Friday, September 16, 2005

Too Many Dogs at Café Culture

Too Many Dogs at Café Culture. How many dogs is too many dogs at Café Culture? It all depends on how they are behaving. Everybody loves Buddy and Lucy. Luke has been a frequent visitor lately – he ‘s the stocky black dog belonging to Vaughan Jolley. Roosevelt is a good little dog – he comes in with Betsy from Shelter Bay. Some people wish there weren’t so many dogs hairs on the floor – not me.

Horrible Traffic in Mount Vernon. It was Friday afternoon hell – stop and go, no place to park. Mount Vernon is slipping badly in the culture-to-traffic ratio, which is an index devised by Frog Hospital to measure the quality of life. Here’s how it works – a city can have terrible traffic, but if it has great culture, then it’s worth fighting the traffic to get to all those interesting places. Or a country place can have no traffic and no place to go to anyways….. But for Mount Vernon, the traffic is growing a lot faster than there are places worth going to.

Todd Wood, Co-op Manager-for-Life. Frog Hospital, perpetually at odds with the corrupt management of the Food Co-op, spied Co-op Manager-for-Life Todd Wood over by the Deli and whispered in his ears, “I can’t wait until we get a Whole Foods store in Anacortes.” These words struck terror in his heart. Whole Foods, if you don’t know, is national chain of organic food supermarkets. They have one store in Seattle in Ravenswood. They have very high quality food. The Skagit Valley Food Co-op management has been worried for several years that Whole Foods might branch out up here. I certainly hope so – the Co-op has no competition at this point.

The Looming Weekend. It does arrive eventually. But for me, being on a landscaper’s schedule, weekends don’t mean squat. I work on a rain schedule. Like I didn’t work today, Friday, because it was wet. Well, it dried up in the afternoon and, strictly speaking, I could have worked today, but instead I got a hair cut and went to Mount Vernon for errands. This Saturday and Sunday I’ll be working at Connie Funk’s where I am almost finished with the restoration of her once-and-future wonderful garden. Work on Monday too. On Tuesday I leave for California.

Wayne Everton at the Barber Shop. “So you’re a dickhead,” Gretchen said with a laugh, meaning I had been to the barber shop and Dick Holt cut my hair. “Not so,” I replied, “Tony cut my hair, that way you don’t get so much of a Rotary Club look.” Tony Holt is Dick Holt’s son. They work together. I am really particular about who cuts my hair. I often have Marianne cut my hair at her Mane Event hair salon, but for two problems – one is that she just retired and the other problem is that it’s not good for a woman to cut your hair – not at all the time – it can become emasculating. You remember what Delilah did to Samson? And then he lost all his strength. Women, love’em, but total trust is not advised.

I was forgetting the Waynemaster, himself, hizzoner, in the flesh, in the chair at the barbershop giving his candid views. I monitor the Waynester’s psychic aura, rather than engage in a conversation with any content. I figure if he’s not acting nervous, or depressed, or pissed off or anything like that – if he’s just relaxed and laughing easily, then our municipal government is in good hands. Reviewing his aura while Tony cut my hair, I gave him a big thumb’s up.

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