Mere Minutes: Sign of the Times

We journey home nightly on an ill-paved road parallel to I-5. A straight shot from the Darth Vader building downtown to the Boeing Access Road just south of the Boeing Airport. The road, aptly named Airport Way, has few lights and stop signs making the trip pleasant, usually absent road rage so common to the highway.

Along this rather well-kept secret road, there sit a number of remote businesses. A roofing company. A textile company. A few isolated bars. Not to mention the small enclave known to the locals as the Georgetown section of Seattle. Very blue collar. Home of the oldest saloon in Seattle's city limits.

It was on that familiar trip this evening that I sat in our Subaru Forester and contemplated my day at work. Sometime before we came to Georgetown, I looked to my right and saw the flashing red, white, and blue of an Open sign for an eatery. But the inner sanctum of the eatery contained tables and chairs askew, at least as far as I could see by the luminescent apricot hue of the street lights. And I wondered to myself if the owner had simply departed the premises leaving the open sign flickering as a statement of sad irony.

Mere Minutes: A Phone Call

I was in the office beginning to wrap Joseph's gifts. Joseph was in the dining room wrapping mine.

The phone rang. Joseph answered. He later told me he said Merry Chrismahanukwanzaa. The voice on the other end gave him a hard time for saying Happy Kwanzaa. And then asked to speak to me. I answered. It was the old man.

He had a Christmas Eve celebration at his house this evening. My brother and his wife. The old man and my stepmother. My grandmother. My stepgrandmother. My stepsister and niece.

In any case, he asked if I was having a party. No, I replied. Oh, well, who answered the phone, he asked. Joseph, I said. Does he celebrate Kwanzaa, he asked. No, he was probably kidding. Oh...

We talked for a bit. Then he passed me to my brother with whom I spoke for some time. Then to my niece...

The old man got back on and told me he wanted to talk to Joseph. Okay, I said rather surprised. I brought the phone into the dining room and gave it to Joseph. The old man apologized for giving Joseph a hard time. And then they proceeded to have a conversation. A longer conversation, in fact, than I had had with the old man.

The big deal? That's the first time Joseph and my father have spoken to each other in the 6.5 years I've been in Seattle.

God works mysteriously. This is why I love Christmas!!!

To you, my family
To my father and his wife,
To my mother and her husband,
To my brother and his wife,
To my Uncle Mark, Aunt Ruth, and Goddaughter Julia,
To my sister and niece
To my brother and nieces
To all of my grandparents who will never lay eyes on this blog,
To my cousins, aunts, and uncles,

To you, my friends
To Jared
To Jeff and his fiance
To Brian and Jeff
To Mike wherever he is
To Sean
To Tara and Ashley
To Drew
To Matt
To Tony
To Keren and Harry
To JB and his wife
To Elliot, Abbie, and their beautiful son
To my Buzz
To my Thrusters
To everyone with whom I enjoy talking and spending time

And of course
To Hemingway
To Macavity
To Buddy
To Cleo
And to Joseph whom I love...

I wish you all a very Happy Hannukkah!!! and Merry Christmas!!!

May God grant you happiness in all that you do.

Mere Minutes: Amazing Grace

down, down, down the stairs into the pit of the underground tunnel. we aren't as cool here in seattle with ts and els and subways. instead we have electric buses that travel from the north to south under the city.

so i stood on the tile allowing the steam to cease spouting from my ears. another day. of smiling, nodding, gritting my worn teeth. i close my eyes instead of reading about hitler's atrocities in poland. not for long. i see joseph walking down the stairs.

good to see him. i feel a little better. and then i start with the venting. vent vent vent. i can't believe what he said. yes, i talked to him at length. no, i can't tell if anything will come of it. but anything's better than what we've got now, isn't it?

the bus comes. we sit and talk some more. how all of our weekends until after new years are booked solid. how we have gifts to buy and send. cards to sign and send. a party to host. parties to attend. trees and villages and cookies and dinners and company parties and seventeen to two hundred three other things.

we are close to home. when suddenly there boards a thin old man wearing a ratty ballcap. to the man sitting in the first seat he announces that he's drunk and sixty-five. to which the man in the first seat - a middle aged asian - answers something unintelligible. not to be bested, the old ratty capped man sits adjacently and begins an equally unintelligible conversation. or should i say argument. joseph and i look at each other and just enjoy the scenery. random insanity seems suitable.

then, it happens. ratty cap guy starts singing amazing grace. off key, to be certain, but with runs and random notes that would rival the likes of mariah carey, he belted out the song. stopping and looking around every so often - especially when emphasizing the word wretch, which he mentioned more than once (i don't think it was used more than once in the song, and if you're catholic, not at all) - he wanted someone to comment. no one wanted any more crazy in their lives than was already included.

he sat and sulked for the remainder of the trip. trying desperately to make some kid of eye contact. until finally, he answered a cell phone that hadn't rung and began to talk to his son in iraq...

Mere Minutes: Instant Messaging

There I was at work. Desperately trying to juggle about 17 different things simultaneously in my supersized cubicle. When, all of a sudden, a blue box pops up with a name I recognize. Ttarasiewicz. The father of one of my best friends from high school. He had added me to IM a couple years back - to my surprise - and we had had a few conversations over the years. I'd get the latest news about Mike and where he was being deployed as well as tidbits about the rest of the family. Refreshingly nostalgic moments...

Today, I received the message 'wut up'. Obviously not a sixty-something year old man. 'Howdy' I answered. At first, I thought it was one of Mike's two brothers. Not people I knew - or know -well, but people with whom I'd spoken from time to time. But then he started talking about grampy and nana. Well, that definitely didn't fit since I know that this young man was talking about Mike's father and mother.

I delved a bit deeper. Asked him what he was doing. Playing Grand Theft Auto 4. Although not necessarily an indicator, I guessed him to be in high school. He asked what game system I have. I answered that I'm a computer guy. World of Warcraft is my game of choice. He told me that one of his high school teachers plays that, and that it's a geek's game. I responded that many thought me a geek. I asked him which high school. He replied, Sheehan. I'm sorry, I said. I am, after all a Lyman Hall grad. And Lyman Hall hates Sheehan. I asked him how he could be going to Sheehan when living so close to LH. He said he was living with Grampy and Nana temporarily.

We moved on. He told me Mikey was being deployed to Afghanistan. After two deployments to Iraq, he was going back again. Wow, I thought. And then he told me that Nana was having her knee replaced. And finally that Grampy, Nana, and Steve (one of Mike's brothers) said hello.

I told him that it was nice to hear about Wallingford. And that I said hello. I then began to wax poetic about how it's been more than six years since I'd seen any of them.

There came a pause.

Then, he said, 'But didn't we see you July 4th?' I replied, 'I'm not the one you saw July 4th.'

He said, 'David?' And I said, 'David... from Seattle.'

At which point he butchered my last name based on what I imagine to be a response from someone else in the room. Mike's father then took over and asked me who I was. To which I replied with my full name. And he told me that couldn't be right since the e-mail address belonged to his nephew, David. To which I replied that I had had the address since 1995.

Another pause. 'Do you mean that I've been talking to you for two years thinking that you're my nephew? What a dumb Pollak I am.'

I responded, 'Yes, but I'm Polish too. I've been talking to you for two years thinking that you knew who I was.'

We laughed a bit at the misunderstanding and wished each other well.

The oddities behind anonymity...

Mere Minutes: An Unexpected Guest

Joseph and I arrived home at approximately 7:30. We unpacked the items purchased from Costco. Joseph proceeded to make a couple burgers, and I used the elliptical for about a half hour. I showered; he finished with supper. We put the newly purchased Iron Man into the DVD player and settled down for a quiet evening of Marvel superhero fun.

There we were, Joseph, the dogs, and I, watching Pepper Pots attempt to retrieve the wayward wire from Tony Stark's chest with her small hands when there came from our darkened doorway the doorbell's chime. The dogs sprung from their slumber and barked fervently at the darkness outside. As is our custom, I commanded the dogs into their room - yes, they have their own bedroom where they sleep - and Joseph answered the door. After a few seconds, Joseph told me to come out. I let the dogs out; I followed. Standing in our front hallway was the tall and lanky Chris, a former teammate and acquaintance.

Chris joined the Dragons, the softball team on which I played from 2006-2007, in the Dragons' second year. Tall and lanky, he was deemed Stretch by the manager. An odd sort of man, Chris came across as 'slow', at first, but his occasional show of talent and intelligence made us think he simply lacked the interest to excel. The manager subsequently ran him off the team; then again, the manager was not the nicest of people.

In any case, we stayed in intermittent contact with Chris after he left the team. We invited him and his girlfriend to our Christmas party and saw him out on the town at times after that. Most recently at Madison Pub on Capital Hill (Seattle neighborhood) when he informed me and Joseph that he had tried to stop by the house to say hello earlier in the summer. He said he'd stop by again if he had the chance...

And there he was. At 9:45 p.m. on a Friday. He had just finished his sales pitch to a woman who lives close to our house. And he wanted some water. Plus to say hello. We traded niceties for about five minutes and hit a dead zone. A pause of more than the acceptable 17 seconds in a conversation. Joseph and I sighed as Chris just looked around the house and smiled his enigmatic grin. After a few more somewhat agonizing minutes, he announced his intention to leave. And he left.

Joseph saw him out and then returned to the living room. He's a strange dude, Joseph said, but he's such a nice guy.

Uhh, yeah I replied.

We returned to the movie...

Iron Man, Iron Man, does whatever an iron can...

Mere Minutes: Stroller Rolls Backward on Ballard Sidewalk

There we were in our Subaru Forester traveling down NW Market Street towards Golden Gardens Park. The dogs were trading windows at each stop, whining as they maneuvered in the back seat. Buddy barked at passersby; Cleo let loose her wild tongue at everyone and everything that she deemed lickable.

I sat in the passengers seat spying the quaint neighborhood. Restaurants that we should visit. Novelty stores where we might find trinkets aplenty. 'We'll never come here,' said Joseph. 'Great attitude,' I said teasingly.

We wereapproaching the intersection with Leary when I spied a couple standing at a Washington Mutual ATM. My roving eyes then spotted a rolling thing with a child attached to it. For a nanosecond, I thought it might be a child in a wheelchair rolling backwards to make room for pedestrians on the sidewalk. Then, I realized that the child was far too young, and I yelped 'Hey!' at my closed front window. Joseph immediately caught sight of the situation and beeped multiple times in succession.

The mother turned her head, and I witnessed the utter fear and surprise on her face as she leapt to the stroller and grabbed the bar, barely preventing her child from tipping into the street.

We traveled past silently shaking our heads at happenstance.

Mere Minutes: Angry Woman Shouts at Real Change Vendor

The story you are about to read happened in a mere ten minutes...

Joseph came to my desk at noon today with a sparkle in his eye. He wanted something, and I knew before he said anything that I'd acquiesce.

'We're going to lunch tomorrow, right?'

'Yep' I replied.

'Well, then why don't you treat me to lunch today?' The grin widened.

I looked away for a moment and then back at him. 'Okay, let's go.'

Down we went through the bowels of the Darth Vader building and out through the front doors. Our destination, Subway on the corner of 3rd and Blanchard. We walked along the sidewalk against traffic on 4th when we came upon a woman - and someone who seemed to be a caretaker of some kind - selling Real Change.

TANGENT: On nearly every street corner in Seattle stands or sits a person selling a newspaper called Real Change. But The Real Change Homeless Empowerment Project is about more than just a newspaper. In the organization's own words, 'Real Change exists to create opportunity and a voice for low-income people while taking action to end homelessness and poverty.' (http://www.realchangenews.org/). The paper acts as just one facet for this empowerment. Vendors - commonly the homeless themselves - must pay $0.35 for each paper which they then sell for $1.00 (technically a donation). Though only a small amount, the act of selling gives the vendors a sense of responsibility and pride in the ability to earn the money rather than beg for handouts. TANGENT CONCLUDED

So, these women sitting on the corner of 4th and Blanchard asked us as we passed, 'Would you like to buy Real Change'? I smiled and said no. I don't carry money. Joseph, however, stopped and searched his jangling pockets from which his hand emerged with four quarters. He put them in the woman's hands and took from her a paper.

At that instant, there came from across the street - in front of Ralph's Grocery - something resembling a cross between a squeal and a hiss. Standing on the opposite corner was another homeless woman complaining in full voice about the purchase that Joseph had made.

From behind us, the other woman yelled 'You know this's our corner. You go away. I'm sellin' here.'

The other woman answered with some incoherent reply but made no move to cross the street.

Joseph and I exchanged glances wondering what had just happened. And then we promptly moved on to another subject as we headed towards Subway.

I suppose I should not have been surprised by that interchange between the two women since both are trying to earn their keep. I'd just never thought of Real Change vendors as being in competition.

That all happened in a mere ten minutes...