Punks Against Cancer at the Liberty Cafe

After spending $300 today at the vet for the annual wellness check and rabies shots to make sure Rusty the Pupperoo is still fine at the ripe old age of 11,(that's a little under $30 per year of his life) I headed off to downtown Renton to spend an afternoon window shopping and ducking the rain. I noodled around the antique stores and clothes boutiques until a droopy feeling just behind the eyes signaled a lack of caffeine. I thought it best to find a good strong latte, for medicinal purposes.

Walking into the Liberty Cafe in downtown Renton, I ordered a hazelnut latte and a roast beef sandwich for the princely sum of six dollars. The young woman behind the counter was a redhead with tattoos on her forearms, ear posts which allowed one to slip a quarter through the holes in her ear lobes, and the warmest brown eyes I had seen in quite some time. We chatted; we sang snippets of "Unchained Melody" along with the piped in music, she told me about her two years in choir when she got to sing Adoramus Te and she never did know what it meant, and when she had suitably squashed my roast beef sandwich in her George Foreman grill, I presented her with my debit card.

"Sorry," she said. "Only cash."

Oh dear. I had a debit card, four quarters, and 1/2 a tube of Burt's Bees lipgloss. Peony.

"No worries," she said. "Just catch us next time."

Seriously? Yeah, seriously.

So after effusive thanks, I wrote my name, my phone number, and the date on an index card, to serve as my IOU, gave it to her, and took a seat.

An elderly man with a leathery face and a red, white and blue baseball cap sat at the window seat and spent the next 15 minutes pleasantly staring at me while I thumbed through the Seattle Times and got crumbs all over my tee shirt. I would have been unnerved at this, except that his complete stillness and keen, unchanging smile gave me the distinct impression that he had dementia and likely spent most of his afternoons sitting there, staring at patrons the way most people gaze at flowerbeds, or watch traffic go by. The expression was there because it was always there, not because of any emotion I might raise in his thoughts.

After I finished the coffee and sandwich, I checked out the bulletin board, and found to my pleasure that punks are not just against the establishment, but also against cancer, of which I heartily approve. I eventually worked up the courage to ask the guy with the ski cap and the camo tote bag full of artist books ("How to Draw the Human Figure"; "Portraits in Pastels"; "Landscapes in Oil") where I could find an ATM. He told me of one three blocks away, so off I trotted, hoping the girl at the counter did not think me an eat-n-run kinda gal.

After a brisk walk against and then with the blustery wind, I returned with a crisp $20, and paid the barista. In the fifteen minutes I had been gone, the cafe had become a hotbed of social debate. A 40-something energetic guy named Johnny was expounding at length about the likelihood of the lottery being won by visiting Chinese. Another guy named Mike offered the idea that maybe you should have to show a drivers license in order to collect the winnings. Another patron whose name I didn't catch said he knew someone last year who won 9 million anonymously and blew it all in a year. Johnny said he wanted to win $340 million so he could save 300 of it and blow the 40 in a year and show ya how it's done.

Mike dropped his keys on the table in front of him. "Here's my keys, " he said to his invisible boss. "I just won the flippin lottery. I am outta here."

Then Johnny dropped the bomb. He is going to run for mayor. He is going to run in two years against the heretofore unopposed mayor and he's going to do it by starting right now. He's going to become an inspirational speaker and go to the high schools and get the high school seniors to vote for him. He is going to play hip hop music, and tell them to stay in school and get posters made and stick 'em up all over the city and he's going to kick the door in on the city council, BAM!

We cheered. Mike told Johnny to go for it. Another guy said, "Find out why the library's being moved." The old guy with the red white and blue baseball cap smiled. I told Johnny to get a Facebook account. The same guy said, "I'll bet someone on the council has property where the new library is." The girl at the counter said, "Well I know it isn't me." Johnny started jumping up and down, punching the air.

"I'm gonna do it!" Johnny said. "I know people. And I do stuff. I don't just sit around. I bike. I ski. I can kick it. BAM!" he said again, this time kicking out like a ninja to prove his point.

"Yeah," said the other guy. "Someone's making some money off that library moving around. I just bet. You find out who that is and you are IN." He nodded vigorously.

I smiled. I sat and drank another latte and grinned almost as wide as the old man. An afternoon of window shopping had turned into an afternoon of libery, justice and the American way. For six bucks, I had a front row seat at the pageant of Johnny the Rocky Balboa of mayorial candidates, Amanda, the red haired punk tattoo waitress/artist/dreamer, Mike the high school teacher, Unnamed Library Guy, and Smiling Old Dude. Better than a seat at the pageant, actually.

I was part of the pageant myself. Middle aged chick with a latte and fourteen dollars in my pocket. Hangin out with the 99, friends of the Punks Against Cancer, rallying against boredom and anonymity, living the Dream.

Will I go back to the Liberty Cafe again? Absolutely. After all, I don't want to miss Open Mic Wednesday, or Art Tuesday, or best of all, White Trash Potluck Friday.

I mean, who the heck would?

Skin Tags Are Puppy Angel Nibbles.

When I was young, I spent a lot of time in the sun getting "fresh air and sunshine." My parents had no objection to us kids watching TV, but they tended to monopolize it with episodes of "CBS News" and "Gunsmoke" in which I had no interest. So I was out every day getting my share of fresh air and sunshine. But since I was growing up in the inversion layered auburn colored smogfest known as Los Angeles, and this was 1967, what I was really getting was carbon monoxide and enough UV rays to take down a nuclear missile.

Sunburn was a natural part of growing up. So was second hand smoke, saccharine, cars without seatbelts, biking without helmets, white plumes of exhaust, skateboards with metal wheels, red dye #40, helicopters spraying malathion over the houses in the cool of the evening, playgrounds equipment made of polished steel and playgrounds themselves made of asphalt hot enough in the summer months to immediately cauterize any skinned knees before they had time to bleed.

I drank Tab and ate Pop Rocks and tons of Velveeta. Wonder Bread built strong bodies twelve ways and my bologna had a first name I could spell. It was a great time to be a kid.

Everthing had a cool name too. The divit under the nose and above the lip was called an "angel's fingerprint" because it was the place where the angels sealed your lips just before birth so you wouldn't give away the secrets of heaven. If you were a fashionable man, you could wear your hair as a "jelly roll." Before they were "wedgies", underpants that rode up were "melvins." One's entire face was a "mug." You lived in a "pad", where you burned a "punk" that smelled of patchouli, you'd take a nap on your "rack" and if you were lucky, you could hop in your brother's car and "peel out" in his "screamer."

I personally had ten little piggies, two peepers, and a squooshy wooshie tushie; everything my older brothers had, except, of course, for a wee willy winky.

Now I have decided that I do not have crow's feet; I have laugh lines. I do not have sun damage, I have patina. I do not have chin hair, I have kitten whiskers. I do not have cellulite, I have wiggly jiggly happylegs.

And those weird little skin tags from decades of whatever - maybe too many Fudgsicles or Hamburger Helpers - they are the playful nibble marks of puppy angels.

That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

Things I've Learned Along The Way

...or as I like to say, "Purl'z O' Wizdumb."

1. Do not under any circumstances whatsoever take a handful of SenSen and pop it in your mouth before you walk out on stage, unless you want to blind your fellow singers with the fumes coming from your head.

2. Do not tell your friend how stupid her ex boyfriend was until you are absolutely sure they did not just get back together and plan to be married in the spring. You will not be chosen as maid of honor.

3. Do not compliment any woman (especially a teacher who can affect your choice of college)on how well she is carrying unless you are sure she is pregnant, which you will not be sure of unless you are both standing in a puddle of water and the child is crowning. Let it go.

4. Do not wear a flammable polyester top while using a hair dryer that is more than 3 years old. Once the spark has flown from the dryer and ignited your chest, do not try and put it out with hair spray.

5. In the same vein, do not try to cauterize the wound of a Barbie. It takes weeks for the smell of burnt plastic to fade from the kitchen curtains.

6. Again, if you are hired to sing at a funeral and the first thing the mortician asks you is whether or not you can operate a fire extinguisher, walk away.

7. When you save money by going to the hairdresser school for your "do" instead of the actual salon, count on walking away looking like a cockatiel.

8. If the mother of your college boyfriend says that she likes you because you look sturdy and you can take good care of her son when she is dead, this is a bad sign.

9. If your college boyfriend says he likes you because your butt is shaped just like Tony Danza's, this is a VERY bad sign.

10. Sharpees do not make a viable option for eye liner.

11. If you take only one baggie on the walk, the dog will poop twice, and the second time will always be bigger and gooier than the first.

12. Always cook beans well, and never exercise strenuously after eating them.

13. Ice cream. It's what's for dinner.

14. When they tell you the best years of your life are age 10, 16, 21, 30, or any other number in between, do not believe them. Your best years are always, always ahead.

Falling off the bike is Step One.

When you type the words "Epic Fail" into Google Image Search, you get literally thousands of images, ranging from people falling after drinking excessively, to groups of enthusiastic drivers running into each other or over pedestrians with various motorized vehicles, to panoramic photos of large bosomed women sporting an embarassing array of poorly placed tattoos, to videos of men modeling spectacularly inappropriate fashion choices, and perhaps most discouraging, to newly declassified government documents. I do, however, have to admit to a fondness for the epic fail of a "derp dog."

But I chose this image because of its simplicity and fundamental truth. No matter how well you plan, organize, or clearly outline your territory, the universe declares that there will be something to land on it and poop. It may be the Bluebird of Happiness, it may be the Robin Redbreast of a new spring, or, in my case, the Seagull of Vertigo knocking me off your wheels and landing me repeatedly on my own fat patootie.

The road bike known as Red Dragon sits patiently in the basement next to the other bikes, knowing full well it will be at least another year before I am even close to imagining the possibility of remaining upright on it.

I have been to neurologists, physical therapists, otolaryngologists, and countless medical websites in order to figure out what is going on. Is it medically possible for an otherwise healthy person to be so exquisitely ill coordinated?

Apparently, it is. I even had my tonsils removed this year, my sinuses surgically excised and reshaped and my turbinates (those weird little spirals of cartilage inside your nostrils) altered. Probably the most painful experience of my mortal life up to this point. The ENTs call it "the full meal deal." I called it "reasons to wish for death."

And still, I can't look to my imaginative upper left hand corner without my head spinning, so the bike remains in the basement, and the seagull stands contentedly on the "no seagulls" sign.

Things rarely happen as they should, even with appropriate planning and signage.

Which brings me to the realization that I had to fall off the bike enough times to realize that "Training Wheels" was never really about biking. Training Wheels is just the metaphor for those journeys in life that I do accomplish not very gracefully, or at least not with great confidence. I am definitely moving along with all the rest of my peers along the road of spiritual growth, mental maturity, emotional breadth and depth, and physical -- well, let's just put that one on the back burner of commentary for now. But unlike those who so beautifully glide into The Shining Realization Of Their Purpose In Life, I am toodling in concentric circles on my training wheels, slowly wobbling, breathing fast and hard, bobbing and swerving my way into middle age, frightened, graceless, glacially slow, and oddly triumphant.

I hope you will join me on the journey. It won't be elegant, but my guess is, it will be entertaining, with a fall or two to keep it truly interesting. Plop.