June 19, 2022: Getting Off Easy -

It’s Juneteenth, Father’s Day, and Portland Pride today, plus there was a Thorns game at the stadium, so everything was hopping, for a Sunday. I was headed to church, but wasn’t singing in summer choir, so I’d slept in, and was cutting it close.

I’d been stumped getting dressed, as I was looking for Pride regalia, but then I remembered that my kid told me the mushroom hoodie (which she calls my Fun Guy top) was sufficiently multi-colored to be a Pride outfit. (This was wise of her, because my alternative was stealing something of hers.)

And then I got to my car. The door was open, and the car had been well rifled. The contents of the glove box, and a pile of back seat errata, were all on the driver’s seat.

Okay!

No visible damage, suggesting that they didn’t have to break in. I must have left it unlocked. I shoveled everything over to the passenger side, promising myself I’d clean it up later, and took off.

And the Hawthorne Bridge went up, just as I reached mid-span.

Okay!

No one would care if I was late. I got out and watched the ship pass underneath. Getting out in the middle of the Hawthorne, with its expanded metal grid that lets you see all the way down to the river, is always a thrill, and right now, with the Willamette running extra-high, it’s even better. Nice morning, might as well enjoy it.

And eventually the bridge came back down, and off we went, and I knew I’d lost out on the church parking lot, but I didn’t figure on the roads closed around the stadium, so I parked way far away, was striding busily along and somebody started a mic check that filled the whole neighborhood, Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing. Happy Juneteenth! What an amazing voice! Wouldn’t have gotten to hear HER if I hadn’t been running late!

And when I did finally get in the door, who should be our guest preacher but the Reverend Lenny Duncan, resplendent in Black Power stole and gold sequins, blowing the roof right off the cathedral. Woohoo! Great morning! Followed by a fine rehearsal, prepping for the choir tour to England this summer.

Came home, cleaned the car. As far as I can tell, they took nothing. My registration is there. They left my CDs, some of which are valuable antiques (joke). They left this sparkly bracelet, which I can’t recall, and which upped my Pride-worthiness quite a bit. They unearthed my old Latin tests and flash cards, stacking them in a neat pile. 

Honestly, all they did was make it abundantly clear that the car needed a good cleaning. So I went to the car wash, my personal amusement park.

The car wash! Neon colors, flashing lights, loud splooshing noises, big, whirring soap brushes. I got to go to the car wash! Extra-fine day!

Yes, I am in a bizarrely good mood.

I have tried to figure out why, and I think it’s a combination of things. There’s a new baby in my family of choice. I spoke to a friend I rarely get to speak to, and tomorrow I’ll see another friend who hasn’t been in town for years. We had a visit from our kid, and I’ll see her and her family again next month, before that choir tour. And I am vastly energized by the January 6^th hearings. If you aren’t, I accept that, but they work for me.

(By way of strange analogy: I had exactly one Truly Terrible Boyfriend, the Donald Trump of Boyfriends, if you will. That bad. A zillion years later, I was at Back to School Night at my kid’s school, and the French teacher mentioned where she had gone to high school. Same tiny high school as Terrible Boyfriend, and she looked to be about my age.

In the five minutes between our mini-visit to French and our mini-visit to the next class, I went up to said French teacher. I said I knew someone who had gone to that same high school, and I mentioned Terrible Boyfriend’s Sister. We both agreed Sister was delightful. Then one of us - and I don’t even know who - said, “I made the mistake of dating her brother.” And the other one said, “I did, too.”

And then we just looked at each other.  

And I said, “So. How was that for YOU?” and she said, “I have never felt so degraded in my life.”  And my kid’s French teacher and I threw our arms around each other’s necks, right there in the hall, and said YES! THAT SUCKED!!

Hearing a bunch of Republican lawyers say that Trump and his crime buddies were breaking the law makes me happy in much the same way. I can’t explain it, but it does.)

Also, another nice thing happened. I will preface this by saying that yesterday, a painter friend posted a picture of herself and her husband of 49 years celebrating their anniversary. And one of her friends commented, “You two look so lifelike!”

I do not know the person who said “lifelike.” I don’t know if she was kidding, or tone-deaf, or not a native speaker. But also yesterday, a friend of mine posted a video on Instagram, and I made a comment in which I WAS kidding, and then at 1 am I woke up and thought: ARGH, That was a humor fail. So I wrote her an apology, and this morning she wrote back saying she had known me long enough by now to know I meant no harm. Made my day, honestly.  Felt just like grace.

Anyway, in celebration of having once again gotten off easy, with the car and the humor fail, and the bridge going up, and all of it, I’m sending a few bucks to the Bail Project, on Juneteenth and Father’s Day. (Cash bail is a disaster for poor people, who end up incarcerated without trial. Here’s the highly problematic first section of the 13^th Amendment: 

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.) 

May my few bucks become a bit of grace for someone.