This morning I was thwarted – again – from getting my iced latte. As I pulled up and parked in front of Starbucks (you park perpendicular), I watched this guy track in front of my car and then wait there for me. I’ve seen him outside of Starbucks before* and he’s asked for money, and I’ve given it to him, but I wasn’t feeling it today. I killed some time sitting in the car, avoiding making eye contact (easy because the visor was flipped down), putting on mascara and whatever. Someone parked next to me, and he tracked in front of their car and asked for a dollar. After a minute or so of debate I decided I didn’t really want to deal with this – I had $4 in cash, enough for a drink, not enough for a handout; I didn’t want to have to use a credit card so I could save him a dollar; etc. – and I just started the car back up and pulled out and went to work. I drank my VitaminWater Zero and was sort of satisfied.
But tomorrow? No one is standing between me and that iced latte.
(*One big difference between Mill Valley and Menlo Park/East Palo Alto…I liked the bourgeois atmosphere in MV. I miss that. Also it was so much easier to just “run out and grab some dinner” – at TW that involves getting in a car, and sometimes on the freeway, if you don’t have a hankering for Togo’s, Jack in the Box, or something from the Extra Mile, also known as Chevron.)
Tonight I worked front of house at Snow Falling on Cedars. I was there partly for Patron Services, and indeed there were a few people who had tickets for the wrong night, or the wrong show (the curse of overlapping shows in different theatres). I was there also to sell subscriptions and subscription renewals, which mostly entailed me sitting behind a counter smiling at people and telepathically instructing them to come renew their subscriptions. I had two bites early on, and then another two bites, and I was like, “Yeah, four sub renewals! That’s awesome! Last night the person working got ONE.” (No judgment, I know it’s all about the patrons there that night.)
Then the first act started and I got a sandwich, and I was going to read but instead I listened to Sarah and Vinnie because I’m still a week behind. Then intermission happened and I majorly lucked out – a group was there and SIX of them wanted to renew their individual subs. So there I was, filling out forms right and left and collecting credit card numbers. Ten renewal forms altogether! I’m pretty stoked.
So, the second act started and I’m half-planning on going down the street to the Starbucks, which I’m pretty sure is closed by now (when I get hooked on something it’s hard to let up).
Then this usher, Judie, starts talking to me.
[I just realized I totally slip into present-tense whenever I’m telling stories. I’m constantly going back in my writing and just changing the beginning to present tense to keep it all consistent. But whatever, it’s almost midnight and I don’t care right now.]
So Judie the usher starts talking to me, and then the second act of the show just slips away. Because she is just talking and telling stories about growing up, and how she moved all the time because her father was a furrier and kept opening up new stores and getting them on their feet.
You know when you’re talking to someone and you’re just wishing you had a tape recorder? I would have settled for a nice subtle way to take notes. But there was no way. For the next hour she and I just talked – I don’t want to imply that she talked the whole time, but she definitely held up the conversation. But it was all stuff about how she worked as a shill at a carnival when she was a teenager…how she married her husband after 12 days…her college roommate asking her in a letter before they even met, “Who did your nose?” She’s Jewish but she doesn’t “look Jewish.”
One day her mom met the rabbi in the street and the rabbi said, “Goldie, I didn’t see you in service this week,” and her mother replied, “That’s right Rabbi, you didn’t see me because I wasn’t there.” …I mean, is she stealing that line from somewhere?
I just kept thinking, Judie, you should write a book. She just had all these stories, but more than that, she told them really well. Like, insanely well. (One might say, as well as a certain famous Jewish writer? She did remind me of him.)
OMG, Judie, I hope you come across this blog in the universe, and I hope you read it. If you do, do you want to dictate all your stories to me and I’ll write them down? I mean, you probably don’t even need me, your delivery is amazing and you clearly know how to tell a story, but I’d still love to be involved. Thanks for saving me from spending yet another $4 on coffee I don’t need, as well as keeping me entertained for an hour.
I’m sure I’ll see her again – it sounds like she ushers all the time for TW. So our paths will cross. And I’m actually kind of excited for that. (This is the first time, in all my theatre experience, that I’ve said that about an usher.)
Here’s to Judie!
(And also: more info about Snow Falling on Cedars here)
The Cameraphone Diaries 