Reading: Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children.

Moving: walked 3 miles

18 August 2001: What else happened last night and what happened today

Recently a reader sent me a link to an article about Bill Griffith, who writes and draws "Zippy," and his relocation to southeastern Connecticut from San Francisco. Was it really three years ago I saw him at my lake with our mutual friends? I guess so. One of Zippy's recent lines was "faith-based arsenic testing," which I just love. That line occurred to me yestreen as we walked along 16th Avenue, my walk to work, to the Fillmore and the show. A woman with a little boy stopped us on the corner asking if we knew of a church around here. Well, sure. Which one?

She was from another state and wanting a battered woman's shelter. The only one that could take her was miles out of Denver, backtracking toward the escaped state. She had heard of a church that might give her vouchers for gas.

There is no way she was scamming.

The Church in the City, the Christian Fellowship, the Unitarian? After 7:00 on a Friday night? We talked with her for several minutes, about churches and hospitals and gas. She asked for nothing but directions. I had nothing on me but my license and house key. RDC had a reasonable amount of cash but in not many bills. He gave her some, but not all, nothing that would "hurt" us. That was heavy in my head when he paid $4.50 for a beer and I $25 for two CDs later that night.

She asked us, in our Tevas, khaki shorts, and plain unlettered t-shirts, if we were lawyers. No. "Well, you look like lawyers." She was grateful for the help we could give her, dignified and not as lost in spirit as she was geographically. She came from a state that's not exactly awash in her demographic. Her husband is an officer in the service. From these two facts and the other children waiting in her car a few blocks away, I speculate that she has no family nearby and no means of financial support--being continually uprooted in service life doesn't make it easy for a person to establish herself in a career, nor does having several children. She saw us as lawyers because we looked obviously comfortably off, sounded well-educated, and were white, and because she had strong hopes of running into a benevolent family lawyer.

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Which makes today's delight even more shallow. We went to REI in pursuit of travel clothing. I was not too hopeful but figured I could find a passport pouch to wear under my clothes, should I feel so paranoid. The travel accessories were unfortunately close to the dog accessories, and I sorely wanted Bark-a-Boots for our nonexistent dog and all that rough terrain we so frequently hike on. Also there are lifejackets (excuse me, PFDs, personal floating devices) for dogs now. As well as those wonderful backpacks and collapsible water dishes.

I left that area with a silk passport belt. The last time I wore a belt under my clothes was my first period, when I took the advice my mother gave me and figured that if Margaret did it, it must be okay; this was before my sister got home from college for the summer and set me straight. I should have thought of that before.

Anyway, in the clothing area I found exactly what I wanted: a nonwrinkly, comfy cozy unwaisted princess-seamed dress, in charcoal gray and not even black. Also a skirt in the same material and a shirt in black. All on sale, but still. And again, I'm going to Europe. If I'm not comfortable with this much disposable income, now is not the time to get my knickers in a twist.

Speaking of Europe. Four years ago RDC went shopping for the camping trip to Glacier during which we would kill off Diana Spencer (we killed Jerry Garcia moving to Denver and Frank Sinatra when we went to the Grand Canyon. Oops. No one died when we drove to the Pacific Northwest, at least.) At the grocery store near our apartment, the cashier asked Rich what he was going to do with all the Cliff Bars and dehydrated this and that. He said, "We're going camping in Glacier National Park." Blank look. "In Montana, about a thousand miles north of here?" The cashier then said, "A thousand miles? Is that, like, in Europe?"