Where the Wobblies were

So, it’s afternoon here in the south of California, and I’m feeling euphoric excitement cut with anxiousness.

The streets are lit orange.
Road-sauteed skunk is in the air.
Russian neighbors are talking grammatically-altered baby-speak to my brother’s dog, fire engines are battling regurgitated free-styles in Spanish, an original coal-fueled, model train is being ignited in the driveway next door, mid-modification-revving engines are groaning twilight attempts at breath along my street,
and I’m…

well…, I’m trying to digest the fact that myself and Mister E. are on our way to Seattle Washington in less than 24 hours with only a few backpacks, some love, a coupla bottled cliches and no plans.

I guess it shouldn’t be all that new or scary…

Afterall, I’ve done tougher things. I’ve lived and worked in countries where I didn’t speak the language; places where they fed me things like guinea pig and horse sashimi and bowed profusely at me while I did my grocery shopping. I’ve worked with inmates in Ecuadorian jails, swapped gambling leads with sun-baked seven year olds at a kick-boxing match in Thailand, dodged zapoteco pick-up lines in the back of a flat-bed and tried to order a black coffee in Starbucks without getting laughed at…

I should be able to handle a simple move.

…especially to such a beautiful place that Tom Robbins had this to say about:

“I’m here for the rust and the mildew, for webbed feet and twin peaks, spotted owls and obscene clams (…), blackberries and public art (…), for the rituals of the potlatch and the espresso cart, for bridges that are always pratfalling into the water and ferries that keep ramming the dock. I’m here because the Wobblies used to be here, and sometimes in Pioneer Square you can still find bright-eyed old anarchists singing their moldering ballads of camaraderie and revolt. I’m here because someone once called Seattle “the hideout capital of the U.S.A.,” a distant outpost of a town where generations of the nation’s failed, fed-up, and felonious have come to disappear. Long before Seattle was “America’s Athens”, it was America’s Timbuktu.”

Yup, it definitely sounds like my kind of place! …Webbed feet, “moldering ballads,” Wobblies and failed, fed-up felons. Ooh la LA! Come to me, Seattle!