California Again

Two or three hours is too long to wait to see one of your oldest friends. I've been holding my breath for the past few hours, so I stepped outside to try to make a phone call. I decided for an unbiased perspective on my own life (okay everyone is somehow biased but you gotta start somewhere) I would call Riley (x3). But she didn't answer. I know she's busy with all her training in Georgia, and we haven't been able to reach each other for the past week or two. So then from Riley I thought of Ola, who I know is in Australia, but decided to try her phone anyways. I was surprised it rang, but when she answered she sounded flustered because its expensive, and she would skype me later. Fail. Fail.

I had walked out of the house barefoot, immediately got a splinter, plucked it out, and got to walking through sand. I was sitting on an old leather lazy boy. Before sitting down I poked it to coax out any spiders that may have been hiding. If they were, they remained hidden. After Ola hung up, I teared up a bit and continued sitting. What to do, what to do. Wait two or three hours I suppose, talk to one of my oldest friends.

I stood up and grabbed a long stick, wrote in the sand "THIS IS NOT BOSTON", hoping someone would read it and say "DUH".

Now onto another memory that is not Boston:
My dad pulled out a newspaper article from the LA Times of this puppet theatre we went to a few years ago: http://bobbakermarionettes.com/ Unfortunately, the article was all about how the place is potentially going out of business. Read the article here 

And it made me think of the business my parents had when I was younger. We lived in Northern Michigan (Petoskey), across the bay from touristy Harbor Springs. Heading up North on Highway 31 (towards Oden) my parents bought the property of an old gas station. After the tanks were removed, the building was painted blue and my Uncle Bob helped my dad put together some signs "The Christensen Gallery". In the small building to the right of the lot was the antique gallery, filled with collectables my dad found from all over. On the left, in the bigger building, was a bookstore and gallery. In addition to the gallery itself, it was at times home to the Christensen Puppet Theatre. My mom was the main engineer of the paper mache puppets, a whole crew of characters. Puppets for the holidays, the animals (like our dog Patsy), and the miscellaneous crazy guys full of personality.

Sometimes my parents took the theatre on the road, carrying the fold up stage to schools or ski resorts. But for private events, the show was at the Christensen Gallery. Silly voices, Santa and his Elves, reoccurring characters like "Sally" or "Bobby".

It's nice to think about.

love.love.love.