Best Week Ever

Could it really have been the best week of my life?

I flew to Palm Beach on the 4^th to present at an educational conference and as soon as I was finished teaching on Sunday, I was going to pick up a rental car and drive across Alligator Alley to St. Pete to visit friends for a week. 

Best laid plans.

I got to the car rental desk and gave the guy my driver’s license and credit card and he began processing my reservation and then said a short sentence that took a while to sink in.

My driver’s license had expired a week before, on my birthday, and was no longer valid and he said he couldn’t rent me a car.

I said “can you sell me crack?” and he said “yes.”

I said “can you sell me pot?” and he said “yes.”

I said “can you sell me some hash?” and he said “yes.”

I said “can you rent me a car?” and he said “no.”

And with that, I walked out into the 90+ degree heat and made my way back the couple of blocks to the hotel where the bellman was holding my bags.  I had the concierge check direct flights but the next one wasn’t for another 5 hours and cost over $600.  Then I had the concierge check into bus schedules and the next bus to St. Pete was leaving in less than an hour and would cost $62.  There is no business or first class on a bus, it’s all steerage.

I called a couple of St. Pete friends who were expecting me to arrive late that afternoon and told them what was happening.  My girlfriend Corrin kept saying “this is my worst nightmare, I couldn’t survive!” and after about the 20^th time of her saying it I had to crisis manage her by assuring her about 20 times that fortunately, it’s wasn’t happening to her, it was, without a doubt, happening to me! 

A whole bunch of folks who I know and love were at the conference and several had rental cars and a sense of adventure so it was easy to get a ride to the bus station.  Two wrong turns and a tour of the ghetto later, they dropped me at the bus station with 8 minutes to spare until my scheduled departure. 

I ran to the ticket office yelling at anyone who would listen that I would dearly appreciate it if they would make sure the 1:15 didn’t leave without me. 

Scenes of The 3:10 to Yuma filled my head.

I got my ticket, I checked my bags, I got on the bus, there were passengers filling about half the seats and there was passenger luggage filling the other half of the seats.  There wasn’t a truly empty seat until the back row ­just across the aisle from the rest room.  Without hesitation I asked the gentleman sitting in the window seat if the empty aisle seat was taken and he didn’t hesitate to say that it wasn’t. 

I sat down.

And as soon as I did, from 4 rows up Central Casting sent in a hoochie mamma complete with a bobbing head, bruises all over her shoulders and arms and glazed over eyes and she said to my seat mate “where Old School gonna sit, huh?”

I said “who’s Old School? Is this seat taken?” and my seatmate quickly and calmly assured me that my seat did not belong to Old School and that I should stay put. 

The white guy across the aisle woke from his heroin nod, leered in my direction and said “you should come sit with me” but my seatmate said “she’s staying here.” 

And I did.

From 2 rows up an Amy Winehouse impersonator turned in her seat, looked at me and said “Ole School” and sucked her teeth.

The white heroin guy was looking more attractive to me with every passing second.

My seatmate noticed some tattoos on my arm and began showing me his, which he’d gotten in prison. 

So, to recap, I was sitting in the back row of a Greyhound bus in Old School’s seat, my seatmate was an ex-con, the stench of the toilet a mere 2 feet away was enough to choke a pig, the floor of the bus was covered with a sticky liquid, there were peanut shells, food containers and all manner of other trash all over the place. 

Did I mention it’s a 10 hour ride to St. Pete?  250 miles.  Ten hours.   

Leave the Driving to Us & Welcome Aboard!

And then came Old School.

An old white guy who smelled 5 days dead came weaving, squinting and grasping seat backs and shoulders of strangers as he shuffled down the aisle.  He was just coherent enough to realize that his former seat was no longer available and there ensued an extended period of confusion that I began to think might kill him. 

No such luck.

My seatmate, a soulful armed robber with the names of several old girlfriends scratched out, permanently, on his forearms, turned out to be a gentleman after all.

He handled Old School beautifully.  He talked him into a seat by the Amy Winehouse impersonator and other than a few trips into the rest room (no toilet, just a hole in the floor, no sink, no garbage can – am I in Mumbai?)  where it sounded like Old School might be coughing up what was left of his lungs, the trip turned into a lesson in meditation.

I’m only half joking when I say that I have complete confidence that should I be taken hostage and tortured.  I feel I can do anything, take anything, survive and thrive anything.  True dat.

After a 30 minute dinner break in Punta Gorda during which the driver  - a yellow toothed 60-something tiny man but with an authoritarian streak a mile wide, “NO DRINKING ON THE BUS, NO DRUGS ON THE BUS, IF YOU DRINK OR USE DRUGS ON MY BUS I WILL PUT YOU OUT WITHOUT APPEAL AND I WILL LEAVE YOU ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD” – asked me out, we straddled the lane lines over the Sunshine Skyway (my favorite way to cross it) and truly, before I knew what had hit me, we pulled into the station on 9^th Street in St. Pete where my dear old friend Leslie was waiting for me.

I’m allergic to mosquitoes and every single bite turns into a red festered welt the size of a oreo and much of my anticipation whenever I come to Florida is spent planning my mosquito strategy.  This time, as hell fire was burning all around me, at least I was ready for the skeetas. 

I sprayed all exposed flesh with Deep Woods Off before getting off the bus but somehow, in the 3 minutes it took for me to claim my luggage and load it into Leslie’s car, approximately 1400 mosquitoes had chewed through my pants and bitten my butt. 

Did I mention I was sick? 

I’d gotten a lung infection up in Canada in late May, was on my second round of antibiotics for it, had minor surgery to get that benign breast lump removed 6 days before leaving on the trip and when I got to the conference I got a bad cold with a lot of snot and a super sore throat.

The bus ride helped put things into perspective.

Corinn, the lifesaving rule breaker that she is, rented a car for me in her name for the week so I could have transportation.  She wanted me to borrow her Escalade but I’m petrified to drive such a big rig – I’m certain I’d hit something so she rented me a sporty little Mazda.  A friend will go with you to a movie but a true friend will rent a car and let you drive it with an expired license. 

While in St. Pete I saw my oldest, dearest friends.  Corinn, in addition to saving my life by getting me a car, also had her massage/facial girl work me over for 3 hours one afternoon, I eventually felt well enough to walk my favorite 7 mile stretch of Pass-a-Grille beach, the love of my life since first grade, Larry Sacco, took me out on his boat for a personal canal and seawall tour of all our old haunts, fishing and party spots.  A total bonus was that my friends Joe and Marina were in town – they also live in Barcelona – and I got to see them both, their beautiful boys and get all caught up on their jet set lives.  I went to Rays games every night from Tuesday through Saturday. 

That was the best part.

And I promise it’s not just me who thinks this but Baseball Betty is alive and kicking in the Trop.  I’ve never felt so close to Mom as I did watching her Rays.  One night with Leslie, her husband and son, we got to our seats – and you will not believe this – and who was sitting next to me but Gray Dunlap, another of our neighborhood friends who Leslie and I went all through school with from first grade on.  What, I ask you, are the odds of that?  Priceless.

Unlike my last trip to St. Pete, I did not put on 10 pounds.

Cheesy grits at the Sea Horse.  Chicken Valencia at Peppin.  Wings – tons of Wings – at Ferg’s.  24 ounce beers bought in the aisles from another classmate Desmond Ballard.  It’s like I never left.

As Larry was taking us hydroplaning across the bay back to his gorgeous house after our boat tour, I turned to him and said that I thought it had been the best week of my life.  He told me he thought it was because so much of it was unplanned, just spontaneously unfolding.  Larry’s almost always right.

Another super fun and healing time for me was the day Leslie, her daughter Casey and her mom Marcia and I all went to the Body Worlds anatomy exhibit at the Museum of Science & Industry in Tampa.  Marcia is Mom’s age and we grew up just down the street from Leslie’s family – they’ve known me since I was 4 and it was the absolute best feeling being with 3 generations of a family that I have known and loved all my life.  For those of you who are close to your own families, you get to do that all the time.  It was nice for me to be in the middle of it and even though it was only for a short while, I’ll never forget it.

It was great.

And I checked with my friends about what they think about my crying spells those couple of days in May over Mom and they all said it’s fine, it’s expected, they’re not worried about me and they are all surprised I’m doing as well as I am because of how much work I had booked when Mom died and I’ve not had hardly any down time.  That felt good to hear because I have virtually no experience with feeling anything other than fabulous and I was worried about feeling so sad. 

Anyway, in spite of the bus ride, bites so big and bad that they’re leaving scars and being sick, it really was the best week of my life.  Mom would be so happy for me and she would have absolutely loved the adventure of the bus ride.  So did I.

I’m heading into a 2 week workshop in my Seattle studio so I won’t be able to post again until the end of June.  Thanks for being patient.

Love and Prayers From Here to There.