Getting Chicked, part II

  Nothing like a trip to another place to shake up one's orientation.  Here I am in Florence, Oregon on a sunny Sunday in November.  A trip to Safeway isn't without event, much as my trip through SFO yesterday and my arrival in my hometown and land of the quacker backers (didja know the Ducks are first in college football?).  It seems that although we of the left were so terribly spanked on Tuesday the world just hurls forward on it's own relentless path.  Signs abound, but signs of what, you wonder?  I wonder about sitting on a plane bound for San Francisco literally teeming with mature women performing handiwork (me, knitting, another across the aisle crocheting a doily, and another ahead with needlepoint).  I sat next to a delightful eight year old who lives in Romeoville and was on her first ever plane trip ("this is the first time we're going on a vacation to a place without a water park"). Then I ate lunch at SFO with a ninth grader from New York who described herself as Japanese and Vietnamese.  She goes to a boarding school in Victoria and was explaining some of the travails of her school life ("I only wear a little mascara and lip gloss, not like some of the other girls..."). My van driver from Eugene to Florence launched into a sort of "Eugene's economy is so terrible", I was just waiting for the Tea Party punchline but somehow I got him off the subject so we could discuss more middle of the road issues like his life in Anchorage, mountain biking, surfing in Seaside, and the wonders of sending kids to play outside in the muck before they tend to homework, etcetera.  We agreed that Chicago and LA are the kinds of places so devoid of open space that it would be natural for anybody to go insane.  Then he observed that it's actually Lane County that seems to house a high preponderance of substance abuse, depression, domestic violence and the like. And so it goes...


Hippie Chicks DO Rule

 When I woke up at four AM (back to standard time) I sat around for a few hours plotting my next three years of crochet/knit adventures. Then it was outside for my first run of the week.  Damp, grey, fifty-ish, clean air, not a car in sight.  Ahh. Yes...running as it was meant to be.  I went as fast as my new Asics could carry me across the bridge and back and then through Old Town, expecting to grab Kris and Cathy somewhere on the way back from their Sunday morning run.  I didn't spot them until I was all the way back on Rhody and then it became an all out sprint.  These "older" women were cooking! It took almost a mile to catch these chicks and I mean the word chick in the highest complimentary fashion possible.  Chasing Kris is already a theme in this blog, and the wonders of my nearly seventy year old friend never cease to amaze me.  A few hours later we were at the Elks for Sunday pancake breakfast and the goofy guy who always serves coffee sat down beside us for a chat (I mean goofy in the highest of terms). He starts in on his legendary crabbing and fishing adventures from when he lived in Seattle.  I suggested that he go clamming in Florence but he ignored me as usual and launched into a story about surf fishing here in Florence.  He's had bad luck along with the guys he hangs out with.  Lo and behold there's a "tall woman who works for the fish and game dept." she's somewhat legendary and came down the beach to where he was, carrying a big ol' bucket of jumbo size perch.  He pleaded: "next time can I go fishing with you?"  Yeah, chicked INDEED!!!! And then on to Safeway to buy some provisions and get the detergent for Mom's new washing machine.  After I left the store out runs the cashier..."Ms. Steward (Mrs. Steward?) you left your Safeway card!"  Oh, God.  I Must be in Oregon.