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Saturday, April 15, 2000
One year ago: Nurturing
Two years ago: Spinning
Jack had a lot of stuff that he wanted to do today: rearranging furniture and I don't know what all. But when it got right down to it, he decided that what we should do was to go up to his storage unit, clear it out, and close it down. Storage units can be traps for those of us who accumulate stuff -- the monthly fees can make the objects you store very expensive before you know it.
We took Jack's flatbed trailer and drove to the north end of town. The main item we needed to get was Jack's motorcycle. This isn't the one he bought for the two of us to ride, but another one that had been sitting in a shed in his back yard back in Redmond, for all the time I've known him. We moved a few things out of the storage compartment, then rolled the bike outside. Jack gave me strict intstructions: "Stay away from the front end of the trailer, but when I roll the bike up there, put the pin in quickly." He meant through the front part of the trailer. I was able to handle this successfully, without getting my fingers pinched.
Jack used the yellow tiedown straps to fasten the bike to the trailer. I wondered if it would be better to lay the bike down, but Jack said it wouldn't be good that way. We got all the other random objects put in the back of the blazer, and set off.
I was nervous about the stability of the bike, but it held up ok while we made a few other stops, at the computer store and so on. We did tighten up the straps at one stop. We were driving down a back road, feeling pretty good about the whole project, when I looked in the mirror. "Jack, the bike! It's down!"
Thank heaven we weren't on the highway. The bike had shifted in the straps and had fallen over flat on the trailer. Jack pulled over and worked on tying it down again. I helped by working the brake lever when asked, and sitting on the bike to compress the springs. We had no further incidents as we drove it home, then left the bike on the trailer. Jack thinks he'll park the trailer someplace visible and sell the blessed thing. What an experience! But we brushed through it ok.
* * * * * * * *
Jack had been waiting to find out abot a reading party being held tonight, in Vancouver BC. He got voice mail from Paul, who was the coordinator behind this thing. Sure, we should come. But we should bring something to read. Jack had a piece he'd written, and I decided to bring a journal entry and something by Robert Benchley. These needed to be copied to a floppy disk; we'd read them off the laptop. Jack needed to bring the laptop anyway, because he was on call for work.
Jack asked me if I would drive, but I was too nervous to drive across the border, especially when I couldn't find my car registration! So Jack drove. But we started out in his minivan, then a block away he realized that he was missing the front license plate (it's inside the van; the frame is broken). We had to use the other car, but it still had the trailer attached, with the motorcycle!
All these delays were frazzling Jack's nerves, since this was the type of event where you are supposed to be there at a certain time, and we were starting very late. We decided to press on, anyway. McDonalds dinner on the way, and a twenty-minute delay at the border.
I was entertained by the new scenery, since we were soon farther north than I'd been before. We got to Vancouver, where Jack has been many times, but the directions we'd gotten via voice mail were a bit confusing. We didn't run into the main drag like Jack had been expecting to. Instead, we were speeding across town down Marine Drive. When we decided to get a map or ask for directions, we were suddenly in a light industrial neighborhood with no gas stations or convenience stores to be found. Jack was getting upset! Suddenly we were on a bridge over the river, where we didn't want to go at all!
Jack was feeling the pressure -- we didn't want to be late! We got turned around and retraced our route, almost all the way to where we'd exited the highway. We got a map and figured out where we went wrong, and decided to proceed. We'd come this far!
I did get a good impression of Vancouver, although they should have built a few highways actually in the city. We had to drive a long way on arterial roads.
Finally we found the house where the reading party was being held. Paul Carpentier was the organizer, but it wasn't his house, since he's a Bellingham person. Someone was already reading, so we tiptoed in and hung out in the doorway. We managed to sit down later, between stories.
Most people were reading selections from books, rather than something written by themselves. Some really good stories, including one by Stanislaw Lem. I especially liked the play about Satan and a shoe seller.
The capper frustration of the evening -- Jack tried to log in to the laptop, and he couldn't without being connected to a network! Someone had changed the settings. So we couldn't read, after all! And sitting there for such a long time, not feeling free to get up and walk around except between selections, was wearing after a while. I felt restricted, pinned down.
So we were ready to go after the last person finished reading. But our adventures weren't over yet! somehow we took the wrong ramp when leaving town, ended up by the airport, then couldn't find our way back to the main road! On and on, endless blocks of suburbia all the same, until we got to the end of a town that was surrounded by water. Finally we found a seven eleven, bought another map, and got our bearings.
There was no wait at the border going south, since it was about two in the morning. Both Jack and I were exhausted! I told Jack that while I don't think anyone likes feeling lost, it seems to bother him more than most people. He agreed. "It's a control thing!"
Even though the evening had been full of problems, frustrations and irritations, I liked the idea of the reading party, and I liked parts of what I heard. I felt that, if we did it again, I'd be comfortable contributing. I don't know if we'll try again -- it's up to Jack!
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