The Bus, the Wind, and Teachable Moments

My commitment to ten posts per month has kind of taken it in the shorts since about mid-year, hasn’t it?  Well, at least I haven’t let entire months go by without a peep.  I may have failed at resolution, but I haven’t completely failed at blog.  Yet.

 

Since I think of my blog as a journal, and not JUST a place to blow off political steam, I feel compelled to record  some life events worth noting.  Specifically, events of this month... of which the 13^th fell upon a Friday.  And a properly petrifying Friday the 13^th it was!

 

October has had its... highlights, for lack of a better word.  After shelling out something to the tune of almost $4k in repair bill to get it running, we finally brought our “cheap” bus home…that wonderful thing that was going to be the foundation of our “food truck,”  forever ending our days of doing business from under a flimsy, blowy 10 x 10 ft canvas canopy.  But after blowing $4k on repairs, the husband had to abandon his first trip abroad in it, because neither he headlights nor the windshield wipers were reliably functional.    

 

I was not happy.  The bus was ugly, it stank, and it had all the earmarks of a total money pit.  Oddly enough, though we have actually had a pretty decent sales year with our little business, this time of the year is when all those crappy bills that you forgot about start to come in:  Licensing and insurance and taxes and even fees for next year’s events.  I was feeling so broke, even with the money from our best Scandinavian Festival ever in my hot little hand, that I told the husband I was NOT flushing any more money down that toilet of a bus.  Let’s admit we bit off more than we could chew, cut our losses and list it on Craigslist.  Just get it out of my face.

 

October is also the month of the Hood River Harvest Fest.  I knew when I signed up for the thing that weather might be a factor.  In the past, we had done this event with “Big Red” the class IV concession trailer, which we no longer own—we sold it when we realized our dream of a brick and mortar restaurant.  (Some things are such royal mistakes that you don’t even like to think about them!!!)  We have been reduced since then to doing events with that aforementioned 10 x 10 canopy, which for most any event we do in summer is perfectly adequate.

 

But keep in mind that Hood River is on the Columbia Gorge…famous for winds that make it the windsurfing capitol of the country.  And Hood River in October can be anything from pouring rain to sunshine to wind to frost…or even snow.  I crossed my fingers and sent out the application anyway, not TOO intimidated by the thought of a little wind…after all, we do markets on the coast where it is always windy.  We have the proper weights in place to keep ourselves from blowing away!

 

And there was nothing wrong with hedging one’s bets a little…  Once upon a time, a friend encouraged me to boldly present my requests to the Universe.  So for two weeks prior to our trip east, every day during my morning salutations, I boldly asked the Universe to bless our time in Hood River with good weather and prosperous sales.   

 

I was also clicking on my “Weather Channel” weather app every five minutes for most of that same two weeks. At first, things weren’t looking too good.  But, wonder of wonders, gradually rain left the forecast and sun and bright weather moved in.  There would be the off chance of showers on Friday, but Saturday and Sunday were supposed to be beautiful.

 

And so they were…Saturday and Sunday we had some of the most gorgeous weather I have ever experienced in Hood River.  Bright sun, little wind, not too warm, not too cool.  Almost perfect.  And we were rewarded with pretty great sales numbers for those two days. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But Friday.  Friday! 

 

Things were going along okay for awhile.  The sun came and went behind skittish clouds.  Being Friday afternoon, the crowd was a little sparse, but we had decent sales, all things considered.  Then around mid-afternoon an ominously black cloud appeared in the Northwest.  I mean, really black.  I watched that thing like a hawk, and was grateful when it appeared to pass north of us. 

 

Until it stopped.  And turned.  And came back.

 

I'm not an expert in climatology, but I'm pretty sure that storm clouds don't actually behave in that manner.  In reality, I believe it was a fast-growing thunderhead...though it WAS moving, it appeared not to be moving because it was continuing to grow...in our direction.  All I can say for sure is that it stalled over us until its backwash was right on top of us.  And it is a fact that the worst winds of a storm trail behind the cloud. 

 

That son-of-a-bitch sat there and blew on us for...it seemed like an hour, but it was at least 20 minutes.  It immediately became obvious that our milk crates full of 30# weights were not going to hold against the gale.  My sister, my brother-in-law and I each grabbed a corner post of the canopy and held on for dear life.  Occupied as I was by trying to keep myself and my stuff from blowing away, I didn't get any pictures of THAT weather phenomenon.  But this is what it felt like.

 

 

 

It was the scariest thing I have EVER encountered in the fifteen years we've been doing outdoor events.  And I...I could see my whole livelihood riding the wind into oblivion.  My work table lifted and slammed down on its side, sending a cooler full of ice and salads sliding across the black top. I hung on and leaned harder into the wind, trying desperately to keep my $2k convection oven from suffering the same fate.  Tears streamed down my face; I glared at that fucking cloud--I would have shaken my fist at it if I could have let go of the pole...and I screamed, over and over: "Go away!  Go away, goddammit!  GO AWAY!!!"

 

Good thing people were too busy trying to keep themselves tethered to the ground to hear me screaming at the wind.  Except my sister.  She thought I had lost it.  And I had.

 

Eventually, the wind calmed some...enough, at least, for us to be able to let go of the poles and start the hysterical business of tying the canopy to trees, our trailer and anything else nearby that we thought had a chance of remaining earthbound in a gale. Though the forecast insisted there would be no more storms, it is said that only fools and foreigners try to predict Oregon weather.  I would have been up all night worrying if we had not taken every possible precaution against the wind.

 

We headed back to our rented digs that evening, exhausted, sore and completely freaked out. 

 

The weather did indeed turn lovely, and on Saturday and Sunday we got the conditions and the sales for which I had boldly asked the Universe.

 

But at what a cost! 

 

I kept turning over and over in my mind, the manner in which the Universe had granted my request.  Why make me go through that horrendous experience on Friday, and then bestow all I had asked and more for the rest of the weekend?

 

I have never believed that Friday the 13th is unlucky.  In fact, I've had some pretty decent luck on those days in the past.  And I don't believe in punishment emanating from the Creator, so I couldn't swallow that the hand of a wrathful god had reached down to smite me for some past misdeed.  However, I do believe that the Universe provides "teachable moments."  But surely the Creator's aim in all this was NOT to teach me that Friday the 13th was indeed a day best spent hiding under a bed.

 

On further contemplation, the thing that came into my mind was a little voice saying very clearly, "You need to think twice about getting rid of that bus, now, don't you."

 

So I have chosen to include in my morning salutations, thanksgiving for the weather and success I had asked for; along with a bold request that the Universe guide us as to how best to make use of the stinky, ugly, spendy vehicle which, apparently, it has directed us to hang on to.