There and back again

The Saturday just past, I was given the opportunity to once again discover that kindness toward strangers still exists in our increasingly paranoid world.

I drove to Vancouver, British Columbia, for a book launch and signing. You may recall that one of my pieces of flash fiction, Hair of the Dog, is in print in The Best of Every Day Fiction 2008.

Kevin Shamel, another Pacific Northwest writer with stories in the book, rode along and we were having a swell time gabbing as we headed north.

Then, just south of the border, approaching Blaine, my car began to make strange noises. We limped into Blaine, the front of the X-Terra billowing smoke, and stopped at the Blaine Mini-Mart.

What Kevin and I know about automobile engines would only fill a very short story. Inside, I asked Judy if there was a repair shop that might be open Saturday. Minutes later, we were on the phone to Alley Auto Parts and Service, but there was no answer.

And then an angel spoke up. Her name was Marlene [thank you, Kevin], she was in the store visiting, had listened to our tale of woe and she offered to give us a lift to Alley Auto. And when I asked about the nearest car rental location, Marlene said that would be the Bellingham airport (thirty miles away).

"Don't worry," she said. "I can take you down there, too."

Long story shorter, we made it to Alley Auto, where Rich agreed to trailer the X-Terra to his shop and check it out, and then rolled down the interstate to Bellingham, where we rented a car, so that we could go on the Vancouver.

And we practically had to twist Marlene's arm to accept money for gasoline.

As if that weren't enough, Rich had the car ready to drive back to Seattle at noon on Sunday, when we rolled back through Blaine, and the repair costs were a fraction of what it would have cost me to tow the X-Terra south.

Thank you, Marlene. Thank you, Rich. Thank you, Judy. I cannot begin to tell you how much your unquestioning kindness meant to me.

Ain't it just like a human - redux

Have you seen the Coast Guard video of the New York City plane crash?

If you haven't, pop over to YouTube and watch it. It's not hard to find and it is amazing to watch.

I have said this before, but I don't think it can be said too often. Human beings so often respond with grace in times of emergency. It gives me hope for the world to read, or in this case watch, evidence of that fact.

Of course, it is a miracle that the pilot was able to ditch the jetliner in the Hudson and that it remained intact. Most of all, it was a miracle that everyone escaped the accident alive and whole.

But it is watching the human reactions that is an amazement to me.

Within seconds after the plane came to rest, passengers streamed from the exits, climbing onto the wings. And it is plain that they were doing so in an orderly fashion and that they were helping each other.

And in under two minutes (there's a timer on the Coast Guard traffic watch camera that caught the footage) boats began to show up along side the downed plane and their crews began to pull the airplane passengers to safety.

We are at our best when we aren't thinking about ourselves, aren't we?

Help! I have been cast adrift

My cell phone has given up the ghost.

I decided to catch a mid-afternoon nap today. When I set the phone upon the bookcase next to the bed, it was working fine, bright and chipper, and when I woke up it had slipped away into the void.

I feel disconnected; cast adrift. My cell is my life-line to the rest of the world, my answering machine, my alarm clock, my watch, my address book, my toy for aimlessly passing the minutes when I am waiting for a bus to arrive.

It is also the only telephone I have. Rachael has her cell phone, of course, but she is off, earning money, and we don't have a home phone (what the technophiles have convinced us to call a land-line).

I planned to make a hotel reservation tonight. That will have to wait. I planned to call my daughter in Ohio. That will have to wait. I planned to call for pizza delivery, too, and now I will have to settle for a toasted cheese sandwich.

Most of all, I will have to wait until tomorrow to hurry to the phone store and arm wrestle some eager young clerk into submission, so that I can get a replacement without spending my grandson's college fund. Unless, of course, the current model comes back to life.

Quick; what's the acronym for electronics cardiopulmonary resuscitation?

Weird weather

More strangeness.

It was near freezing last night and it began to snow about seven p.m. Our neighborhood had three inches of wet, heavy stuff by ten p.m. and the roads were miserable.

It tapered off around eleven p.m. and then the temperature began to rise and it began to rain. By nine this morning, it was forty degrees outside, the snow had been washed away and the sun was out.

At the moment, I'm watching the beginnings of a lovely sunset over the Cascades.

Go figure.

Looking into the new year

I stopped making New Year's resolutions a long time ago. Too much pressure; too much disappointment if (and when) I didn't make good on them. But ...

This year I have decided to set a couple of goals. What's the difference? I see resolutions as nebulous in nature. I will lose weight. I will stop smoking. I will stop telling awful jokes. All good ideas, even though I don't smoke, but no real way of measuring whether I have succeeded.

So, I am setting two health-related goals for 2009. First, to count my food intake and limit it to 2,000 calories per day. Second, to walk one mile per day, five days per week.

I will be sixty-two in three weeks. I was blessed with good genes and have never had to pay too much attention to my body. With just a little bit of help, it has always snapped back quickly from illness or injury.

But over the past two years, I have noticed that that ability to spring back has diminished. During that same period, my hair has gone almost totally to gray and my skin, tight and smooth when I moved to the Keys five years ago, has taking on a dappled appearance. I still look younger than my years, but strangers don't react with as much surprise as I used to see when I tell them my age.

So, I have decided to take a more active interest in my health. Just how big an effect it will have on my day-to-day well-being is difficult to determine right now. We shall see.

I've set some goals for my writing, too. If you're interested in the numbers there, check them out at my writing blog, A Moving Line.

As to my health goals, I'll be doing regular posts here.

Have an exceptional new year!