. Among the people at the table were better-looking (and HILARIOUS) Gary Shandling and steroid-enhanced Samwise Gamgee. Nope, I do not mean Sean Astin. I mean the hobbit Samwise Gamgee. I didn't really talk to Samwise, but I did catch that he and the birthday boy (who looked oddly familiar, but not like anyone I can put a name to) met on Myspace fairly recently, and it seemed that he was hitting on Josh.
And it seemed the hobbit wasn't the only one who thought Josh was a cutie patootie. There was a chain-smoking, side-ponytail-wearing, fairly scrawny redhead who used karaoke cut-in as an excuse to talk to him. It was sort of cute, watching a girl get shot down. Gently, but still shot down.
Of course we sang our standard (Summer Lovin') drunkenly and with gusto before saying goodnight and heading out to a cheaper bar. The Florida Room was where I was headed when we pulled out onto Interstate but then my very drunk and exuberant passenger talked me into Georges instead. I've driven by George's several times, but when I think about stopping there I get a little scared. Turns out it's not nearly as bad as I had thought. The drinks were cheap and over poured, the bathroom was clean, and the bartender wore her mustache fairly well.
That's when the Mutual Love Fest started. And so now you can blame Josh for wading through 3000 + words to get to here because I took his drunken advice and wrote some more, and I think I'll also try to do it more frequently. I guess I'm using this space as practice, maybe with enough of it I'll get good enough to actually sell something.
