True Story #2

September 21, 2009  Two Weeks Later

       I get up late, just after seven thirty Hawaiian time. I missed the alarm again. I meant to catch the first bus to the Arizona Memorial. But not today – again!

I shower and dawdle on the balcony of the oceanfront room, admiring the view before heading for the Cheeseburger Beachwalk. It’s a restaurant about a block away, just the other side of the hotel's parking garage. I have finally discovered civilized prices for breakfast. A leisurely cheese and mushroom omelette later I amble across Lewer’s Street to my new favourite Starbucks. They're out of Awake tea today, but it's probably my own fault since I've been the one drinking it all. Every morning since I arrived I head there to take advantage of their free wi-fi to check e-mail. There are only 4 tables outside, all of them full.

       A middle-aged woman with short spiked red hair and a tattoo on her right shoulder is sitting at one of the bigger tables and says I can sit with her. I thank her and explain I just want to do a quick e-mail check and then I'll be off. Unbidden she starts to chat on. I'm trying to be friendly without being rude, but I have to get back to do some laundry. I only brought four days of clothes with me, and this is the fifth day. I have had to get an extra day out of my walking shorts and I've used a brand new Margaritaville t-shirt just to walk out of the hotel and not be obnoxiously oderifous.

       And soon we are into a conversation about her travels, and how she likes Hawaii, and how she's walked maybe 75 miles since she arrived here last week, and how she can't do any sort of physical activity in the heat of the Texas city where she lives. And how she and her late husband moved to all sorts of places while he was in the Air Force. We chat about cel phones and service plans, and how much her phone bill was when she took her i-Phone to Europe. We discuss Amazon's new Kindle, and how useful they are going to be. We have a long discussion about how she would like to sell her house, and how much she loves Seattle and that she has friends in Vancouver, the other one in Southern Washington, and how maybe she should visit Seattle and Portland. I tell her about how much I liked Portland when I was there last year, without mentioning I spent all of three hours in Downtown before getting the heck out. At the time I had other places to go. I was on a schedule to see Bonneville Dam and Mt. Hood. I was saving touring Portland itself for another trip. And one day I might even take that trip.

       So she asks about what I have heard about Portland. I unload temperate weather, forward looking politicians regarding urban access for bike trails and walking paths, and environmentally friendly buildings. That’s all I really knew, and even at that the information comes from vaguely remembered news stories I had seen over the past couple of years. She is highly encouraged. We talk about her going in the winter to see it at its worst, and I suggest going again in the spring to see it at its best, and she likes the idea.

       And suddenly I realize its forty-five minutes later and I have laundry that must be done before I become an odoriferous pariah, and I want to be on the beach before noon.

I make my excuses about having work to do, and get up to leave. She makes noises about maybe we'll run into each other on one of her walks, and I say perhaps, and good luck on finding someplace to set down new roots. And I walk away, laundry is calling. I never really got the chance to check e-mail.