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It’s an obstacle course in downtown Washington, DC, between 7:30 and 8:00 on a Wednesday morning. My vigorous walk in 34 degree, blustery wind this morning, saw me zig-zagging through downtown, taking whichever street had the “Walk” sign illuminated. It was particularly crazy today. At 19th and L, a police car acted as a traffic light at an intersection. Even though there is a traffic light at 19th and L, I guess for some reason, they decided it needed more help there this morning. Maybe it was too cold for an officer to get out and stop and start traffic – so I watched the odd site of a police car simply driving to position himself perpendicularly across 3 lanes of traffic to block their way. Then, when the officer figured it was time to let cars proceed, he’d back up out of the way. Then, he’d drive in front of them again. I shook my head and laughed; checked to see if there was some presidential parade coming or something, but there wasn’t. So, I took the opportunity to just walk out onto a deserted L Street, crossing in the middle of an uncharacteristically, artificially empty street. So, I guess my zig-zagging was in response to either a Walk signal or an open invitation of an empty street due to traffic patterns.
I did the same thing crossing 18th Street. But, I probably should have stayed on the other side, because I had to step my way between buildings and huge garbage trucks. Interestingly, — who knew? – on garbage collection day, some garbage actually comes up from a trap door in the side walk, while other garbage is pushed up the long parking garage ramps by winded attendants, and the truck drivers drive the huge trucks right up onto the sidewalk. So. Here I was, walking a narrow strip between a gaping hole in the sidewalk and a truck body, angling to avoid the large cart full of garbage that’s on my right as well as the one that the attendant is trying to push to my left… and ahead of all this is another garbage truck just sitting there on the sidewalk for good measure. Strangeness. But I think it's kind of fun.
I wish I’d had an aerial videotape of my walking through DC yesterday afternoon. In an unprecedented move, I left my office a half hour early yesterday and walked to Dress Barn Woman on 17th and K to check out the clothes before catching a 4:14 bus at 17th and I. Normally I would have been sitting at my desk at 3:47 pm on a Tuesday. However, Mary and I have this “thing” where when we need each other, we have the power to position ourselves to be where we need to be (like me having my cell phone in the palm of my hand when she chose to call me from her Greenway wreck). So, I get this wonderful ringtone “I Love You…” song in Dress Barn. I answer.
“I’m LOST” says Mary. “Where are you?” M Street. M and 34th. She was driving home from an interview. Okay. Uhhhhh. And so it began.
I bolted out of the store.
Got my bearings, and once I realized from Mary that the street numbers were going down as she drove, I figured if I hurried, I could make it from 17th & K to 17th & M (2 blocks) just in time to flag her down and personally show her how to get out of DC. So, I walked and huffed and puffed and asked her every few seconds, “Where are you now?” As she reported markers and streets, I’m looking for M street and telling her which way to go. Oh no! Here I am at M and it’s one-way – the wrong way! I can’t meet her here. At the same time, Mary’s saying, “Oh… I’m not on M Street any more…” Well WHERE ARE YOU? “Uh… K Street. That’s right.” K Street and What? “20th.” 20th and K. Oh geez. So I turn left on M Street trying to move as quickly as possible toward where Mary might be. “Is there anyplace you can pull over???” Silly question. "If you see Connecticut Avenue, turn Left there!" (At this point I am puffing up Connecticut Ave.) "There's no left turn at this time of day - there are traffic cops saying I can't turn here." Then, "Where are you now?" "I'm next to a Dress Barn Woman." Which is where I started in the first place.
Oh shit. It goes on this way for another several minutes – me, walking in circles downtown, Mary encountering changing streets and one-way obstacles, till finally we zero in on each other. “Okay. I’m on 17th Street between K and M. YOU turn left on 16th Street. Yeah. Now turn left on M. Okay. Got it? Left lane. Turn left on 17th Street. Get in the right lane. You see me???” YES! I let out a deep breath and got in her car. We proceeded home, using the HOV lanes.
On Purcellville Road, Mary pulled up to the mailbox to get the stack of mail and packages out of it from her car window. No matter that there were cars coming both ways and they couldn’t make it past us. Deal with it; we live here. I had to go find a Goodyear credit card in the house, to pay for the $577.00 repairs on my VW, and then Mary was going to take me to get my car. I struggled out of her car, balancing, bungling, struggling with all the mail. The wind blew the car door back shut on me. It calmed down; I tried to get out again. I approached the front door. I opened the storm door and held it open with my shoulder, balancing mail while I put the key in the lock. The wind came back. With a vengeance. And blew the door off the frame. That’s right – it took the wood, the door frame with it, and blew the sucker right off. Goddammit!
Obstacles. In DC; in Purcellville. Sometimes I am the obstacle; sometimes I am the answer. Sometimes I navigate well; sometimes I get sucker-punched.
Gil refrained from chewing me out about the door. Mary held me tight and reminded me that I had her in my arms and that makes everything better. We had a warm home and tuna casserole to look forward to. Seattle was coming home with a perfect smile and a trendy new “chocolate” phone. And we have jobs to pay for the door and for the $577.00 – Goodyear special, “90 days same as cash.”
My heart is full of gratitude.
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