Wake up 45

Some of you may know that last year I had foot surgery on both feet. My big toenails were growing down into my toes, trying to come out the other end. It hurt. I kept having to go to Maui for the gentle and magical healing qualities of the warm water at Keawakapu Beach. You should know that if something is wrong with your body walking on the beach in Hawai'i reverses it.

My insurance was not willing to pay for additional trips to Maui, but they were willing to pay to have Dr. Petrina Lewis at the NW Foot and Ankle Clinic cut out both by big toenails. It hurt. It also left both big toes rather exposed and vulnerable. In the year since that surgery my toes have tried to grow new nails, but all I have managed to produce are these vestigial bony-looking claw things that provide absolutely no support from foot-based trauma.

Today I took a large cup of coffee into the laundry room to enjoy while I was ironing my shirt for work. I put the coffee on the far end of the ironing board and began to iron my shirt. I heard a sad little “meow” and looked down to see Fred sitting on the floor looking up at me. I said "Hi Fred." Taking my comment as some form of encouragement for drama, Fred jumped up and landed in the coffee cup. This scared him. This scared me. We both screamed. Fred jumped out of the coffee cup and crashed directly into the iron. He screamed again and the iron and the coffee cup fell off the ironing board. The iron landed on my left toe, the coffee cup on my right toe. The vestigial bony-looking claw things on both feet provided absolutely no support from the descending objects. It hurt. I screamed again. Fred, now sitting on the floor licking coffee off his very flat hair, screamed right back at me and ran out of the room.

I cleaned up the coffee, found another shirt, and headed to work.

Work was kind of annoying, this last day being 44.

On my way home from work I stopped at the grocery store to pick up dinner. The wine guy at the store had told me recently that they would start stocking a rosé Prosecco. There was no rosé Prosecco, but I did pick up some other nice Italian wine, pasta, and some clams. When I got back to my car I put on my seat belt, started up the engine, and of course turned on NPR. Everyone who wants to drink rosé Prosecco listens to NPR.

I notice that the man in the car in front of me in the parking lot is flailing his arms around like there is an angry hornet in his car. He keeps looking at me in his rear view mirror like he is mad at me. Does he hate NPR?

I don’t pay a lot of attention and I start back my car out. He pulls out and I follow since we seem to be going to same way. He keeps looking back in his mirror and flailing his arms around. As we pull out on the main road he stops his car, gets out, and comes towards my driver’s side window. I am thinking, “Golly that has to be one really mean bee in his car or this is some kind of crazy person who is going to try and kill me right now.” The guy is screaming incoherently and flapping his arms around. Traffic is backing up and people are starting to honk their horns. I am not sure what to do. I don’t see a weapon and he has not actually touched my car, but I’m kind of not in the mood for this given that my feet still hurt from the morning’s drama. There is good wine in my car that could be damaged in an attack. I whip out my charcoal grey Motorola RAZR, dial 911, and tell the policy there is a crazy man in a blue Buick who is threatening me, is drunk, and seems to hate NPR. He sees what I am doing and gets back into his car. I follow him while talking to the 911 people. I see him looking at me in his rear view window so I flap my arms around a bit just to piss him off. I follow closely for a bit as I give the police his license plate, the color of the hat he is wearing, and inform them that he is clearly listening to some fascist kind of Republican AM talk radio station. Finally he pulls into the parking lot of a Wal Mart and the police tell me to keep going as they are going to pounce, en masse.

I feel all empowered and kind of uppity right now. Don’t mess with me, you NPR hating, American car driving, AM radio listening freak!

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Now it’s morning. Yes it’s that vile black day again. The one I share with Anne Baxter, Traci Lords, Johannes Brahms, Gary Cooper, and of course Eva Peron.

I have been dreading this day ever since I heard this song from Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins last year called “Rise Up With Fists.”

What are you changing?
Who do you think you're changing?
You can't change things, we're all stuck in our ways
It's like trying to clean the ocean
What do you think you can drain it?
Well it was poison and dry long before you came

But you can wake up younger under the knife
And you can wake up sounder if you get analyzed
And I better wake up
There but for the grace of God, go I

It's hard to believe your prophets
When they're asking you to change things
But with their suspect lives we look the other way
Are you really that pure, Sir?
Thought I saw you in Vegas
It was not pretty, but she was ...not your wife

But she will wake up wealthy
And you will wake up 45
And she will wake up with babies
There but for the grace of God, go I

What am I fighting for?
The cops are at the front door
I can't escape that way, the windows are in flames
And what's that on your ankle?
You say they're not coming for you
But house arrest is really just the same

Like when you wake up behind the bar
Trying to remember where you are
Having crushed all the pretty things
There but for the grace of God, go I

But I still believe
And I will rise up with fists
And I will take what's mine mine mine
There but for the grace of God, go I
There but for the grace of God, go I

Golly, maybe I should go back to getting advice from Madonna songs.

Or, perhaps, instead of wallowing, I can do what I always do:



Shockingly, I have already purchased tickets and will be flying to Honolulu, but not for two more weeks. Instead tonight to celebrate my Waking Up 45, my friends are doing this dinner for me at Tavolata in Belltown. Mark and I get there early to pre-function. We sit at the bar, ogling the bartender. Everyone who works here is unnaturally beautiful. Well golly, look what is on the menu, rosé Prosecco. I will have that please!

Now this is not quite like crab dip or tartufo in Italy, but it’s good. Really good. Really, really good.

Glancing up I see this wizened old crone with a grey ponytail coming through the door. She is followed closely by a youngish hungry looking girl. Oh shit. It’s Nancy Lezabelle, HR manager from the Mermaid and her child-bride Jen. You may recall that I “left” the mermaid a few years ago. Nancy slammed the door on my ass on my way out. Evil woman, despised by all.

Nancy Lezabelle and I were both store mangers downtown in the early 1990’s. At the time, the even younger and hungrier child Jen worked for Nancy. Being the future HR manager that she is, Nancy seduced the child Jen and they moved in together after their first date. They have been together ever since. There is a 47 year age difference between the two.

I relive all this is a flash, wonder if I am going to let this ruin my evening, then have another sip of my rosé Prosecco and decide I really do not care at all. Really. I don’t care. At all.

Nancy Lezabelle and her child bride are seated against the wall. She is talking to the waitress, then gets up and heads our way. This is going to be interesting. No, she is not coming to talk to me, she is coming to yell at the gorgeous bartender. Apparently they do not offer the drink she wants so if she has a temper tantrum and causes a scene she will get it. The bartender pours something into a glass and she goes away.

The rest of the birthday party shows up and we are seated right in front of Nancy Lezabelle and her child-bride. I know she has seen me and is staring at the back of my head.

We have more rosé Prosecco, we order Prosciutto di Parma, home-made Buffalo Mozzarella, Brushcetta, Marinated Beets, Beef Carpaccio with white anchovies (hate the green anchovies) and more rosé Prosecco. We are loud and fun. People give me presents. I am having a blast. -- everyone is. Everyone except for Nancy Lezabelle and her child bride. I sneak a look at them. They are both sitting upright in their chairs as if with some kind of broom-induced posture. They are frowning. We laugh. Soon pasta comes: Garganelli, Ricotta Gnocchi, English Pea Ravioli, Penne Rigate, and Strozzapreti. This is just like one of our dinners in Italy. It is so much fun. Our energy is contagious and I can tell the wait staff are really enjoying us as are the other nearby tables. All except for one. It occurs to me that I should just turn around and say "hi" and tell Nancy Lezabelle and her child bride that I am over the whole thing, that there are no hard feelings. I get up to pee with the intent of going over to their frowny table on my way back. When I come out of the bathroom I see they are gone. Their dessert is still sitting on the table, uneaten. They were just waiting for an opportunity to bolt. Did they even pay? I wonder why they were so uptight. It’s not like I am going to post out on the internet for all to see that Nancy Lezabelle seduced her own employee and made her her child bride and that now as an HR manager at the mermaid she might lose her job if it got out that she is a total hypocrite and sleaze. Thank God I am all over than and not bitter anymore. More rosé Prosecco please.

Anyway, we order more pasta and then these sea scallops and a giant dead cow comes out. Dead cow weights easily 35 pounds. I start to slice it so we can all have some, but my arms soon get tired. Mark starts slicing and soon we are all nibbling these thin little strips of deliciously rare cow. The sea scallops were perfectly undercooked, and squirted briny juices into our mouths. We laugh. The Matts are checking out this gorgeous waiter, when suddenly Michelle just flags the guy over, asks his name, his address, his phone number, and the address and phone number of the bartender. Michelle has unusually large balls for a woman. Hornicula.

Suddenly dessert arrives. These hot little lemon scented donut holes and then Affogato! Affogato! Affogato! Affogato is life changing. Not crab dip or tartufo life changing, but certainly up there with rosé Prosecco. Yummy vanilla gelato sits in a bowl and then is drowned in espresso fresh from the machine. Frickin’ amazing, the. Affogato.

It’s time to go. Lynnette, Marie, and Lisa head home. Mark and I are coerced to follow everyone else to this hipster doofus vampire bar across the street. I am way too old for this. They force feed me Lemon Drops that are on fire. We laugh. We drink more. Eventually the conversation turns to nipples and we all start tweaking each others nipples in the middle of the vampire bar on Second Avenue at 11:30 pm on a work night. I have a 7:30 meeting in the morning.

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Daylight. I wake up 45. Again.