beautiful, funny, sad & true

What a weekend it’s been already, and there are still two more whole days left.

I drove straight to Seattle after work on Friday, and had the easiest drive ever. I somehow managed to bypass all the traffic in Portland, and I-5 was moving along nicely the entire way up. I got to Seattle in record time, and after a bit of circling the block, got the best parking spot ever, right across from the movie theater.

“Paprika” was amazing. I was expecting a lot from it, and it totally delivered. If it plays in a theater anywhere else nearby, I’m going to see it again, and it will certainly be one to buy on DVD when it comes out. Jaw-dropping animation with plenty of surprises, a trippy mystery story with lots of twists and turns, and even a super-catchy theme song.

From there I went to stay up at LittleBrother’s house in Snohomish. It was midnight when I rolled in, but he heard me arrive, so he came down and we talked and played a couple of games of pool on their new pool table. We finally went to bed around 1:45.

At 6:45, I was awakened by Niece. She was already going a hundred miles an hour, which meant that resistance on my part was futile, so I got up and played with her and LitteBrother while BabyNephew was awakened and fed by Brother’sWife. Before they left for Yakima that morning, they each gave me a huge hug and said, “You’ve sure had a tough time lately. Hang in there. We’re really proud of you.” That just about made me cry.

Then, after feeling sick to my stomach all morning, I started to take a turn for the worse, so I went in and had a nice bout of. . .um. . .diarrhea. (Well? I did.) After that, I felt extremely weak, and after such an early morning of playing with Niece, I decided it was time for a little nap.

After said nap, I headed down to Seattle to meet my friend RoMo, who used to live here in Portland. We walked around in her neighborhood of Fremont for a long time and caught up on each other’s lives as we walked along the canal. Then we walked back up to my car and drove to the Ballard neighborhood, where we ate lunch at a sushi restaurant, where I had exactly one little bowl of miso soup and one piece of maguro nigiri before having to stop because my stomach was feeling so strange. She finished her sushi and beer and then we headed out. I coughed and said, “Wow. . .I barely kept everything down when I coughed just now.” She looked concerned and said, “Really? Do you need to go to the drug store across the street?” “I don’t think I’ll make it there,” I said, and walked into the alley behind the sushi restaurant, at which point the contents of my stomach erupted into the bushes three times.

We walked across to the drug store and I got some FamousPinkLiquid, which made the rest of the afternoon’s activities possible.

We explored a bit more in Ballard, then drove down to the Ballard Locks, a busy shipping canal, dam and fish ladder. It was all really beautiful and interesting. It’s easy to see that you could spend all day watching the different activities that go on there, plus the gardens and grounds are really beautiful too. In fact, we saw a wedding ceremony happening in a different section of the park.

So it’s already been quite a weekend, with an awesome movie, seeing family and a good friend for the first time in months, not to mention a whole bunch of cool sights and even some stomach difficulties to make for an eventful weekend.

Tomorrow, Crystin and I start work on the song for the movie soundtrack, and my neighbor and tango-band-mastermind Susan is leaving for Australia for three weeks. Right now I’m going to bed.

One of my friends at work has a little can full of little sayings by authors, philosophers, spiritual people, transcendentalists, people like that. Every day, we pick one and read it aloud. Here’s mine, from last week.

On this day, twenty seven years ago, Mount St. Helens erupted.

At the time, my family lived in Yakima, Washington, which was the first decent-sized town in the path of the ashfall. The eruption happened at about 8:30 a.m. We were just pulling up to St. Johns Episcopal Church, where my dad was the vicar, when someone called and said, “I just heard on the radio. . .Mount St. Helens erupted!” The handful of us who were there sat and thought for a few minutes, but when we saw the whole horizon turning black (on a cloudless morning), we decided we should try to get home if we could.

The ash cloud hit us halfway home. Instantly, visibility went to about two feet. It was like a warm, grey snowstorm, and it smelled horrible. We were driving about ten miles per hour, but we still almost hit a turn divider and ran off the road because we couldn’t see.

We did make it home safely, and good thing, too, because the ash fell for the next day or two. We ended up with about an inch and a half of ash everywhere. It killed plants and pets. It choked the fuel systems of cars. (Interestingly, I remember that people were able to drive their cars by stretching pantyhose over their carburetors. Isn’t that ingenious?)

I was nine years old, and I wasn’t scared at all. That’s the perfect age to be during something like that. Old enough to remember it, but young enough to be mesmerized by it.

The town completely shut down for about a week, while people shoveled their driveways and sidewalks, and street cleaners ran day and night. My brother and I would stand under the awning on the back patio and watch the ash falling for a long time. People were saying things like, “Don’t let the ash touch you, it’ll melt your skin!” and “If you breathe it in, it will kill you!” So when we did venture out, we wore those little breathing masks and sweltered in our winter coats, at least until we realized that it wasn’t THAT hot, and we could catch it in our hands.

I’ll never forget the video of the gigantic logging trucks being washed down the Toutle River, or the huge logs destroying bridges, or the picture of the newspaper photographer’s car buried by boiling mud.

One of our friends in the neighborhood drew a volcano in ball-point pen on a bunch of white T-shirts with a caption that said, “Mount St. Helens–a pain in the ASH!” O, the hilarity.

The local news had a field day with the eruption, as you can imagine. “WILL VEGETATION EVER GROW BACK?? WILL THE VOLCANO KILL YOUR PETS?? TUNE IN AT FIVE TO FIND OUT.” Well, most of the pets lived, and before too long, trees and plants were growing back stronger than before. I still remember the pictures in National Geographic of the first little sprouts growing up out of the ash.

It was an amazing experience, and one that I’ll remember as long as I live.

Alyssa and I both had a rough week, and needed to get away from our lives for a while. What better way to do that than spend a day at the beach? More specifically, Oswald State Park on the Oregon coast. It was a perfect, relaxing day with a great friend.

This week’s been crazy.

Tuesday was the saddest I’ve been in a long time.

Wednesday, my friend Lauren and I got together to play music. She plays piano, and I took my cello over to her place, and we somehow thought it would be funny to play weird heavy metal songs. We started with “Holy Diver” by Dio, and that naturally led to things like “Crazy Train”, “Smoke On The Water”, and “Spoonman.” Hilarious.

Thursday was the second tango band rehearsal that Susan, Justin and I had. The first time we played together, it felt really good but sounded horrendous. (Well…? It did. :D) This time, it felt good, and we started to figure out how to interact musically, and what types of combinations of instruments work the best. Not only is tango the most difficult type of dancing (or so I’ve heard; I really want to learn), but it’s also quite possibly the most difficult style of music as well. You have to be able to read music as well as a classical player does, but you also have to be loose and be able to improvise as well as a jazz player does. These two skills don’t often co-exist, and they’re completely separate abilities. So it’s very demanding music. But, oh, so worth it when it all comes together. We’re all super excited, and we’re on the lookout for a pianist.

Friday after work, I crashed for a bit, then went to Susie Blue’s for a really nice dinner. It was a smaller group than usual, which I actually prefer, because I tend to get overwhelmed and anxious in large groups, especially when everyone else knows each other really well. I feel like an unnecessary element or something. But anyway. . .that didn’t happen last night. :) It was really a nice evening, and the food was stellar. I actually had two little pieces of steak, which I haven’t had for years. (Some proto-/ovo-/lacto-/pesca-/vegetarian I’ve turned out to be!) After being veggie for years, fish found its way back into my diet, and the occasional chicken. But aside from the twice-a-year craving for crappy pepperoni pizza, I almost never have red meat. The only times I do have it are times like last night, when it’s extremely well-prepared by my friends, and even then I can only handle it in small amounts. But it was really nice.

After that, I went over to meet John Jones (for the first time in months!) at the lounge in the basement of Jarra’s Ethiopian restaurant to see the band the Minders play. It was a pretty good show, but truth be told, I enjoyed talking to John more than I was interested in the show. We were surprised by Alan Kanning, a songwriter friend who, since the birth of his baby, almost never performs or gets out anymore. But he and his friend Hunter were there to watch the show, and it was really great to see them. Last time I bumped into him was October.

I need a change of scenery today, so as soon as Alyssa’s free, we’re heading to the beach. We’ve both had a pretty rough week, so we’re going to do a ‘get away’, then come back and have a French-themed dinner and movie night. She’s moving in July (!), so we’re trying to do all the little things we’ve been talking about before she leaves. I’m going to be a sad little Todd when she’s gone. We’ve really been there for each other, in a tremendous way, for the last two years. Somehow we bypassed the whole romantic ‘thing’, and just became really great friends. Portland’s not gonna be the same without her.

Sunday, Saussha and I are planning to meet and do something; still not sure what or where. We’ll figure it out, though, and much fun will be had.