 |
| Ali and Tom DeLonge |
Chad, Ashley, and I were up and out of our room by 7:30
while the teenagers slept in. We went downstairs, two floors below the lobby,
and found an enormous breakfast area nearly empty except for a few other early risers. We loaded up on fruit,
yogurt, and Stumptown coffee (OJ for Ashley). Chad had a cooked-to-order omelet, and the three
of us enjoyed our quiet breakfast. Eventually, Ali and Jackson came down for
their breakfast and the entire rest of the hotel joined them. Apparently, 9:00 is when the rest of the world eats breakfast. Also, I realized that listening
to the morning throat-clearing of strangers gags me like nothing I’ve ever experienced.
I can’t tell you how many people coughed so that you could actually hear phlegm loosen in their throats. I wanted to run screaming from the mucus producers, but Chad
distracted me by making a dolphin out of a banana and then performing a puppet show for us. I was so relieved when breakfast was over. |
| Ashley demonstrating "displacement" |
Jackson went back to bed after breakfast because waking up and eating pancakes
really takes it out of you. Ali watched TV in the room and Chad and I
took Ashley to the pool. We read our books, watched her swim, and I overheard
Chad regaling Ashley with teachings on displacement and volume and other scientific nonsense.
I kept my nose in my book and prayed they wouldn’t include me in their
conversation.
Check-out wasn’t until noon so we enjoyed our hotel all
morning before deciding to walk to the Portland Saturday Market. We checked
out, dropped our bags off with valet, and walked to the waterfront. It was a
gray and blustery day, but it was unusually muggy and the market was packed. According to the kids,
Portland was brimming with celebrities today; Ali saw Harrison Ford with
his arm around a girl, and Jackson observed Ryan Gosling holding a paper plate,
looking for a place to sit and eat his lunch. Because that makes sense. We roamed around the market a bit
and Ashley bought a bowl of Yakisoba and broccoli for lunch. Chad and I chose pierogis
and sausage with onion, cucumber, and tomatoes. We sat under a tent and ate
until it began raining sideways, soaking us despite being under cover.
We walked to the Old Town section of the market and shopped
a little. After not giving to the needy last night, Chad and I decided to be
better examples today, so when Jason Statham, wrapped in a sleeping bag, asked Chad
for a dollar, Chad gave him five. And minutes later, Jason Statham (Jackson was sure it was him) passed us, marching
down the street singing, “When I think
about you I punch myself,” his own clever twist on Divinyls’ 1991 hit, “I
Touch Myself.” We stopped at a food truck so Jackson could order a burrito and
Ali could buy a bag of chips. She didn’t have an appetite and I’m guessing it
was because she was about to meet Tom DeLonge.
We picked up our van from the hotel and drove to Powell’s to
hang out until the book signing. The boys decided to visit some music shops in
town, so we parted ways. Ali, Ashley, and I went to the third floor (the Pearl
Room) to see where the book signing would be. There were 15 people in line
already (it was only 1:20) so we joined them. I knew the next 2 hours and 40
minutes were going to drag by, so I let the girls explore the store while I held
their place. I sat on the floor and started to read Poet Anderson...Of Nightmares. When the girls returned, I went to
World Cup Coffee, the book store’s coffee shop, and got an Americano, water, and
juice for the girls. The minutes ticked by until finally something interesting happened.
There was a couple in front of us in line. A girl and a guy
who had driven from Myrtle Creek, OR (nearly 3 ½ hours from Portland) to attend
the book signing. About 2 hours into the wait, the girl got up and left. She
returned for a few minutes and then left again. After about 10 minutes, the guy
got a phone call. I was irritated that he was muttering because I couldn’t hear
a word he said, but he gathered up his books, coffee, and left the line. They
never came back. While the girl was out of the line, Ashley had gone to use the
restroom. She came back and said, “There are like, three piles of barf on the floor
on the way to the bathrooms. It’s so gross.” I’ve seen all three seasons of
Sherlock enough to know how to put clues together. I deduced that the girl was
the puker and that’s why—after driving 3 ½ hours, waiting in line for 2 hours—they
left so suddenly. I was in the middle of piecing it all together when Chad and
Jackson returned from their adventure.
They rode the train to find a music store and got off on the
wrong stop. That was enough to make them use Uber for the rest of their day.
They had a lot of fun together playing drums, bass, guitars, and the marimba at
two music stores. But Chad liked using Uber most of all, and credits Yousef and
Sarah for taking away the stress of navigating through rainy Portland.
 |
| This is how the boys spent the afternoon |
After the five of us caught up, Ashley was bored with
waiting in line, so she took off with Chad and Jackson to walk around Powell’s.
By now, the line to meet Tom DeLonge snaked through the entire 3rd
floor, ran down the stairs and through the floor below. Ali was now 15th
in line and as 4:00 approached, the room buzzed with excitement. At 4:00 on the
dot, Tom DeLonge was not sitting at his table, pen in hand. This irritated many
of the fans in line. I wrote down a few of the comments that started at 4:03:
- “He’s late! I can’t even believe this!”
- "He’s taking his sweet ass time. What the hell, Tom?”
- “He’s three minutes late, three of ‘em. Uno, dos, tres.”
- “He’s EIGHT minutes late, eight of ‘em!” (this was shouted every minute during the entire 20 minutes of Tom’s tardiness)
But Tom finally appeared, everyone gasped and some guys hollered.
I didn’t pay much attention to Tom, I watched Ali instead. As Tom greeted the
crowd, I watched her watch him and it was adorable. Since she was so close to
the front of the line, I knew it would all be over before she
even knew what happened.
“So, what are you going to say to him?”
“Oh my gosh, I have no idea. I think I’ll just start saying random words like, ‘Nutrition. Opposable Thumbs.’”
“What if he says, ‘Hi, what’s your name?’”
“I’ll probably say, ‘Good how are you?’”
“What if he says, ‘Hi, what’s your name?’”
“I’ll probably say, ‘Good how are you?’”
The line was moving fast. Ali told me her hands were sweaty. She saw a bookend sitting on a store shelf and asked if she could take it
and give it to Tom as a present. And then, before we knew it, Ali was up.
Tom took her book, opened it, and while he signed it asked, “Hi,
Are you Ali?” (an employee had gone through the line earlier, writing first names on Post Its and putting them on the title page of the books so Tom could copy easily. He didn’t. He just scribbled a
big “T” or TD” it’s really hard to read. Anyway, I digress.
“Hi, Are you Ali?”
“I am!”
“How are you?”
“I’m great!”
“It’s nice to meet you," and they shook hands.
“It’s nice to meet you," and they shook hands.
“I’m sorry my hands are sweaty,” she shook her hands as if she were shaking water from them. Ali has notoriously cold hands, so this was a new phenomenon.
“That’s okay, so are mine,” Tom said. Then he mentioned something about how muggy it was and how many people were in the room.
 |
| "Sorry my hands are sweaty." |
I took pictures during their conversation, then Ali stood
next to Tom, put her arm on his shoulder, he made some cool-guy face, and I took
a picture.
“Thank you,” I said to him.
“Thank you,” I said to him.
“Thank you!” he replied.
“Good luck with all this,” I motioned to the hundreds of people behind us and
we walked away.
We met back up with the family and I took notes so I wouldn’t forget what Ali just experienced.
Suddenly, none of us knew what to do. There seemed to be thousands of people in Powell’s and we’d been there for hours. Our mission was accomplished and it was time to go home.
We met back up with the family and I took notes so I wouldn’t forget what Ali just experienced.
Suddenly, none of us knew what to do. There seemed to be thousands of people in Powell’s and we’d been there for hours. Our mission was accomplished and it was time to go home.
We stopped for dinner at Peper’s 49er Restaurant in Castle Rock and were served a home cooked comfort-food feast that made us want to take a nap. It was a dark, drizzly drive home, but everyone was happy. Van Halen, Queen, and Jimi Hendrix sung us home. And as we entered Olympia, Chad and I introduced the kids to a couple of Lionel Richie gems: “Dancing on the Ceiling,” and “Say You, Say Me.” They didn't seem thrilled.
Say you, say me
Say it for always, that's the way it should be.
Say you, say me
Say it together, naturally.
- Lionel Richie
- Rachel
No comments:
Post a Comment