But it makes a great story now...

Between Big Dummy's recent move and a blog I've been reading from the west coast I've gotten a little nostalgic about the great northwest. I loved it there, it is my Xanadu. But from my first month there you'd never know it.

I almost spent my first night on the streets. Seems Hotels don’t take cash anymore. Sure I could pay in cash when I checked out, but they wanted a credit card and I don’t believe in them. We argued, and eventually they let me give them a damage deposit up-front. It was just a temporary location. I was looking for something available immediately and cheep.
The ad said, 100 year old house, must like pets, room for rent. What it should have said was cowgirls seeking tolerant housemaid to help with daily living skills, endure a judgmental Mormon, and feed 5 Chihuahuas, 2 cats and a hedgehog. It was a house full of estrogen, some in human form and some in horse form. This mother daughter cowgirl duo was to be joined on occasion by cowboy Troy (the fiery haired middle child), and sister (now Mother of two) Terry. It was soon clear this ideal on Willamette was not so ideal. The morman house mate was so unendureable I hid a bottle of wiskey in my room. Between tripping over the saddles and trophies I read the home and for rent section every day. The prices were almost enough to drive me to get another job, but I had to have time to find a place. So I sent for a roommate from back east. She moved to Portland with 2 suitcases and a cat, and the two of us lived in that 10x4 space, with 2 cats, a dresser, a coffee pot, and a chair (during the day we rolled up our sleeping bag bedding).

Apparently I could not have a guest for longer than 2 weeks and we had to move out. It's not that we wern't looking. She looked while I was at work, we looked at night and on weekends. There was just nothing. We were are about to crack so we took our last $85 (before my next pay day) to buy a LONG list of places for rent. What a waste. Desperate, and heartbroken by the crap we were finding, we decided to just look around an area we liked. We were driving around 42nd and Hawthorne, a lovely little area, when we found the house. We found our house in a soft sunny Portland rain, literally, at the end of a rainbow. This little green house behind bushes and a great catalpa tree was for rent. It had a front porch and a back deck. It had 2 (count them two) bedrooms and a yard. It beat all the craptacular apartments we had seen. The guy and his son showed it to us, it was only a few hundred more than the apartments. Sure there were utilities, but we would soon have 2 incomes. I asked what he needed. He said fill out the form. I said “What do you need to sign with us today”. I made the guy sign with us that day, none of this wait and see crap. He signed as his son got my keys out of my car, which I had locked in there in all my excitement. I was late to work out in Beaverton that day but after more of my make-it-happen-now tactics they even hired my roommate on.

My grandfather became seriously ill and I had to fly home. Go back to the farm land, flooded by: relatives; memories; tension; and the Amaquansippi or the Sangamon. The waters, already high, reached only a quarter of the early growth on the crops. I was weeks early for the funeral, but all caskets look the same closed. I'd helped pick out caskets and dress the dead before. It was ok not to be there this time, and every one understood, except maybe me. My being back was less tragic to me and became more comical as I found myself knitting baby blankets, and even more so, when upon my return to Portland I found: my car had been impounded (Because my roommate didn't have my current proof of insurance), she had lost her job because she had been stranded somewhere, and we had a dog. My flight got in at 12:57 a.m. My roommate was waiting for me with a mutual friend from work. He had driven. They looked sheepish and guilty. The story unfolded and my car had been towed from Mollala because of lack of (proof of) insurance, 3 days ago. I had only been gone for 5 days. She and some kids had decided to take off for a weekend party the day I left and she had been pulled over on the way back. The insurance card, as luck would have it, lapsed the day I left too. Although it was paid early it does take at least a good 4 extra working days for
mail to get from Illinois to Oregon. In fact my father suggested I just pick a card up while I was in Illinois. But since when do daughters listen to their fathers? My roommate informed me she had been stranded. They wouldn't release the car to her because she wasn't the owner. The officer who ticked and towed assured her it would be no problem. I now believe that she was just fortunate he mislead her instead of arresting her for auto theft. But she was determined in that post-college/ pre-realism sort of way to get my car back. Who knew it would be such a Herculean effort.


After: being denied the signature of a notary public at my own bank (Washington Mutual, don't bank there) which the city informed me my roommate would need (I would released the car into my roommates possession so they can release it to her), having called the police station to verify the situation and being ill treated when merely asking how I was to get to the impound yard; six busses and 12 miles of hitchhiking later as I was at work. Meanwhile my roommate was being rejected by the system again. She called me at work and finally after beating into the proper authorities head that yes indeed they could take a fax from my insurance company that, although it had no expiration date (it plainly showed beginning date as being 7 days before) she was then told by "The One Left In Command" to hitchhike home. My roommate is 20 and just cute enough to get killed. She relays all this to me when I get home. By now I am madder than a hatter at a tealess party. How dare the authority figures, we are taught to obey and respect, tell anyone's child to hitchhike?!
Mothers move from Mollala.

So I call into work so I can go with her the next day. I demand an explanation about the problems from the day before. The over baring secretary explains (perhaps to argue away the time while doing paperwork) that they couldn't release the car "what if it had been stolen?", "what if I wasn't who I said I was?". She then went on to inform me that she could have notarized the statement we needed for release...Hmmm if we could have both been there I GUESS WE WOULDN'T HAVE NEEDED IT! I am thankful the impound was only a few more miles walk, and the secretary didn't tell us to hitchhike.

Court Mollala, again.
She also has a ticket for speeding, while she was following someone. Well, they are still Illinois license plates. I told her to go plead not guilty. She better not have to pay any of that. She paid enough in losing her job and towing and impound fees. Behind the court house the 94 car is dead, just the battery. Mollala is jinxed. The judge assures her, the garage assures her, everyone assures her that the police will help her. They carry equipment in every car for just such things. Unless you're from Illinois. The same sour-faced lady, would not help, would not listen, would not even open the tiny door to the tiny station for my roommate. The people of Mollala itself seem to be o.k. The bus lady, the tow people, the kid who jumped the car, maybe they import the police from Indiana. Nah, hitchhiking is illegal in Indiana.