Greetings from the motherland

When you are as large as I am (six feet, two inches and well over two hundred pounds) you get used to folks looking.

There are days, though, that I feel like a normal-sized person, living in a land overrun by little people.

I know there are other women out there who are my size; the clothing manufacturers don't make all those blouses and slacks and sweaters just for me. But I don't often see those other women.

I saw one yesterday.

She strolled toward me from around a corner in downtown Seattle; taller than me by a couple of inches but not carrying the weight I do. Not carrying my sixty-two years, either. Even so, she had some heft to her.

She was wearing a police uniform. That didn't surprise me; a lot of large women are drawn to law enforcement. I learned that while working as a corrections officer in Florida.

I caught her eye as we passed. If I had had a sword, I would have rattled it upon my shield in greeting. Instead, I smiled and dipped my chin. She cocked one eyebrow and returned the smile.

Two Amazons, in passing; silently saying, "I see you."

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?

Enjoy the holiday

Time once again to stuff our faces and then sit in front of the television in a stupor.

Is it coincidence that a turkey's call is "gobble, gobble"?

I think not.

Going up

If you've never done this, as an experiment, try it.

Find an elevator system that gets lots of use. Wait for a car full of people, get in and then stand in the front of the car, with your back to the doors.

Watch how nervous the other passengers get. Most of them won't even realize why they are upset, but I guarantee you will see the symptoms. Lots of eye movement. Shoulder and arm twitches. Foot shuffling.

Now turn it up a notch. Stare at someone; better yet, look from person to person, studying them. You might get a verbal reaction on this one, from a polite "May I help you?" to an aggressive "What are you looking at?"

Ramp it up some more. Spout nonsense. Don't talk directly to anyone, just talk. Loudly. People will be jumping off the elevator at the next opportunity, even if it isn't their floor.

You are violating elevator etiquette: move to the back; face forward; don't look at anyone else; don't talk, unless it's to someone you know, and then speak in hushed tones.

Unless you have never been on an elevator in your life, you know the rules as well as I do, but consider this. When did you learn them? Who taught them to you? Only the Shadow knows for sure, but there is a science devoted to the study of such things.

It's called Proxemics and it examines how people perceive and use space, alone or in groups, particularly tight spaces, such as an elevator. Watch for the signs the next time you're on an elevator.

It may not be polite to break those unwritten rules, but it sure is fun!

The election -- in passing

My grandpa used to say that time moves along.

My son called from Ohio today. We chatted about this and that, mostly about movies and writing, and then he mentioned how excited Dylan, my grandson, is about our new president elect.

"He went to the polls with me yesterday," my son said. "I let him push the button."

He said they had campaigned for Obama, too.

"We like what he stands for, what he says," my son said. "And he's only seventeen years older than I am."

And I remembered how excited I was, sixteen years ago, when I discovered that Bill Clinton and I were only months apart in age; finally, a president I could relate to.

Grandpa was right.

Like a fine wine

I called a friend in Florida this morning. Helen and I are of an age, and we both like to rattle on, so we were on the phone for a couple of hours; God bless unlimited dialing and roll-over minutes!

The conversation rambled, as I said, we both like to talk, but it kept coming around to the issue of age. At sixty-two, we are both starting to experience more than the normal aches and pains of life; Helen is having some mobility problems, due to her knees, and the eye doctor told me last week I am showing the first signs of cataracts. Bummer.

But one of the things that we spoke of is the idea of three ages. Maybe you've heard the theory, maybe not. It suggests that there are three ways of measuring a person's age: chronological, physiological and intellectual.

Chronological age is the easy one; it's the measure of how long it has been since we were born.

Physiological age is a little more complicated, but still easy to touch; it's how old our body says we are. We've all had the experience, I am certain. We see someone we haven't seen for a time and say, sometimes just to ourselves, "She (or he) looks so old!" The opposite is true, too; some people just age well, like a fine wine.

Intellectual age is the sticky one.

Growing up, we all heard our parents or grandparents or teachers say, "Act your age!" We talk about the Peter Pan syndrome or say that some one is young at heart.

There's an apocryphal story, usually attributed to Charles Addams, creator of the Addams Family, or scifi/horror author Robert Bloch, which says, "I have the heart of a teenager -- in a large jar on the top shelf of my bedroom closet."

Wherever his heart was, my grandfather used to say, "You're only as old as you think you are." I think he was right. I know it puzzles me why baretenders serve me these days without asking for proof of age.

I'm it

I have been tagged. My friend, Kevin, over at Shameless Stuff ask me to play the game, and so I will.

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. Write 6 random things/unspectacular quirks about yourself
4. Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them
5. Let each person you have tagged know by leaving a comment on their blog
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is posted.

Here is my list:

1. A lot of people suffer from Acrophobia, which is a fear of high places. I suffer from Catapedaphobia, the fear of jumping from high places. Anything above nine floors and my feet and legs tingle; anticipating the mad rush to the edge.

2. My favorite color is red. Every automobile I have ever owned has been red. My favorite was the 1996 5.0-liter Mustang. It would get up and run. I sold it to pay for the move to the Florida Keys; that was a mistake.

3. I worked as a comic and improvisational performer for five years, while living in Ohio. It is such a rush; talking to strangers and not knowing what you’re going to say next.

4. I am left handed, but swing sticks (softball bat, golf club, tennis racket, and such) right-handed.

5. The movie Jaws upset me so much that even now, almost thirty years later, I will not swim in the ocean. What a bummer that was; living in the Keys.

6. I am hopelessly addicted to red cinnamon gummee bears. You know; the giant ones that are nothing but sugar and cinnamon and red dye number five and stick to your teeth worse than peanut butter.

Kevin, I'm sorry; Everyone that participated used up all the folks I know who blog, so I wasn't able to pass it on. Even so, thanks for asking me to play: it was fun and painless.

Introducing Lilly

My grandson, Dylan, has a new dog. In e-mail yesterday, my son said:

Wanted to share these photos of our new dog, Lilly.

With Schatzie gone, we've tried to get back to normal as soon as possible and after a couple of days decided to start searching for a new family companion.

We found Lilly on a website and picked her up today just before lunch. Dylan is so excited, he can barely contain himself.

Life goes on; which is, after all, as it should be.

A Bojangles day

He danced for those at minstrel shows and county fairs
throughout the south
He spoke through tears of 15 years how his dog and him
traveled about
The dog up and died, he up and died
And after 20 years he still grieves

-- Mr. Bojangles by Jerry Jeff Walker

My son called last night from Ohio. There were tears hiding at the edges of his voice, but they stayed there; he doesn't like for me to hear him cry.

"I had to put Schatzie to sleep," he said. "The vet said she was just old, that there wasn't any more he could do for her."

In our family, "put to sleep" is a euphemism for euthanasia. Schatzie was a German Shepard that has been an important part of my son's life since high school. He was thirty this year.

And then, this morning, my daughter called to talk about it. She said her brother took it hard, but she was more concerned about my grandson, Dylan, who is nine and has never known a moment when Schatzie wasn't there. It is the first time he has had to deal with the death of a loved one.

I know there are people who will say, "It was just a dog." But I come from a family of dog lovers; I can't remember a time, growing up (and then growing older), when there wasn't a dog lolling around the house somewhere and they have always been as much a part of the family as anyone else.

As we grow older, we become, if not used to the idea, at least inured to the thought of the loss of a pet. My mother used to say that folks get hard-hearted; maybe so, until we have to witness such a loss through the eyes of a child.

So I cried this morning, and said a prayer for Dylan, may he never grow so hard-hearted that a death like this means nothing to him. And I prayed for Schatzie, too. She was a boon companion; may she rest in peace.

Shall I show you to the cash register?

Rachael works as a security officer at a book store; it's one of the big chains, but I won't mention names. She is not an employee of the store, but rather a company that provides security officers.

She came home upset the other night because she had had a run-in with a loss-prevention specialist for the chain. Here's the weird thing; the problem wasn't that Rachael wasn't doing her job, she was chewed out for doing her job too well.

I need to tell you two things before I finish this. First, Rachael worked as a corrections officer, when we lived in the Florida Keys, so she's a fair hand at spotting suspicious behavior. Second, she's been at this store since last November, and in those eight months, her store has gone from having a close-to-average loss rate to having the lowest in the Seattle area.

So, this "specialist" came into the store and headed for music and movies, which is a separate section. She set off the alarm, when she exited a short time later, with five DVDs, and so Rachael, informed her, politely, that all DVD and CD purchases had to be paid for at the music-and-movies register.

A short time later, she walked out without paying for two more DVDs; Rachael followed, at a distance, and watched her drop the cassettes into a tote bag tucked back into a corner. When she moved away, Rachael checked out the tote and found not only the DVDs, but a handful of paperback books and a stack of Manga [Japanese graphic novels].

While Rachael was checking the stash, the woman returned. Rachael asked if the tote was hers and the woman said it was, and then revealed that she worked for the chain as a loss prevention specialist. During the subsequent conversation, she revealed that she had walked out of three other stores that night -- with full bags and without getting caught.

And then, instead of offer congratulations for catching her, she chided Rachael for not doing her "real" job.

"You're supposed to be at the door, greeting people, not walking around the store," she said. "A greeting is our best tactic against theft."

Say what? I always thought the best tactic against theft was to keep thieves away from the merchandise; second best is catching them in the act.

One bright note in all this. The store manager, who was not working the night all this happened, spoke with Rachael the next day, and told her he wanted her to keep doing just what she has been doing.

It's nice to know one member of the company's management team has some sense.

Nickels and dimed

It would appear that Mr. McGuire was wrong.

He was that fellow, in The Graduate, who wanted to offer young Benjamin Braddock a single word of advice, claiming it was the wave of the future. That word was plastics.

It's a word we all have heard with regulatrity, for decades now, every time we go to the grocery store. You know. "Paper or plastic?" Seattle's Mayor Nickels wants us to start paying for the privilege to ask for plastic bags. He wants to get rid of those plastic foam containers most carry-out food comes in, too, and the plastic forks and knives and duck sauce packets.

The mayor's proposal, which is before city council now, and is expected to pass without difficulty, would ban foam containers at restaurants and grocery stores by 2010 and would impose a surcharge for the disposable plastic bags used at groceries, convenience stores and drug stores.

The mayor says it's intent is to better manage Seattle's impact upon the environment. Maybe he's right. I have seen studies that claim more than a billion single-use plastic bags go out the door of stores across the country every day.

And it is estimated that it will take one thousand years for a plastic bag to weather away. [Evil me; when I heard that, I couldn't help but picture some poor soul, sitting in a landfill, watching a bag full of who knows what, and putting a mark on a calendar for each day that passes.]

So, once the proposal becomes law, unless you take your own non-disposable bags to the market, you will pay twenty cents for each bag filled. Foam containers will be banned January 1, 2009, with restaurants still allowed to use plastic containers and utensils. Plastics will be verboten July 1, 2010, with carry-out in compostable containers only. A dime more for a dinner box; a nickel for cups.

Grocery-store and restaurant associations oppose the bag fee, of course, saying that now is not the time to add to consumer grocery bills. They are looking at their bottom line, too.

We all do, don't we? And we will get used to lugging our own bags to the grocery store, and buying carry-out a little less, even though we may complaint about it at first. Remember when the oil companies switched over to self-service pumps?

It's part of what it means to be human; we adapt. Even Mr. McGuire is probably handing out different advice these days. I wonder what his one word might be.

Overheard on the bus

It was after peak hours and, of the handful of folks on the Metro Transit bus, I was the only one close enough the hear the muted conversation between the driver and the woman on the curb.

"I'm trying to get home," she said.

"Where's home?" the driver asked. She named a Seattle neighborhood.

"I go there," the driver said. "C'mon." She didn't move.

"Tomorrow is payday," she said. "I don't have the fare." Both were silent for an instant; finally, the driver spoke.

"I can't tell you it's okay. If there's a supervisor on-board, I'll lose my job."

"I understand," she said. She started to turn away.

"Wait," the driver said. Very quiet now. "I'm not supposed to try to throw anyone off, if they get on without paying; but you've got to decide now."

"Thank you," she said. She climbed the entry steps.

"Fare?" the drive said, when she passed. Reading the required script.

The woman didn't slow, just shuffled to a seat. She was thirty-five, maybe forty, and a little worn around the edges; there was no ring on her left hand and the weight of it all seemed to ride on her shoulders. She was crying, when she settled into the seat across the aisle, clutching her tote.

I had no paper money. Our budget being what it is, I was riding on a bus pass myself, but I rummaged through my purse and managed to shake loose enough change to cover the fare. I showed her the coins in my hand, as I stood and made my way forward.

"It's for her," I said, as I dropped the money into the fare box.

"Thank you," the driver said. Whispering. The woman didn't say anything when I returned to my seat. She didn't have to; everything I needed to hear was welled up in her eyes.

Maybe you've already figured that I hadn't told the driver the whole truth; it wasn't just for her, although God knows she needed the little bit of relief I was able to offer. I did it for the driver, too, for the bit of kindness, the chance taken, and I did it for myself, so that I could look in the mirror when I got home.

Jimmy and the Missus

“Jimmy! Take a picture of that!”

The Missus had a voice to set the world on edge; a grating sound day-old coffee might make, if it could. She and Jimmy had stopped at Eaton Street, in downtown Key West, in the midst of a stroll past the bars and boutiques along Duval Street.

“Take a picture, Jimmy!” The Missus said. It was more command than request.

She was an itty bitty woman, for such a voice, of a height to confound those signs at amusement parks that read, ‘You must be this tall to ride this ride’, and if she ever had weighed more than ninety pounds, it couldn’t have been for more than fifteen minutes. The Missus compensated for her lack of stature by wrapping herself in garments that demanded attention.

An over-sized shirt, banana yellow, hung to mid-thigh, all but covering lemon Capri pants. Gold jewelry dripped from her ears and fingers, and her face was almost hidden by a pair of bronzed sunglasses. The ensemble was completed by straw sandals and a visor as lemon-yellow as her pants. A canvas purse, salt-white to match her lacquered hair, hung from her right shoulder and looked to weigh as much as she did.

“Picture of what?” Jimmy asked.

He wasn’t much taller than The Missus and it was clear he never skipped a meal. Meaty arms and heavy-hammed legs. Stubby sausage fingers. A melon belly, round and firm enough to bounce him back upon his feet, should he fall.

His head was covered by a Panama hat and his eyes were hidden by ink-dark shades clipped onto prescription lens. His outfit was as bright as hers, but less coordinated. Kelly green shorts. Lime green plastic sandals and white athletic socks. An islands shirt, orange as the sunset seen from Mallory Square and covered with pink flamingos in such contortions you could almost hear the Red Queen shouting.

“The silver man, Jimmy,” The Missus said. She was pointing now, commanding her army of one. “The fellow that looks like a statue!”

Jimmy followed orders; he brought one of those little digital cameras up to his eye and pointed it toward the nearby street performer. The silver man struck a statuesque pose, hoping for a large tip, no doubt.

After the Kodak moment, The Missus jerked Jimmy’s hands toward her, inspecting the image he had captured. She nodded acceptance and they resumed their stroll. The rest of him didn’t move, but the silver man’s eyes followed them, pleading. No luck. Jimmy’s thick hands were full of camera and The Missus didn’t even glance toward her purse.

“Jimmy, do you suppose we should look for Tom and Doreen?” she said. “Tom has the car keys.” Jimmy sighed, as he slipped the camera into his pocket.

“They ain’t going to leave us,” he said. “Besides, it’s only been twenty minutes.”

“But what if something happens to them?”

“Like what?”

“God only knows! What if Tom has too many beers and picks a fight; you know how he is when he drinks.”

“You just got to think of troubles.”

“Well, you never do! What if something happens to one of them? What if we’re stuck here because Tom goes to jail or Doreen winds up in the hospital? Have you thought of that?”

If he had, he didn’t say. Instead, he stopped outside one of the tee-shirt shops that seem to sprout on Duval Street, between all the bars, like weeds blown over from the neighbor’s lawn. One stubby finger tapped against the glass.

“Lookee there! Don’t that beat all!”

The window was filled with white tees imprinted with bumper-sticker humor. I’m 18 years old—with 40 years experience. Look at my face because my tits are blind. My liver doesn’t love me anymore. And the one every shop carried, the one city officials wished wasn’t on display anywhere, because it was close enough to the truth to be painful. I got Duval-faced on Shit Street. The Missus grimaced.

“Jimmy, you can’t buy one of those! If you do, it goes right into the trash when we get home!” Jimmy tilted his head and glanced at her from the corner of his eye.

“Didn’t plan to,” he said. “But I can look, can’t I?” She sniffed, as if to determine if the scent of her disapproval was strong enough.

“That’s all you better do, Mister!”

“Listen here, Missus,” he said. He was looking at her full-on now. “You’re the one needed to see Key West. You’re the one wanted to drive all the way down here from Orlando. You’re the one that had to have Tom and Doreen come along, and made Tom rent that gas-guzzler. Just you remember that.”

His voice never rose, but the pink in her cheeks did. He turned back to the window and they stood in silence for a time. At last, she lifted one sculpted fingernail to the glass.

“That one is funny, isn’t it?” she said.

The bitter-coffee whine was more palatable, sugared and creamed by whatever had flowed between them. Jimmy nodded; he tapped the plate glass once more.

“Yep,” he said. “And that one there makes me laugh, too.” She snickered and clasped her hands between her breasts, as if to offer up a prayer.

“Oh, yes! Take a picture of that, Jimmy,” she said. “Take a picture!”

No honor among thieves

There was some excitement in West Seattle yesterday morning.

Just after ten a.m., a fellow wearing a long, shaggy wig and a surgical mask, entered a Wells Fargo Bank branch on California Avenue, a couple of miles from our apartment. He waved a gun around, forced everyone to the floor and helped himself to the usual “undisclosed amount of cash”.

A Jeep Cherokee was waiting out front, engine running and a get-away driver behind the wheel. The gunman ran from the bank, hopped in the Jeep and they sped away, just as a dye-pack exploded inside the Jeep, but Seattle police soon spotted them headed east.

There was a chase across the West Seattle Bridge, through Capitol Hill and into downtown Seattle, but it ended at First Avenue and Spring Street, where police surrounded the vehicle and, during an exchange of gunfire, shot the robber in the neck.

What about the driver, you ask? Well, he and his buddy might have gotten away, but halfway through the chase, the driver decided he had had enough. He stopped the car, jumped out and made a mad dash into the neighborhood. The robber lost precious time, sliding behind the wheel, restarting the Jeep and driving on.

Police chased the driver down on foot; the robber, sans wig and surgical mask, is in the hospital in critical condition. If he survives, he may want to reconsider the old adage.

If you want something done right, do it yourself.

Ain't it just like a human

Kris Kristofferson wrote this:

The scene was a small roadside café;
The waitress was sweepin’ the floor.
Two truck drivers drinkin’ their coffee
And two Okie kids by the door.

“How much are them candies?” they asked her.
“How much have you got?” she replied.
“We’ve only a penny between us.”
“Them’s two for a penny,” she lied.

One truck driver called to the waitress,
After the kids went outside.
“Them candies ain’t two for a penny.”
“So what’s it to you?” she replied.
In silence they finished their coffee,
Got up and nodded goodbye.
She called, “Hey, you left too much money.”
“So what’s it to you?” they replied.

And the daylight grew heavy with thunder,
And the smell of the rain on the wind.
Ain’t it just like a human?
Here comes that rainbow again.

Some days, I despair when I read the headlines. Take this one, for example, from the morning edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Two women hurt in downtown parking lot brawl.

Here’s what the P.I. reporter said: “Witnesses told police a man driving a silver Honda tried to cut off the woman in the Bank of America Plaza garage. The woman started honking and pulled forward to stop him from cutting in front of her. The man then jumped out of his car, pulled the woman from her car, pushed her to the ground and repeatedly kicked her in the head, according to the report.”

But right next to it was this headline: Neighbors come to rescue in raging fire that kills three.

According to the story, a fire broke out just after midnight this morning at an eight-unit apartment building in Burien, south of Seattle. Three people died in the blaze, but others were saved due to the efforts of neighbors.

One man dialed 911, grabbed a big rock and ran across the street -- shouting "Get back! Get back" – to break the glass of a sliding door. Another fellow ran from window to window, pounding and calling to people to come out. Others helped folks make their way away from the building, carrying children and supporting older residents.

Ain’t it just like a human.

Mama's slide

Monday and Tuesday are Rachael's days off and so those two day have become our weekend.

Last night, we ate puerco asado at a Cuban restaurant, and the hostess, with her Havana Spanish, reminded me of a woman I knew, once upon a time, in the Florida Keys.

Her name was Elena and she had come to the Keys from Havana, with a short stop in Miami's Little Havana. The experts say that cultural immersion is the best way to learn a second language. Want to become fluent in conversational French? Live a year in Montreal. Buy groceries at a neighborhood store where checkout clerks only speak French; Read Le Journal de Montreal for news and watch Peter Falk mutter, in dubbed French, through a Columbo rerun on CFCM Channel Four. You learn through necessity; sink or swim.

I watched Elena learn English that way during the first months of her year-long stay at Monroe County Detention Center in Key West, where I worked as a corrections officer. As duty officer in Bravo unit during her first week there, I watched her struggle with the language barrier; watched her frustration well into tears. I offered tissue and told her, in my broken Spanish, to have patience. Six weeks later, I was back in Bravo again, and when I came on duty, Elena trotted toward me.

"Off-i-cer," she said. "How are you?"

"I'm fine," I said. "How are you?"

"I am good. Thank you."

I could still hear Havana in her voice, but her words were English. Elena was a quick learner; Three months after arriving in Bravo, she became head trusty, in charge of a team of four, who received certain liberties in exchange for serving meals and cleaning the common areas. One afternoon, Elena came to me with a request.

"In the hall. The metal, it needs cleaned."

She was referring to an aluminum floor strip in the vestibule outside the unit, where trusties parked food carts following meals. I checked and agreed; the grooved metal needed cleaning.

"After lock down," I said. "You and I will work on it."

Five p.m. found Bravo's other residents behind secured doors and the two of us in the vestibule. Elena was armed with a mop, buckets and a green abrasive scrub pad. After the final mopping, she found spots not up to her standards, so she bent at the waist and began to polish with the green pad. She was almost done when her spread feet slipped on the still damp floor and her bottom began a descent to the tile.

I'm not certain who was more startled, her or me; it ended too soon for either of us to react. Elena just had time to glance at me, her eyes wide and her mouth a perfect 'O', before she plopped the final few inches to the floor, performing a split so perfect it would have made a gymnast proud.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

Her eyes were filling with tears; I was certain she was injured, then she laughed and I saw that all that had been injured was her pride. At first, she made little snorts, through her nose, but that dropped into full-bellied giggling. It was contagious. I couldn't hide a snicker as I pulled her to her feet. Her face was pink, but her eyes were bright and a little wild.

"Oh, boy," she said, her English still intact. "That was some surprise."

Then she looked at me. Appraising. Considering how to recapture her lost dignity. She shook a finger at me. Playfully. Slyly.

"Don't you tell no one, okay?" she said. "Don't you tell no one at all!"

And so, I held my tongue; at least until Elena's stay was complete and she returned to the world, mistress of two languages.

Well met on high

Rachael and I have only been in Seattle since last Halloween, so we still play tourist now and again; yesterday we took the elevator to the top of the Space Needle. The view was fantastic, but the coolest thing that happened had nothing to do with what we could see.

I don't care for heights and avoid edges anytime I get higher than thirty feet; the observation deck at the Needle sets at a 1/10th mile. So, there we were, doing a 360-degree stroll around that deck, and I was as far away from the edge as I could get, even though it has a waist-high rail and cable mesh above that.

We were walking counter-clockwise and I was trailing my left hand along the inside wall; just to feel attached, you know? And a husband and wife, Japanese tourists, came at us, headed clockwise. She was all over the place, pointing and talking 80 miles per hour in Japanese and taking pictures, but he was trailing his right hand along the inside wall and looking a little green. I suspect my face was the same shade.

Our eyes met and we each recognized a kindred soul; He didn't speak English and I don't speak Japanese, but I pointed to the rail and shuddered and he nodded; we both grinned and took our fingers away from the wall just long enough to pass each other.

Language and culture may be barriers to communication, but we are all brothers and sisters in our phobias.