Parking Places

Please excuse me for my deliberate exuberance. Besides missing my wonderful, beautiful boys and others nearest and dearest to my heart, my life is incredible. My dad always said, “If you live right, you get good parking places.” I tell you, boys and girls, I must be living right. I left a negative and hostile work environment in search for something a little less damaging to the soul. I found it!

First, I met this incredible woman in Gearhart, Oregon who took in this stranger and her dog for a week and a half with promises of more assistance with Harley when I fly into Las Vegas to get my van. I really didn’t even have a plan.

“I’m just waiting for it to cool down a bit before I have to retrieve my van/home,” I shamefully try to explain.

“We’ll just see how it goes with the dogs. You’re welcome to stay as long as you need.” Dolores takes in the homeless and wounded. Usually it’s the four legged desperados she opens her home to, so I think Harley was my ticket in. Whatever the case, I met a beautiful human and four very charming and lucky canines: a homeless and hungry Great Dane , a horny Chihuahua in love with the Great Dane, a Monkey Terrier (I call her Monster) that came to Dolores with two broken hind legs and a sweet little old golden thing pushing three hundred years old. I’m sure it’s Dolores’ love that keeps her alive. It must be pet owners like me that shorten a dog’s life. First sign of anal seepage and it’s time to put the beast down.

So, after settling in Gearhart and working out the kinks from our previous life and the ferry trip, Harley and I jump in the truck and head south to look up my aunt and uncle. Being raised on an island in Alaska with all my distant family in Oregon, I didn’t get to spend as much time with these fine folks as one would expect when you are close. Emotionally close, that is. I drive to their home, but of course, these two are out on an adventure some place so I leave a note on torn paper adhered with duct tape to their door. The next day I get a call and I’m back down to see them. Long lovey dovey visit made short, Aunty tells me they never sold the cabin that I have so many family memories in. They moved out a year ago but because of the real estate market being what it is, they decided to hang on to it and maintain both homes. Wow. She has a home that is peopleless and I am a people that is homeless. Doesn’t get much sweeter than that, especially on the coast of Oregon with seven miles of sandy beach out my back door. Just point me to the tsunami route and I’m in heaven! They are happy as well.

I tell you, only two weeks into my sabbatical adventure and I’m getting pretty good parking places. I must be doing something right. I wish I could explain that philosophy to Harley. He keeps pissing on kids’ sand castles. I tell him, “Dude, that’s going to catch up with you!”

I know people who live like that. They don’t live by an acceptance of right and wrong, but more of a matter of what they can get away with. I feel bad for these people. They may believe they are successful in life all the while looking behind their backs. That’s no way to live. Now, I'm not claiming to be perfect, but the effort to do what is right by yourself and others is a code of ethics I can't sleep without. And the parking gods don’t miss a thing. I'm positive Dolores will have free parking where ever she goes in life.