Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Weird

I left for work rattled by the news of cancer (not me--someone at work). The Big C strikes fear in me every time it appears near and my thoughts were dark and gloomy as I made the familiar drive. At one point I noticed a huge black plume of smoke near the MAX station--no idea why and no one else looked concerned but it seemed quite odd. I had an uneventful class (hooray!) and when I left it became clear that there had been a huge power outage. Street lights, traffic lights, and businesses were all dark which made the normally busy street oddly eerie. A few blocks to the east, all was normal.

During a quick phone call home The Spouse suggested I might want to stop for some food as his dinner had been a complete disaster. Not even the cats would eat the rejected chicken. The fine dining options are slim in east Portland after 9pm so Subway seemed like my best option. (I know, I know, bad in so many ways). So I walked in to the brightly lit shop to find a group of young people, lots of tattoos, piercings, and so on. A blue haired girl picked up a violin and started playing klezmer music, a classic tune I've heard hundreds of time but still, live klezmer violin at Subway in SE Portland? Very weird. As I ate my veggie sandwich I listened to her play along flawlessly with every song on the radio from crappy contemporary pop to "Here Comes the Sun" to (my favorite)"Tainted Love. Wow. The girl had talent.

On the way home some one came at me head on on a 4-lane one way street.

I was glad to get home.

2 comments:

Mimi said...

Yikes, I'm glad you made it home. Although, the musical interlude sounds good!

Anonymous said...

I MUST find out if the blue-haired violinist was someone I know. Who happens to play flawlessly in so many styles it hurts. I'll get back to you on my hunch either way.