September 30, 2020: Betty and Camelia -

 

This week was my last trip to the river campground for the year, and I sat on the bank the last morning, enjoying the sunrise, and feeling nostalgic that when the weather turns, I’ll be seeing fewer people (outside! -- I have a complex belief system, and I believe in seeing a few people, sometimes, outside).

Unexpectedly, I gained a companion, an older woman with binoculars, searching the far bank.  "Sorry to startle you," she said, "I'm trying to see Rick."

I hadn't met her before. I told her I too was married to a fisherman named Rick, but mine was a couple of miles upstream. She introduced herself, and said she was Betty, and asked if by chance I was Betty as well?

I said YES, that’s amazing! I am also Betty! But she didn't buy it. People can be so skeptical. She had a wonderful laugh.

Betty looked great, ready for the day. I, in contrast, was in my pajamas and wild grey bed-head hair. I hadn’t expected any company on the river bank at dawn. It’s not a spot where people fish.

As soon as we said where we each lived, we knew that she was from a red part of Washington and I from a blue part of Oregon. But honestly, you could have pegged us by the hair alone. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in my experience, liberal women are rocking the silver hair more than their conservative sisters, these days.

Betty and I moaned about all the hair-related aspects of COVID (headbands, clips, dyeing it yourself (Betty), letting it get long), and laughed about how we had quit caring about getting ourselves properly spruced up to go to the store. Betty used to do some serious sprucing, but had given up her former one-hour morning prep, including makeup and straightening her hair with one of those flat iron things. Nowadays, she just scrunches some mouse in there. 

I had given up my minimalist ten-minute prep, aka "You can't go to the store unless you have showered." Now I figure, with a mask, my glasses, and a hat, nobody can see me at all. I’m invisible, or at least well disguised. So I roll out of bed and get to the store during old-folks hour, and then I’m done for the day!

I told her she not only looked great with her moussed hair, she looked young and fashionable. And maybe this year straightening it was no longer in vogue anyway. She told me (she was trying hard to be complimentary) that I had a youthful figure. Hahaha. I think she was just throwing out random compliments, but perhaps I looked particularly perky in my pjs.

Anyway, we commiserated about things we had in common - not seeing our faraway families enough, not having gone on vacations to other lands this summer, and so forth.  But no matter where we turned, we kept stumbling onto the pandemic. At last she said she was feeling somewhat embarrassed about it. We had four per cent of the world's population, and 20% of the world's cases. She knew the numbers.

Yes, I said, we handled it badly. She said well, her Rick felt our culture was the reason --  we are just so individualistic. I said some decent leadership would have helped, getting enough PPE and a clear message about masks, which actually work.

This allowed her to look at me, in my maskless state, and flap her own mask (which was down around her neck). I yelped. “But we're OUTSIDE! OUTSIDE is okay! I believe in outside! And we're fifteen feet apart! And there’s a breeze!” (I did not yelp, "Go AWAY, if you're going to give me the eyebrow!") She gave me the eyebrow.

The she went off to find her Rick, and a while later, she brought him by to meet me. He was jovial.

The campground is 2 hours east of Portland, well outside the anarchist jurisdiction. A couple of weeks ago, I looked up from reading and saw that someone was walking around my car. I popped out of my comfy camp chair to say hi, and it was the park ranger, making sure I'd paid my fees. He observed that I had an Elizabeth Warren bumper sticker. (Hmm. I ordered a BIDEN/HARRIS bumper sticker a while ago. Where is it?)

I said Yes, I do! Big smile. (I also had my Black Lives Matter placard in the window, but he didn't mention that. I was ready to say Yes, I do, with a big smile!)

He said "You know who I'm excited about? Camelia Harris!"  Then he went on at some length about “Camelia.” I already knew most of what he wanted to tell me, and I knew how to pronounce Kamala, but I didn’t correct him. I just nodded enthusiastically. He’s going to vote Democratic, and I figured he needed to share his excitement with somebody.