Category: Stories

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Right After The Springsteen Concert

This is a selfie of me at the Portland airport, waiting for our flight home. It has nothing to do with what this post is about, but the correct photos are currently missing.
I’ve never met a zoo I didn’t like. Until now.

Permit me, please, to completely jump over the main event—the concert we flew to Portland to attend, for just a bit longer. Now I want to tell you what happened when the concert was done and we hopped on the train which would drop us off a mere two blocks from our hotel. So when we left the Moda Center, we were sardine-packed into the train back to the city’s main drag (That word is still legal here, right?). After a couple of stops, enough folks had disembarked from the train so that we could breathe again. HEAR ME, PEOPLE! There is a little—although highly important—thing called the social contract which we all tacitly agree to make with each other. It is unspoken and unwritten, for the most part. And yet, this contract keeps chaos and anarchy at bay as we go through every day of our lives on this planet. Part of this social contract is that we agree to stay out of each other’s personal and mental space—unless otherwise invited. We live and let live, and do our best to leave each other alone. What I’m getting at here is how we can co-exist amiably while literally being stuck together in small spaces like a train car, for example. I want to formally introduce to “some” clueless people two of the infinite parts of the unspoken, unwritten social contract we share with each other as our paths cross in the bigly world. Pay attention, folks! Here’s the wisdom: When you know you’re going to be breathing near herds of other breathing human beings, WEAR DEODORANT and SUCK ON A MINT. It’s just polite. It isn’t difficult to do. When you are in a group, close to other people you might or might not know, these are just two more ways for you to love your neighbors. Just sayin.’

The real obstacle to our plans that night had to do with getting back to our hotel, by way of public transit. Long story, short. There was a malfunctioning sign in our train car, which resulted in Suzanne and I—and a bunch of other concert-goers—missing our correct stop in the dark. By the time we all figured it out and got off to catch a train back the way we just came from, we were miles away from our destination. We were also underground and had no idea where we were. We were in a strange city none of us knew very well. We soon learned that the train we had been on was the last one scheduled for the night going in that direction, and the last train going back in our direction had already gone before we even got to wherever we now were.

We took the elevators up to see precisely where we were. This wasn’t gonna be good. And it wasn’t. We were at the Oregon Zoo! The closed zoo! The deserted zoo! Besides our little gaggle of Bruce-lovers, there was not one other human around! The zoo at midnight! Surrounded by wild animals we couldn’t even see, and we knew they could certainly see us! Un-walkable miles away from our hotel! Stranded with strangers who could’ve been a band of Springsteen-loving, roving serial killers, for all we knew! I called a cab company and couldn’t even tell the dispatcher an exact address where they could fetch us. I told them, “We’re at the Oregon Zoo.” But remember that freaky storm which showed up earlier in the week? Yup, the storm was a problem still. Cabs were few and far between. The wait for one was going to be lengthy, if a taxi showed up at all—which it didn’t. Suzanne eventually called a Lyft, which did show up—after the longest, coldest time. While we waited and waited some more, the temperature dropped bigly, the wind came up, and the snow began to fall. We had no shelter. Finally after another long wait, a vehicle arrived to save us.

By the time we got back to the hotel that night, Suzanne and I were not speaking. We weren’t upset with each other, or anything else for that matter. We were simply done with the complications of our day. There was not one word that either of us had any reason or energy to say. That was a first for us.🚃

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If It’s My Birthday Dinner, It Must Be STANZA

STANZA gifted me a hunk of tiramisu for my birthday.
Getting older is a blast with Suzanne.
A red lips shirt is always in fashion.
“Tiramisu” is a jaunty word to say.
One of my slice-o-birthday-cake cufflinks.

So about now, you’re wondering if you missed the final tales o’ Portland and the Bruce concert. I can assure you that you have not missed a one. The Portland “difficulties” have continued to haunt me here in UT, even as I attempt to put together the ending stories of our “cursed” trip. It seems a slew of Portland photos I distinctly remember taking have gotten lost somewhere in my iCloud. I didn’t even know that was possible. But they certainly are nowhere on my actual phone, so I’m cloud-sleuthing, so to speak. Trust me—the last Portland stories soon will be told, with or without pix.

Thanks to y’all who took a moment out of your day to send me a birthday wish on the 10th. I’m sure I have mentioned it in posts before, but I regard my birthday as my true Thanksgiving Day. It is the day of the year when I find myself reflecting on my full life of blessings, luck, interesting characters, and all-around treasury of days-add-up-to-decades of constant wonderment. The kindnesses shown me by those in my tribe—and by those in strangers’ tribes—have baffled, befuddled, and bewitched me for the whole of my life. My gratitude knows no bounds. Thank you. And I mean you. Yes, you.

Suzanne took me out to birthday dinner at STANZA, as she did last year. I’m making a bigly deal of it here because I’m voting for it to become a forgone conclusion that STANZA is my official birthday dinner spot. Suzanne is a literal-minded person. This is my little way of clobbering her over the head with the hint that I want my birthday dinner at STANZA every year I have a birthday. (Do you think she got my birthday dinner point?)

We just got seated at STANZA when a rain deluge began, complete with a lightning show. Suzanne arranged the weather just for my viewing pleasure, I’m sure. Suzanne ordered her usual pasta, as a result of which she still smells garlicky today. I ordered the pan-seared halibut but due to some unforeseen kitchen problem, the halibut had to be scratched from the menu. Scallops showed up in front of me instead, and I was so glad because now I can make up a new word to say I ate “scallopbut” on my 59th birthday. The folks at STANZA gifted us tiramisu for dessert. The night was perfect.

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Another Day, Another Attempt To Visit The Bookstore, Another Sign On The Door

It took harnessing all the lightning bolt power of my supercharged Bow Tie o’ the Day, but we did finally get inside the famous Powell’s City of Books—the planet’s largest new/used bookstore. Along with seeing Bruce Springsteen in concert, Powell’s was why we chose to visit Portland in the first place, especially at this time of year. The day after we got to Powell’s and the place was closed because of the weather, we were back and the doors were open to us. For what seemed like a minute anyway. We happened to get there at around 4 PM. We would have hours to explore the books! But nope! The sign on the door told us they were closing at 5 PM, so their valued employees could get home safely in the icy weather. YAY for them—both Powell’s management and staff. NOT-YAY for us—book-lovin’ visitors from out of state. Once inside, Suzanne went one direction. I went another. I followed my Powell’s fold-out map to the poetry section, and by the time the announcement came at a bit before 5 to herd us customers into the check-out line and out the front door, I hadn’t even begun to scan the highest shelves of poetry. In the slim sliver of time we were allowed in the bookstore, we did manage to find a few books we wanted, so we didn’t leave empty-handed. However, I know we didn’t come close to having the kind of authentic Powell’s experience we would have had if that dastardly snow storm hadn’t visited the city the same week we did. I suppose that’s a good excuse to vacay in Portland again sometime—when Portland is more Portland-y, and Powell’s is more Powell’s-y. And when we don’t have to buy a hunting license, buckshot, and a shotgun in order to procure our own food. Yeah, that’s it. It’s an excuse for a do-over, a Mulligan. When the current Portland aftertaste of this less-than-nowhere-resembling-a-perfect trip is out of my mouth, I’ll get right on that.

FYI I’ll wrap up our Portland experience in tomorrow’s two posts. You’ll hear about our inadvertent, after-dark trip to the zoo when it was closed, and you’ll finally hear how the Bruce concert went. I will be using a plethora of superlatives to describe The Boss, so bring your thesauri to read TIE O’ THE DAY.

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Hunting For Food In Icy Portland

Orange Tie o’ the Day goes to this pizza builder at Pizza Slut in Portland. This guy was a gallant and trusting soul. I spent less than an hour with him, in another less than ideal vacation situation, but he is one of the characters I choose to remember about our trip. Because of the weird snowstorm of 3 days prior to the day I met him, it still wasn’t easy for us to find an open restaurant. And we couldn’t find food places that were back in the delivery business. Not even Dominoes would send food our way, so I scoured the online pickings for nearby food places which would allow me to arrange an order I could come by and pick up. It had to be close enough that I could hoof it there and back to the hotel without freezing myself to the sidewalk ice. Finally, Pizza Slut took my pick-up order online—although they were so busy that the order I put in at 8 PM on Friday could not be fulfilled until Saturday at 1:00 PM. I jumped at the opportunity for any pizza, any time.

So the next day—just a few hours before the Springsteen concert—I winterized myself the best I could at 12:30 PM and stepped onto the still-iced Portland sidewalks. I followed the directions to Pizza Slut on my phone until it said I was at my destination. I looked around to find myself at a bar called Dante’s. I was cold, so I went in to ask directions to the pizza place, and behold—in a corner of Dante’s was a dark little cubby of an area called, of course, Dante’s Pizza Slut. Clever. The pizza guy asked if he could help me, and I explained I had placed an order last night and I was there to pick it up. The guy said, “We haven’t been able to take any online orders since the storm shut down our IPads and computers. Did you pay for your order online?” I did. Dude said, “I believe you. Tell me what kind of pizza you want, and I’ll throw it in for you right now. Did you order any sodas with it?” I told him I had ordered and paid for 4 cans of Diet Coke.

While he got to work on my mysterious order, I sat in the bar around a roaring fire pit they had going. I drank one of the Diet Cokes, and then I drank another—warm and comfy as all get-out. I wished Suzanne was there with me to enjoy the fire, and the music, and the smell that promised hot pizza was on its way. When the pizza was done and my own personal pizza guy was sending me on my way, I offered to pay for my order, but he was sure they’d find my order and payment somewhere in their temporarily downed online accounts. I handed him one of my tie-o-the-day.com bracelets and told him to contact me there if he didn’t get paid for my pizza. Dang, those TO’TD bracelets come in handy! Walking back to Hotel Lucia on the ice with the pizza was a bit tricky. You see, Pizza Slut makes only one size of pizza, and it is bigly: a 30-inch crust. That’s a heavy duty pizza pie to balance while sliding on ice. But both I and the pizza made it to the hotel without falling.🍕

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But We Found An Open Restaurant

Suzanne took this photo at CHERYL’S ON 12TH.
This is the place, for good breakfast eats.
Just taking a seat for breakfast in Portland. Suzanne snapped this photo, too.
Doesn’t Suzanne have the most serene face?! She calms my sometimes too-wild mind with her Lasso o’ Being Serene.
The decor at CHERYL’S was funky and welcoming at the same time.
You can look up a mannequin’s skirt on your way in and/or out the door at CHERYL’S.
My old face is getting soft. My skin is resting more and more of the day and night now. It’s been very busy all of my life. I don’t mind it one bit.

Bow Tie o’ the Day was hungry. This short jaunt to Portland was not turning out to be the easy, relaxing trip we had planned. There were no dangerous or sketchy or unconquerable things happening, but it seemed like no matter what we set out to do or see, there was a clear impediment. We still had a ball. We just had to go to Plan B every single time we tried to execute our Plan A’s. I shall forever refer to this trip to Portland as “Vacation Heck, By A Thousand Small Snags.” Our trip’s constant need for finagling and maneuvering did not quite fall far enough to reach the level of Vacation Hell, but still…it merits its own name.

CHERYL’S is a restaurant our hotel people recommended, and they were right to do so. It was a local diner-type place, just a few blocks from the hotel. It would have been a pleasant walk to get there, just minutes away—except for the biting wind which hung around after the bigly snowstorm which left ice everywhere. The wind, of course, was not at our backs as we made our journey to food. Brushing the windblown ice crystals out of my eyebrows as we walked into CHERYL’S, I told Suzanne I did not care if wherever we were going next was only a block away—we were going to go there in a cab. I recall saying at some point, “I am too old to be cold if I don’t absolutely have to, even if it’s for less than a minute.” Of course, after we had eaten a full meal in a warm place, and had lingered and laughed at our cozy table for a while, I didn’t mention my newly declared MUST. TAKE. TAXI. EVERYWHERE. ON VACATION. WHEN. IT’S. CHILLY. OUTSIDE. rule. We just buttoned up our coats and acted like the brave LDS pioneer children who are our cultural ancestors and we sang as we walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, and walked—through the wretched, freakish Portland cold—wherever we went that day. And a good time was had by all.🤠

BTW I must disclose that CHERYL’S served dreamy beignets that were lighter than helium and yet chock full o’ sweetness. Eat there once, if only to eat one of their beignets.

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The Other Reason To Go To Portland

Since we were going to have to travel somewhere to see a Springsteen concert, we knew we needed to examine other factors when choosing a city for our destination. What led us to decide in favor of seeing Bruce in Portland was a bookstore: Powell’s. Powell’s is not just any old bookstore. Powell’s is the largest independent new and used bookstore on the planet. It covers an entire Portland block. I have longed to gaze upon its tall shelves and get lost in its maze of stacks ever since I heard about it years ago. To me, Powell’s is every bit as bigly a deal as Bruce Springsteen himself. As far as they are both cultural icons, they represent important values to me.

So we braved a day of flight delays, stormy weather, tires-spinning-nowhere taxi rides, and closed restaurants, to bundle up and trudge through bitter winds and across whole blocks of sidewalk and road ice—for the purpose of making our pilgrimage to the Holy Grail of those of us who are called to read. (Yes, reading is a calling.) We made it to Powell’s! Only to be met with this disappointing sign on the door. I was speechless. Even the little choo-choo train of weak swear words that show up in my head sometimes when they are perfectly appropriate—even those bad words couldn’t manage to blurt out a thing. I just stood there at the locked door. I wanted to cry, but my tears would have immediately turned to drops of ice in the freezing wind. I was glad I had this diamond-point Bow Tie o’ the Day to be with me through this bleakest of literate moments.

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We Got To The Portland Airport Safely

After our flight from SLC, we found ourselves at the Portland airport for much longer than we had anticipated. We were surprised at how chilly it was as we patiently waited in the line for a taxi to our hotel. Now, remember we were already nearly 4 hours late getting to Portland because our flight had been delayed a number of times in SLC. We were only sixth in the taxi line, but almost forty-five windy, freezing minutes later, we were still still standing there and still sixth in the line. Where the bleep were the taxis? My butt was frozen and my dentures chattered. Eventually, we finally scored a taxi without pulling any dirty tricks. It was early evening and we simply wanted to get to our room and vegetate for a bit, then go out to eat.

What we did not know at that point is that the Portland area was experiencing an unusual snow and ice storm, especially for this time of year. Honestly, it didn’t seem nearly as gnarly as most of the freakish Utah storms I’ve driven in. But for Portland, this storm was a bigly deal. Once we were on the road to the city, it was a ride of inches. We were going nowhere slowly. On the bright side , we were warm. It took us probably an hour to drive maybe 2 miles. We were at a 4-way intersection at the foot of a hill and we were undeniably stuck. Cars were stuck all around us. Our taxi driver tried valiantly to dig us out of the predicament, but he was also part of the problem because he didn’t seem to know any of the tricks for getting unstuck in snow. He didn’t understand the art of rocking the car as you lightly give it gas. And, yup, he was a desperate pedal-to-the-metal wheel-spinner. The snow was flying high and wildly from our taxi tires. Because of insurance concerns, we couldn’t offer to try to drive us out of snow and ice. We waited. We didn’t move for at least another hour. You can see the taxi fare meter at $100.06 in one of these photos: we went nowhere, and the fare kept adding up. But we were warm. This is the place in the story where I must admit I had to strategically get the lower half of my body far enough out of the stuck taxi at one point to relieve myself in the darkness. Our driver had called his friend to bring another taxi with bulkier winter-driving muscles to come rescue Suzanne and me. We waited some more, and the second taxi dude eventually showed up—unstuck and warm—a ways down the block. (FYI When we switched into the second taxi, the first taxi driver said we owed him nothing. But he had worked so hard for so long to get us unstuck that we couldn’t not give him a robust tip.) We transferred ourselves and our bags to the heavy-duty taxi, hoping our hotel hadn’t given our room away already because we were long past our check-in time. Suzanne had called the hotel earlier to let them know we would be very late. Even so, messages don’t always get to the right people, so you don’t know for sure until you show up. The second taxi delivered us to our hotel safely and without problem. For exactly $100.

At the Hotel Lucia, our room was waiting for us exactly as reserved. We knew our hotel did not have its own restaurant, so as we checked in, we asked if any restaurants nearby were still open. We needed to grab some dinner. They were not. Everything had closed down earlier than usual because of the storm—in order for workers to get home before the weather situation got worse. Our hotel clerk told us the Hotel Lucia had agreed to give rooms for the night to some restaurant workers who couldn’t get home in the storm. In return, the restaurant manager sent trays of the day’s leftovers to the Hotel Lucia. Our hotel clerk told us we were welcome to some of the gourmet food the hotel had been given. We jumped at the generosity, and a clerk brought up two overflowing trays of a variety of yummy foods right to our room. Everything was lukewarm, but we did not complain. In fact, I ate at least four slices of some of the best prime rib I have ever tasted. All in all, we had a rather bumpy day getting from SLC to our destination, but it ended with a prime rib cherry of generosity on top.🍒

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Leaving for Portland

We hadn’t flown anywhere for three years, and then I had the brilliant idea to buy Bruce Springsteen tickets for his concert in Portland, OR, which was scheduled for February 25th. Since Bruce wasn’t coming to SLC, the closest places we could catch him were Denver or Portland. We talked about it and realized the safer “weather” choice for flying in late February was Portland. Statistically, that’s true. Unfortunately for us, we were flying in a plane, and not in a statistic. To be fair, during the week of our flight, it wouldn’t have mattered what city we had chosen for our destination: most of the country was pelted with freakish snowy weather. When I woke up on the day we were scheduled to fly and checked the status of the flight we would be taking later that morning, I saw we had a slight delay of thirty minutes. So far, so good. Bow Tie o’ the Day was ready to go.

At the SLC airport, we sat down in the boarding area at our gate with plenty of time to spare, and then we began our normal airport routine. We people-watch, which is the best free entertainment there is, because people are, well, so peopley. Then we take turns wandering through the airport shops while one of us stays planted with our bags at our seats. I buy us a bunch of airport-priced Diet Cokes and snacks to see us through our waiting and our flight. To be completely honest, I bought a couple of “just in case” of books, which is also a traditional part of our waiting-in-an-airport routine. And finally, we take turns making one last pit stop in the ladies room before boarding. We were ready to board the plane when we we were hit with another flight delay, and another, and another. That’s right: 4 delays. It was a long day in the belly of SLC International Airport. I must admit there was music to entertain us—since we were sitting close to a newly minted sister missionary who just happened to be nervously humming LDS hymns for hours on end. Bless her little heart. Yay for her. Hours later, as we at finally boarded the plane for our journey, I kept my eye out for the humming young missionary—saying my own little prayer that our seats were nowhere within earshot of her anxious humming. We lucked out on that wish. The flight to Portland—to see Bruce—was on.

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A Visit With Mom, During Bruce Week: Part Two

Whenever we get inside the front doors of Millard Care and Rehab, Skitter prances her way to Mom’s room. She doesn’t dilly-dally. She makes a beeline for Mom. When Mom notices us at her door, she is quick to say, “Hi, Skitter! What are you doing here?” (To heck with me or Suzanne. Skitter is Mom’s favorite by a mile. I don’t blame her.) Skitter then leaps up on Mom’s bed, and snuggles as close to Mom as she can get—where she remains for the duration of our visits. During our last couple of visits, Mom has sort of forgotten Skitter was by her side. In fact, she almost ignored Skitter once Skitter got up on her bed—to the point that Suzanne and I have been extra worried about Mom’s state of mind. But when we visited Mom a few days ago, Mom was back to her old Skitter-petting self. They were inseparable. Whew! When it was time for us to leave, Skitter would not get off the bed, even when Mom did. Suzanne had to physically remove The Skit from Mom’s space.

Suzanne’s leg is a focal point of one of these photos for a real reason. I thought I should document Suzanne elevating her leg on Mom’s bed because her foot was swollen. She and Mom had a dandy time commiserating about the woes of their swollen feet. What a couple of exciting broads I was hanging out with! For the record, my feet don’t swell. Except for that time when I was 16 and discovered I was suddenly allergic to bee stings—and at the old Delta hospital, the nurses had to cut my new Nikes off my feet because all my appendages were swollen up like I was auditioning to be the Hulk in a movie. Or Popeye with his spinach-ed arms.

During our visit with Mom, we laughed so much that I can’t remember what silly thing Mom was laughing about so hard she covered her mouth as if pretending she didn’t say something irreverent. But isn’t that a great picture of Mom looking like the mischievous dame she is? She can say anything she wants, and she gets away with everything she says because she’s so Old Gangsta Old Lady about it. And also because what she says is usually both funny and dead-on about the topic being discussed. BTW Check out how Mom is not wearing her purple housecoat for the first time in a long while. And note her bigly flower ring and brooch. She was stylin.’ She says she couldn’t get her earrings on that day.

For my part, I wore my pig earrings for the visit because Mom likes to see them so much. I wore my bee socks for her, too. She mentioned many times how much she liked my brand spankin’ new bejeweled Bow Tie o’ the Day. Mom does love to see the bling! We took her some shrimp and some sugary treats, too. It was all for Mom. It always is.

FYI The weather is not looking good for our scheduled flight from SLC to Portland in the morning. To that news, I say, ” &*+($^#@!*^~#^@$#^^&!!!” That mess o’ symbols was my silent swearing. Rest assured, those words are not silent in my head! 😡

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A Visit With Mom, During Bruce Week: Part One

I wanted to spend a few hours with Mom before we left on our quick trip to Portland this week, so we jumped in Abra the Maverick over the weekend and drove to my beloved Deltabama. (To be honest, I think I love my hometown more than it loves me.) Mom is not just a cool person—she is a wonders-of-the-world vacation destination. Spending even a tiny amount of time with her is a rejuvenating experience, even though her mind is not as steady or accurate as it once was. She has one of those rare spirits that remains optimistic at all times. Her compassion and fun spills over onto those around her. It doesn’t matter who you are—Mom loves the real you. Mom has always been a come-as-you-are kind of woman. Oh, don’t be fooled: she sees your mistakes and imperfections. But she sees that you are so much more than your worst qualities. She loves you even when you struggle to be better. She loves you because you try to do better. I’ll write more about our visit in this afternoon’s post.

I’m busy getting ready for our Portland trip to see Bruce Springsteen in concert on Saturday. We’re supposed to fly out tomorrow, but SLC is about to be hit by a major snowstorm later today and tomorrow, and I’m betting our morning flight is going to be delayed or canceled. I’ll keep you updated. Must. Not. Miss. Bruce!