Music and Cats

Tonight was the reading for the students in the memoir writing classes that I just finished at the UW Extension Writers Program. For the reading, I reworked a piece that I wrote early in the year. Before taking this class, I had trouble writing multiple drafts. My teacher, Laura Kalpakian, and my classmates have, through their regular critiques of my work, helped me learn about that part of the writing process. Here’s the piece that I read this evening:
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When Paul and I married seven years ago, neither of us knew this sad truth: I can’t make a decent latte. Early in our marriage, Paul demonstrated, more than once, the process of transforming dark- roasted coffee beans and cold milk into a steaming, foamy, caffeinated treat. Standing by my side before the black and chrome contraption, he patiently guided me through the process of grinding, filling, tamping, steaming and pouring. The lessons did not take. Oh, I made a latte or two, but my lattes hissed and spit out of the espresso machine either too weak or too bitter. The barista who served me such a latte would not have been tipped.

One morning, when I requested Paul’s assistance with the espresso maker yet again, he exclaimed in frustration, “I don’t understand why you can’?t do this. You’?re good with machines… hell, you understand how most things work without reading the instructions. Do you have some sort of a brain injury?” This question, from the man whose pet name for me is Brains, struck me as absurdly funny. I burst out laughing, and Paul joined me. We stood in our kitchen, hugging each other, giggling.

My supposed ‘brain injury’ became a recurring joke. Paul would marvel that my injury had impaired only my ability to tamp grounds and steam milk. I would nod in agreement, and comment that the workings of the human brain are not fully understood by modern science.

Once my condition had been identified, Paul shouldered barista duty at our house. Each morning he would bring me a latte in bed. One of the small daily pleasures of my life was waking to the sound of my husband walking into our bedroom, singing this short verse:

Coffee drink delivery service
Coffee drink, if you are nervous
About how you’re going to wake.
Have yourself a coffee break.

In January of 2004, Paul was diagnosed with an oral cancer at the base of his tongue. The surgery to remove the tumor would be long and dangerous, the lasting effects on his speech and swallowing uncertain. A few days before surgery, Paul expressed concern about my morning lattes. “You won’t have coffee drink delivery while I’m in the hospital. What will you do? How will you wake up?” While his tone was light, I heard the dark thoughts and real questions beneath the surface of his words: How are you holding up? I’?m sorry I’?m putting you through this. Are you going to be OK?

I could answer the surface question easily. Finding coffee in Seattle is simple. The espresso bar in the hospital lobby could meet my needs while Paul was hospitalized. We have five coffee shops within as many blocks of our house. I would not suffer from lack of coffee.

I had no answers, simple or otherwise, for the unspoken questions. Too many unknowns waited on the other side of Paul’s surgery. Would he survive the surgery, and the cancer, or would I lose him? What toll would his illness and treatment take on him, and on our relationship? I believed that I was coping well, but I knew that might change. I didn’?t know whether I would be OK.

Several weeks after Paul’s surgery, I woke, feeling cold, in our still-dark bedroom. Pulling the down comforter up to my ears, I turned to snuggle up to Paul. The hand I extended landed not across his shoulder, but on soft, warm fur. In an instant, I went from half asleep to worried. Why was Paul up so early? He had been out of bed long enough that our cats had claimed the warm spot against his pillow. Was he feeling ill?

I was about to call out his name when I heard footsteps on the stairs, and caught a whiff of coffee. Relaxing under the comforter’?s warmth, I waited. Paul’s singing wasn’t elegant that morning, but it brought tears to my eyes. The latte was the best I’ve ever tasted, the love with which it was made almost visible in its foamy top.

For many musicians, dancers and craftspeople in the Pacific Northwest, Memorial Day Weekend is all about Seattle’s Northwest Folklife Festival. Begun in 1972, the original festival’s concept was to provide a public forum where the traditional and ethnic communities and artists of the Northwest Region of the National Park Service (Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Western Montana) could present their music and dance performances and crafts. The theme was presenting what people “make for their own use and do for their own entertainment.”

Thirty-three years later, Folklife is going strong. At the Seattle Center this weekend, from mid-day Friday until Monday evening, over 6,000 musicians, dancers, and visual artists are entertaining and teaching an estimated 250,000 visitors.

I was at Folklife today fiddling for my morris dance team. Tomorrow evening, I’ll be playing for a performance of English country dancing (think Jane Austen movies). I’ll be back after the Festival’s over.

I am a princess… and, yes, you may pet me. Oh, no, I insist.

More cats - and other lesser animals - at the Friday Ark.

Today’s New York Daily News has news women can use:

It’s a go for ‘potty parity’
By Frank Lombardi, Daily News City Hall Bureau

There were signs of relief - especially from the ladies - yesterday after the City Council unanimously passed a long-awaited “potty parity” bill.

New buildings and buildings undergoing major renovations will be required to install two toilets for women for every one provided to men.

The current law, enacted in 1984, requires a 1-to-1 ratio. But men can “zoom in and zoom out,” while women end up waiting in long lines, noted Councilwoman Madeline Provenzano (D-Bronx), chairwoman of the Housing and Buildings Committee.

“This is a quantum leap into the 21st century,” said Councilwoman Yvette Clarke (D-Brooklyn), chief sponsor and architect of the bill.

The bill approved yesterday is a compromise version of a proposal that would have required virtually all buildings - new and old - with public rest rooms to have two facilities for women for every one designated for men.

In a deal with Mayor Bloomberg, the original potty-parity bill was flushed because of complaints over its potentially huge cost to owners of bars, restaurants and theaters and to publicly owned facilities, such as stadiums.

The bill approved yesterday, 50-to-0 with one absentee, mandates the 2-for-1 rule only for new buildings and existing ones that undergo renovations whose costs exceed 50% of the value of the building. The law could take effect as soon as the fall.

“If there was ever a bill I was afraid to be on the wrong side of, it would be this bill,” quipped Councilman Erik Martin-Dilan (D-Brooklyn), whose district is 60% female.

This new ordinance will change the look of building plans, which have long been designed with back-to-back restrooms providing equal numbers of plumbing fixtures for men and woman along a shared plumbing wall. I imagine that there are already NYC architects at work developing layouts that are similarly efficient, but provide the newly required “potty parity.” I’m sure the women of NYC will appreciate their efforts.

As I wrote elsewhere last year, Paul and I spent our first two wedding anniversaries out of the country, the first in Italy and the second in Canada. We joked after the second trip that we would leave the country each year for our anniversary, but events - some chosen, others forced upon us - have made that playful plan impossible.

For our anniversary this year, we got away for a brief but thrilling adventure. We went to see Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

Paul met me after work on Monday evening, and we walked the several blocks down 4th Avenue from my office to the Cinerama Theater. Built in 1963, Seattle’s Cinerama is one of three remaining venues in the world capable of showing three-strip Cinerama movies such as “How The West Was Won” and the 70mm Cinerama classic, “2001: A Space Odyssey.” In the late 1990’s, the theater was in danger of demolition or conversion into a clumbing club. One of Microsoft’s bigwigs - a fan of movies as well as rock music and football - purchased and beautifully restored the theater, which reopened in 1999. I dislike most of this man’s grandiose gestures in Seattle, but this is a spectacular movie theater, and I’m glad that he saved it.

We arrived 40 minutes early for the 7:00 p.m. show; already a line of excited fellow travellers snaked halfway around the block. This was not the line to buy tickets, mind you, but the line for ticketholders waiting to get in the door. We’d bought our tickets on Saturday, so we joined on the end of the line.

Twenty minutes later, the line began to feed into the theater. Once in the door, Paul and I made our way up to our favorite spot in this theater: the middle of the balcony. I then headed back to the lobby for treats. I asked Paul what sort of candy he wanted. As neither of us knew what would be available, he told me to choose. When I returned several minutes later, Paul gestured toward a couple of teenagers making calls on their cell phones. “We’re an older generation,” he said. “After you left, I realized that I could call your cell phone to find out what sort of candy they have… but that just seemed silly.” Fortunately, Paul was happy with my selection.

There are plenty of other people writing about this movie, and I’ll leave that to them. I will say that we enjoyed the movie very much. We cheered, we hissed, we laughed, we cried (at least I cried a bit, but as Paul will tell you, I cry at anything). We had a wonderful time.

After the movie, we walked back up 4th Avenue to my car. We passed a half-dozen or so of Seattle’s young pierced and tattooed, all carrying plastic light sabers, clearly on their way to the next showing. They looked about the same age that Paul and I were when we saw Return of the Jedi in 1983.

As we walked, Paul asked, “Does this count as leaving the country? We did go to a galaxy far, far away.” I squeezed his hand, and we laughed.