Powerwashing: Villains

Well after such an explosive jolt of rainbow-flavored saccharine below, what better than to laud/applaud/mourn an assassination.

But first.

I made out with a farmer after a babyshower. My littlest nephew went into the hospital with a viral meningitis, scared the bejesus out of all of us, and came out fatter than he went in. My mom came, I made her pull dandelions, so she took me shopping, no one was murdered.

All week long those in charge of conflating the weather have been touting Sunday as the day we would all fall to our knees beneath that super-shiny disc in the sky and rend our clothing. This almost happened. As it delivered.

E and I went to our fifth consecutive day of Zumba, because we have become those women, and some ladies gravitated towards us as I was loudly lamenting dudes and what the hell is wrong with them, when you have a perfectly willing woman beneath you, let's go! Let's go, already. We shut up and dance.

The morning was still brisk, and I had gone out the day before on a tear..... Found the smokinghottest sandals and sundress, all in anticipation of the glory of sunlight and warmth, to turn off the furnace with a satisfied snap, to bring up the fan from the basement, to blind the public with ghost-white of my limbs.

So then to Portland Nursery for grass seed, organic weed killer and begonias and pansies. And  home again to don the garden gloves and dig and yank and spray, and bend and twist and curse. Get the pansies in, plant the herb garden, seed the front lawn... think about mowing, really need to mow, really and truly need to mow the lawn which has sprouted six inches in as many days.

So I opt to powerwash the porch. I inherited a powerwasher with the house, which my brother promptly appropriated, since he owes me like, forever, since I am captain super auntie, he begrudgingly let me borrow MY OWN GODDAMN POWERWASHER.

It occurred to me when I hauled it out of the garage that I had no idea how this thing actually works, and I certainly knew that I couldn't call W to ask without enduring a shit-ton of guff, and to my astonishment one cigarette and some fiddling later I figured out how to make it go.

And go it did. I felt like a motherfucking captain of industry, or a Hell's Angel or something, PSI something, something, with water! Awesome! I went a little nuts, I was a woman with a (squirt) gun, and the porch! It's like new! So much awesome! I can't wait to do it some more! If I wasn't concerned about wasting water I'd powerwash every gottdam day.

I was so into powerwashing that I made myself late to my J's mom's birthday. And it was on the way home when OPB radio was pre-empted by the President.

Nearly 10 years ago, I stepped into the sunshine in September and hailed a cab to BART so I could make my appointment with my therapist in Berkeley. My cabbie was Indian and sweating, he had some AM station on and at first I paid no heed, so swaddled was I then in the unhappy cocoon of depression, but when we reached City Hall and the barricades were up I pulled myself into the brightness of the morning and listened.

I did not get on BART that morning, I stared down the stairs and imagined a watery claustrophobic fiery drowning, instead I walked home. It wasn't long before that name surfaced, such a melodic name Osama Bin Laden, on every pundits lips, the rhetoric of revenge, blood thirst, blood thirst enough for two wars, two never ending wars, since then elections have been disputed and things have fallen apart, we hoped for a bit, it's hard to hope in the face of status quo and the same old self-serving political gamesmanship, and that melodic name faded into the background, like he was some kind of mythical super-villain, plotting away in some remote mountain cave, sending out poor tape recordings, essentially become benign, like an impotent Lex Luther, past his sell date, much like Britney Spears.

So it was unexpected, then. To be driving along, with the windows down, with blossoms in the air, wine in the veins, steak in the tummy, still light out, but just. Blue hour, magic hour. Indie hour on the radio and then there is the President, the villain is dead, the villain is dead, we have his body in custody, lives lost, so many lives lost in the name of this one man and his madness, not just ours, but theirs, too. Ten years on, I admit I'd forgotten you, I wish you weren't dead, because the world needs a Nuremberg style trial, you should have hanged in a public arena, you should have had all the names of the dead scrolled before you, you, you bastard, shielding yourself with the mantel of righteousness, I hope the first circle of hell burns with a special vigor for hypocritical villains of your ilk.

wow, I am angrier than I thought I was.