The Palace of Loverzan Don't mess with the palace guardian.
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Enjoy your visit.
February 07, 2003
Spiderwomans wisdom

Daniel had the bright idea that we could make a mole recipe from my new Frida Kahlo cookbook to take over to Josh and Jess tonight for Shabbat dinner.

Thanks, Valerie

He made the twenty thousand ingredient, five hundred step recipe sound simple and easy-so we don't know half of the various chilis, surely if I stopped by Larrys on the way home from school I could pick up most of them? I don't know how convinced I was by his reasoning, but I couldn't resist his happy bright-eyed enthusiasm.

So, after four hours of giving and receiving yummy sidelying massage I hied myself over to the Queen Ann Larrys Market. Found fresh Pasillas in the veggie section, but had to call on the staff at the deli to hunt down the resident expert on chilis. He directed me to the Mexican aisle where I found a treasure trove of baggies of leathery dried peppers. I filled up my basket with these and other strange items like pepitas and coriander seeds. I also discovered Terras favorite-chipotles-are nothing less than smoked jalapenos! Who knew?

So far, so good.

The friendly bagboy chatted me up about all the peppers and I prattled on about the mole sauce whilst he crammed the whole lot into my PCC cloth bag. My first moment of doubt occured when I hoisted the bag up one shoulder and my heavy backpack of schoolbooks and sheets on the other. Maybe this wasn't the brightest plan...The thought drizzled into my head as I reviewed the fact that I still had several long bustrips between me and home and I had neglected to check Tripplanner as to which and when.

As I walked out the door, I saw my bus just about to arrive at the stop! The light was just changing so I rushed to cross the street before the cars started moving-midway across, I felt the bag slide! Yikes! I jerked it back up and yelped as something(yeah, yeah, I should know the name of whatever it was already) in my midback twanged, sending shooting pain back to front.

NOT GOOD.

Pausing in the middle of the street to assess my condition didn't seem like a great idea and my bus was about to go, so I kept on, only to here a voice call: "Hey lady! Ya lost sumthin!" Sure enough, there under the tires of the now passing cars, was my paper bag of Rosemary rolls.

SHIT.

I waited a few long moments, watching one, two, three, four cars roll on over the poor thangs. Then I took my moment-against the advice of the my concerned passerby-and dashed out at a pause in traffic to grab it, then I raced onto the bus in the nick of time.

when I arrived at the downtown stop that I'd gotten off at that morning, I was dismayed to find that my homebound bus did not stop there at that time of the day. Presumably I would have to find the bus tunnel. Dimly I recalled 1st and Pine being the desired location. I set out disconsolately with my heavy bags gingerly hoisted onto my wrenched back.

1st and Pine presented itself-NO bus tunnel. Hmmm... Time to consult my pocket genie, he who knows all busstop info. Cellphones rock, D. soon had me on the right track-retracing my steps to the actual location-3rd and Pine.

WHEW.

I got there just in time to miss my bus.

Half an hour on a freezing cold granite bench in the subway tunnel. Lovely.

I was pretty frickin' pissed by now and I sat there brooding until my consciousness was disturbed by the presence of someone. Someone so jittery that her mere presence made my own pulse beat faster. She walked in short spurts, accompanied by a rather bedraggled man who seemed to be trying to console her.

She was probably only in her late twenties, but looked haggard, tough, angry and wounded and vulnerable at the same time. Her cowboy boots clicked on the pavement and she was stuffed head to foot in denim. Her Tammy Faye eyes caught me in their glare. I looked away, myself disturbed by the violent disturbence I saw in her.

Her companion gently tried to get her to sit down on the recycling bin next to me. She sat for a moment, then popped up and faced off with him. "I feel spiders...This whole place is like a web. The spiders are coming and I can't escape." Her voice was staccato and angry. "I can't handle coming down here. The web fills the whole place...And you're there at the end. Caught at the end." She ended with a furious whisper. He tried to comfort her again. She shrugged him off as their bus came.

I just sat there, breathing. Glad to be me.

Twenty minutes later my bus came and I chipped my frozen ass off the bench. I was so happy to finally be heading home to my sweet Daniel.

I'm blogging this while he's cooking up a storm.

I'm sure the mole sauce will be awesome.

Yummmmm...
photographs by Ignacio Urquiza

Straight from the Queen's mouth. Sayeth rzan at 06:45 PM
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