July 31, 2008

July 31st was another terrible day at work. When it ended, I was mentally and emotionally exhausted. I hit the gym as I always do on Thursdays, and once I returned home and showered, I began packing.

Germany

We had wanted to see Europe for quite a while. All the way back when we were in college, we’d determined that it would be something that we would love to do. We’re both people with a strong desire to explore and see new things. The expense of such a trip was totally prohibitive for quite a while. The language barrier is also an intimidating point unless you confine yourself to English-speaking countries, which we wouldn’t want to do. Neither one of us speaks anything other than English with any proficiency. As years rolled by and we achieved financial stability, we began to run out of excuses for our complacency. Last year we determined that we could easily afford to make the trip. When we learned that my wife’s cousin had just moved from Seattle to Düsseldorf, Germany, it seemed obvious that we should finally go. We planned the trip for the next year.

This trip had been a carrot dangling on the end of a rope at the end of a very long stick for a very long time. So long, in fact, that as the carrot actually got closer and very much within reach, it was hard to comprehend that it had moved out of the world of pure abstraction into the world of imminent reality. It was only during the week preceding our departure that I began to really comprehend it. Appropriately, we would be leaving on my birthday, August 1, when I would turn 30. Unfortunately, the volume of work and stress at my job had been huge, fevered, and shitty for the entire month of July. So my mental state was not the best, and I was not really afforded the luxury of excited anticipation. I did, however, make it through the end of the day on Thursday, July 31 without losing my temper and quitting my job. My wife and I were all packed and ready to leave by the next morning. The following is a document of our trip.

Baltimore

My wife applied to Artscape 2008 in Baltimore. It’s the largest such art festival in the country. Not only was she accepted, she was asked to participate in all three days. She agreed. We had high hopes for moneymaking. In two days at the Handmade Arcade in Pittsburgh, she had made about $1,500. We thought $3,000 wasn’t an unreasonable goal this time around, given the extra day and my wife’s extra preparation.

The drive was uneventful except for the long sprawling tour of Baltimore’s ghettos, which our new GPS took us through. We had left immediately upon my return from work Thursday evening. So we drove into the night. There were packs of shirtless young men on bikes in front of liquor stores.

The first day went very slowly. It was 95 degrees Fahrenheit, and there weren’t many sales. At the day’s end we were dejected, lamenting the two full days remaining.

The second day was much better. My wife’s merchandise was selling very briskly. It was even hotter than the preceding day, 97 degrees Fahrenheit. At some point in the middle of the afternoon I made a trip to the booth selling non-alcoholic tropical drinks in giant, tacky, carved out coconuts. The coconuts were carved to look like pirate monkey heads, and the beverage sat in a plastic cup inside. What does a pirate monkey head look like, you ask? A pirate monkey head looks like a regular monkey head, except it’s gritting its teeth and it has an eye patch. They cost $10 and came with a ticket for one free refill. I got in line behind a young man who looked to be in his early 20s. He was very skinny, wearing a very long beard, Sikh head wrap, a button-down shirt that was unbuttoned down to his navel, and full-length jeans. Upon sight of him I knew with certainty that he would want to talk to me, as these kind of confused college student hippies always want to talk to me about some sort of insanity. I braced myself and got into line behind him, as I really wanted to drink frozen Tang out of a coconut carved to look like a pirate monkey head. Within seconds, he spun around and began talking in rhyme. It was a long-winding string of ersatz poetry that included some points like, “It’s a hot and beautiful day…and maybe some people come out to play.” There was much more, but it escapes me. Eventually it led to a dancing lesson. Off in the distance somewhere, there was somebody playing a bongo, and that was all he needed. He showed me some basic steps and spins in Flamenco dancing. My own sense of politeness and amusement often prevents me from objecting in these sorts of situations, and thus I end up half-heartedly Flamenco dancing with hippies in 97 degree heat while in line for a frozen drink in a carved coconut in the middle of a giant craft fair in Baltimore. When it was his turn to order, he had completely forgotten about getting his drink. I was quick to point out that the girl at the counter had just called him up. She looked terrified. I was relieved that he was no longer my problem.

Later that afternoon it was so hot that I really didn’t have much of an appetite, and I just wanted to drink. After the free refill for the monkey head had been redeemed, I switched to beer. The other vendors sharing our tent were locals, and they told us about a great brew pub called The Brewer’s Art just up the street. So I made a trip and brought back a couple of large bottles. Excellent. The kind people in our tent also had a large cooler full of beer, albeit of much lower quality. Regardless, my drinking started, and I sustained it at a good pace. Recycling is important. In these times when we need to be so concerned about global warming, recycling is an effortless thing that everybody can do to help. A booth promoting recycling was situated just a few tents down from where we sat. As you would expect, they had a giant garbage can for recyclables. It was convenient. As I finished bottles, I took them down and threw them in the appropriate can. As other people in our tent finished bottles I took them down, because I’m a nice and helpful guy. At the recycling booth there was a giant pack of Mormons, no fewer than a dozen, standing behind the garbage cans. They were all males who looked to be in their late teens and early twenties, who were likely doing their required mission work. They were there, unmoving, all day, from about noon until 10pm. Their job was to cheer loudly and jubilantly every time somebody recycled something. Anything. During the first part of the morning I had thrown away a few empty water bottles and they had cheered. Once afternoon rolled around and I began making more and more frequent trips with beer bottles, they didn’t waver. They continued to cheer for me faithfully each time I recycled another bottle. Some of them even seemed amused. As afternoon wore into evening it became a contest of endurance. I punished them with my empties and they retaliated with appalled cheers. Granted, it wasn’t an entirely fair contest, as a reasonable portion of the beer bottles that I was throwing away weren’t truly mine, but I wasn’t going to tell them that.

During that evening, between visits to the Mormons and reading sessions (I was reading Crime and Punishment at the time), I worked the booth, providing break time for my wife. She would use these breaks to go walking around, enjoying the festival, eating tofu, and talking with other vendors. She’s very well-adjusted that way. I was reasonably buzzed, but still entirely functional. Most of the people buying things didn’t make much of an impression on me. Everybody was generally nice and not insane. At one point, however, a somewhat intense-looking biker woman came up and bought some various small things. It’s important to note here that the city of Baltimore means fucking business with its sales tax policies. Prior to this whole event, my wife had been required to get a license from the city of Baltimore to be a vendor, and keep records of all of her sales. They were also adamant that she charge appropriate sales tax on top of her prices, and not simply take them out of her prices. For example, she couldn’t simply charge $4 for a patch and then out of that $4 pay the appropriate portion in taxes, effectively reducing the price to $3 and some change. She would rather have eaten a couple cents’ loss on each sale than have to perform extra math on each sale, but that wasn’t an option. They said they’d have people hidden in the crowd, spot-checking for compliance. Regardless, this biker woman bought a myriad of things which totaled some ungodly number like $7.32 or something similarly horrific. She was relatively short, looked to be in her mid 40s, was kind of chubby and wearing lots of Harley Davidson gear. She had a very bright and warm personality. Initially she just handed me a $10 bill, but upon seeing me struggle to figure out the change without the aid of a calculator, decided that she would just take $3 and pay the change in coin. I welcomed this. She grabbed a handful of coins out of her pocket, and leaned forward with it. While she was picking through the coins, looking for exact change, I noticed a very large and unusual-looking coin which was clearly not US currency. I was immediately intrigued and asked what it was. My assumption was that it was some sort of exotic foreign currency. She explained that it was her Sobriety Coin. She proceeded to read it to me: “TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE. UNITY. RECOVERY. SERVICE.” I was confused, and must have looked visibly so. I thought that it might be some sort of biker mantra, and perhaps she was about to kick my ass. I said, “Oh, I’ve never seen one of those before.” To which she replied, “You wouldn’t, unless you’ve ever been in alcoholics anonymous.”

The third day was uneventful. At the end of it, we drove home.

Flower Guy at the Intersection

Every day, the same homeless-looking guy, who’s probably not actually homeless, is selling flowers out of a bucket in the middle of the busy intersection on the Ohio River Boulevard where the McKees Rocks bridge meets Bellevue. It’s a big goddamn intersection. He is there in the middle of it every fucking day, without fail, trying to sell flowers in rush hour traffic. I go home from work this way every day, and I’ve only ever seen him sell a flower once. When the cars begin to move, he gets out of the way. When the light turns red, and they stop moving, he walks up and down the rows of stopped cars, smiling and holding out his bucket full of flowers. He seems like a polite enough guy, but it’s pretty irritating. I normally keep my driver side window down unless it’s just way too cold to do so. Really, it’s only that cold a few months out of the year. So most of the time, I’ve got the window down, and that attracts him. If I’m unlucky enough to be stopped at the light, on a nice day, with the window down and music throbbing, he’ll invariably stop by and give me that Hey man, want some flowers? look. I fucking hate flowers in the first place. I think they’re goddamned ridiculous, and a waste. Regardless, he’s nice. So I’m always polite. Earlier today, though, I was stopped at the intersection, window down, PJ Harvey playing. He stopped over, and I paid him no mind. I shook my head no. He stayed there, and started talking. I begun to get irritated, and shook my head no again. He waved me off, and stepped in closer. I turned my music down and prepared to get shitty with him. Before I could say a word, or even get my “mad face” on, he said, “Hey man. I just had the shit scared out of me. I was over there in the trees, takin’ a piss, and a cop pulls up. So I think he’s comin’ for me, and I try to stop pissin,’ but I can’t. So I finish quickly, and try to get my pecker back in my pants as fast as I can, sprinkling a little on my fuckin’ hands and pants. Then the cop asks me if there was an accident, and I said no. It wasn’t an accident, there was just a car broke down earlier, and they got it started, and drove off. Then the cop drives off, and doesn’t say anything about the fact that he just caught me pissing in the trees by the intersection.”

At this point, he was smiling ear-to-ear. The descending sun was behind his head, like a halo framing his baseball cap. He was completely filthy, wearing a day’s worth of exhaust on his skin, clothes, and beard. He was hugging a five-gallon bucket full of flowers. I was at a loss for words. The light turned green, and he waved me along while still smiling. I smiled back and told him to have a good evening. I drove home.

Dutch-Style Milkshakes

We make relatively regular trips up to Toronto. It’s a nice change of scenery about once a year. We normally make a three-day weekend out of it, at some point in the spring. It wasn’t until this past trip that we realized that the drug laws in Canada are a little more relaxed than they are in the United States. Apparently, weed is illegal there, but a small amount for personal use is generally ignored as long as you’re not selling. So prior to our most recent trip, my wife did a little research. She found a café that doesn’t sell weed, but, for a small fee, will allow you access to their members’ area up on their patio, where you may smoke anything you wish to. Given that we don’t have any contacts in Toronto, this left us without access to anything to smoke, even though we had a decent place for it. We made the trip, and hit the café, hoping that we would befriend somebody who could help us out while on the premises. It didn’t seem like a stretch of the imagination that we’d be able to score something in a den of pot smokers. We bought the pass to the members’ area and inquired about etiquette. Would it be okay to try to buy from somebody there? In short, the answer was “no.” For legal reasons, the owners and management of the café couldn’t allow or condone that sort of activity. The man working the counter clarified that they could, however, sell us each a “Dutch-Style Milkshake” once we were upstairs. He assured us that they were worth their $13 price tags. Nudge nudge, wink wink. My wife and I each bought one and sat on the patio while we consumed them. They were good, and had that telltale grassy taste that betrays the presence of the special ingredient. At this point it’s important to note that hitherto, our experience with drugs had been contained to weed and alcohol. Given that the man preparing our milkshakes had to be cautiously vague about their contents, we simply assumed that meant that there was weed in it, and nothing else. Also important to note is the fact that when you eat something, it takes a little longer for it to hit your system than if you smoke it. However, once it hits you, it stays with you longer. It’s a trade-off of sorts. Once our milkshakes were completely drained, we went downstairs to leave. I stopped over at the bar to thank the man who had helped us out and tell him we were going to go get dinner and return later, perhaps for dessert. He looked at me a little crookedly, smiled, and said, “Give that thing about an hour to kick in.” I smiled back and said, “Cool.” It was 8:30pm, and our new friend clarified that they’d be open until about 2am. We walked out feeling nothing at all.

There’s an excellent restaurant in Toronto named “C’est What?” We’ve eaten there before. Their beer selection is expansive and they don’t stock crap. The food is awesome. The ambiance is cool. It’s a great place to eat if you’re a beer snob. As we ordered our first beers and then our food, the milkshakes had not yet begun to affect us. Almost at the same time as our food arrived, that familiar little head-rush began to wash over me. It was subtle, pleasant, and went well with the meal. I told my wife, and inquired about her state. She was still fine, and not feeling anything at all yet. We ate. It was good. I killed my first beer (a 6%abv oatmeal stout) and ordered another (a 9%abv imperial stout). It was heavenly. I began to feel slightly better, which might have been the beers. I’m not sure. Generally those two beers wouldn’t do anything noticeable to me, though given the circumstances I’m not sure what their effect may have been. After I was just about done eating, and beginning to think about dessert, I looked up at my wife. She had just asked me if the lights flickered. They hadn’t. She started laughing really hard, and she stared at me like I was growing horns. I asked her if she was okay. She said she was, and tried to subdue her uncontrollable laughter. Her eyes glassed over. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her pita, hummus, and Falafel sat on her plate. She struggled to compose herself, and decided to hit the ladies room. Upon her return she looked better, though it was short lived. It took about 30 seconds before the next laughing/crying fit befell her. I was still relatively straight, and I felt pretty good. It seemed like an eternity since we had seen our waiter. I assisted my wife in finishing her meal, and we decided that we needed dessert. In retrospect this seems counter-productive to our desire to exit the situation. We really wanted to get out of there, because we felt we were making a scene. The allure of dessert was too strong, however, and I felt like I still had the situation under control. It seemed like the waiter was leaving us alone. He may have seen my wife crying and given us distance to be considerate. He may have seen us both acting strangely and left us alone out of avoidance. He may have simply been busy. It’s also possible that our sense of time was beginning to distort. Later in the evening, we both had incredible trouble with time distorting. Our waiter finally returned and we ordered dessert. It arrived pretty quickly, and it was delicious. I felt my mental state changing, though I kept myself sufficiently together that I was able to pay the check, leave an appropriate tip, and guide us both out of the restaurant without difficulty. It’s important to note my atrocious navigational skills at this point. I cannot find my way around strange cities. When we go on trips my wife always prints out a map from the Internet and navigating becomes her responsibility. I impressed upon her that I had no fucking idea how to get us back to the hotel, which was clearly our only intelligent option. She assured me that she was feeling better. She was in control of her faculties again, and would be able to get us back. I believed her, because I was without options. We began to walk towards the subway station. She honestly seemed pretty straight. My gentle high was becoming less gentle. It was no longer a familiar weed high, but an incredible full-body sensation. My skin was becoming hypersensitive. Generally I’ve got a pretty good cold tolerance, but in this case I could feel the wind on my abdomen though my coat and shirt. The cold seemed to run like an ice cube all over my body. The chill was relentless. I couldn’t block it. I began to shiver. I felt like I kept falling asleep as I was walking. My wife guided me along by my elbow. Once at the subway terminal, we waited for our train and boarded it when it arrived. We also had to take a second connecting train to get back to our hotel. I was having serious doubts about my ability to complete the journey. Had it not been for the now-intolerable cold, I would have been content to simply sit on a bench and wait for the experience to end. I can’t remember the rest of our return trip. I just remember ending up on the bed.

We gave up on the notion of going back out into the city to drink almost immediately. All of my things were still with me and intact. My wallet, money, credit cards, camera, wedding ring, watch and coat had all made it back with me. I cannot adequately stress how amazed I was at that fact. I got up from the bed to confirm that it was true numerous times by taking inventory of all of the above-listed items. Each time I checked, I laid back down and couldn’t determine if I had actually just checked or simply dreamed that I had. My vision never distorted, though occasionally I was just a little uncertain of what I was seeing, kind of like a waking dream. My sense of hearing became painfully acute. The subtlest pipe rattling in the wall or wind rustling against the building sounded like a rock concert. In the course of the evening I had quite a few conversations with my wife that I’m not completely sure really happened. I kept falling into and out of a sort of dream state. Time periodically slowed down immensely and later seemed to disappear in chunks. My dreams and my wakefulness were intermingling progressively more. The whole experience was frightening, because I didn’t know what I had actually done and what I hadn’t. It’s also noteworthy that I occasionally suffer from night terrors. The first time that I successfully fell asleep, I had a night terror almost immediately. I awoke standing beside the bed, yelling, with my wife calming me down from her side of the bed. Incredibly thirsty, I got a drink and went back to bed and back to sleep. Around 3:30am I had another night terror, this one even more intense than the first had been. This time I leapt up from the bed, ran around it, fell, and scurried on my hands and knees for a few feet before awakening, again yelling. I had incredible carpet burns on my left knee and all over my left foot. After that, I was able to fall back asleep and remain that way until morning.

Our best guess, given the description of our experiences and a little Internet research, is that the milkshakes had hash in them, not weed. Embarrassment prevented us from returning to the café to seek definitive answers. In retrospect, I don’t think the experience would have been bad if we had had any idea what the strength of it would be, if we wouldn’t have had to cross the entirety of the city at night via subway in that state, and perhaps if only one of us had done it at a time, with the other acting as babysitter. Perhaps most alarming is the fact that while we were on the patio drinking our milkshakes, we observed another table of people in their early 20s who also seemed to be new to the place. There were four of them, two couples. Each of them had consumed one milkshake and were working on their second when we were leaving. I can only speculate how their night went.