I never visited my friend Louise when she lived two miles from my house. She was my singing student before we became friends. Then she moved to Oregon City and I spent five hours travel time to visit her there.

I’ll get to that in a minute. First there were the books. Or rather, The Books. A shipment of three boxes containing 100 copies of my first novel, Advancing the Retreat. I ordered them as soon as they were available from the distributor and wouldn’t you know it they were scheduled for delivery just about time the train left Seattle for Oregon City.

I already had Erina, the energetic neighbor girl, feeding the cat in the evening because Bill who usually takes the evening shift was also going to be out of town but it was his birthday and he was going skiing. I told Erina about the books.

“Do you want me to pull them inside for you?”

“Oh that’d be great.  .  . Do you want to write that down?”

“Oh no, I’m fine.”

I looked at her skeptically then alerted Gwen who was feeding the cat in the mornings. Gwen told me I could arrange for UPS to notify her when the boxes were delivered to my door.

This necessitated my creating an account at UPS, which took actual life blood out of me. I saw no way to alert a third party upon delivery. I haven’t enough life blood to spare to learn how to do such things by phone or –God help me—wrist watch. I considered taking my laptop with me just to get the UPS notice but the great attraction of being on the train was to be away from electronic leashes. I dithered over whether to pay $15 and have the boxes delivered the following Monday when I would be home. I abandoned that idea but managed to instruct them to deliver the three boxes to the side of the house. There was no way to specify which side of the house so I was able to worry about that for a while. This is my first novel, you understand.

I told Gwen she was not to leave the neighborhood on Friday during the hours of one and four or until the boxes came. She saluted. I asked my friend Tim if he would stroll up here at 5:00 and check everyone’s work.

Then I told myself, “STOP!”

Friday morning, UPS notified me that due to weather conditions in the Midwest, my delivery was postponed til Monday. Big sigh. New blood pumping in. I texted Erina, emailed Tim and told Gwen she could stand down.

I was off to Oregon City with a light heart. I was pitifully excited about going someplace I had never been before, even if it was only a suburb of Portland. And I love the train. I love the station and walking down the track, feeling like I’m in a Hitchcock movie, hoping the similarity ends there. I love watching the world go by at a pace faster than a stagecoach but slower than a plane, more spacious than a car and with room to move around. The people one meets. The sway of the cars on the track. The ability to pee when one needs to.

It was a semi pleasant ride but not so lovely as in my anticipation because I had forgotten the value of booking business class. In coach I was crammed next to a big, cheerful, galumpy  woman who was going to visit her twin for their birthday. She needed me to plug in her phone because she was diabetic and couldn’t reach the plug in. I learned a great deal about her in such non-sequiturial ways. We became BFFs when a seat went spare behind us and the attendant offered it to either of us. My seat mate left me to expand into two seats. After that I was quite cheery with her off and on through the slat between my two seats. I caught hold of her sweet vibrations of excitement about seeing her twin.

There was another passenger on the train who made an impression on me when we stood in line for the bistro car. He also seemed to be bubbling over with some wonderful anticipation. He was going to Portland and he hadn’t been there in a long, long time.

“Why’s that?”

“It’s kind of embarrassing.”

I braced myself for a family-from-hell story.

“I been in prison for the past 26 years.”

Twenty six years and he looked to be about 50. I was curious as hell what he’d been in for, but 26 years? I didn’t want to bring it up.

“When did you get out?”

“At 10:10 this morning.” He emanated joy.

I teared up. “Congratulations!” I thought what an amazing morning he must have had, just moving around in the world. “I am so happy for you!”

He grinned. “It’s kind of embarrassing,” he repeated.

“Hey,” I said. “We all have embarrassments. The trick is to know who it’s OK to tell.”

I bought a bag of 4 potato chips for $2.25 and my new acquaintance ordered a sandwich. I started to leave then turned back and whispered in his ear, “Do you need any money?”

“No ma’am,” he said. “But thank you.”

“You made my day,” I said. “I am so happy for you.”

At Louise’s new house I had two cats at my disposal: Stop That Sammy and Get Off the Table Davy. Sammy was a remarkably friendly tabby, going right away for a complete face inspection. Davy, a little more cautious, is a tuxedo cat with bedroom eyes. I encouraged them to sleep with me but I mostly got nocturnal visitations from Sammy who squirmed on the bed and batted my belongings around on the night stand.

After a relaxing weekend, I scored a bit of a coup on the train home. I wanted to upgrade to business class but the car was full. Oregon City being an early stop in the run I got a single window seat-with-table facing north in the lounge car. The staff told me I could stay there the whole trip, which I did. I read, wrote, knitted and chatted; and arrived home to the beginnings of a snow storm which developed blizzard qualities before it finished.

In the midst of the storm, my 100 books were delivered and I was able to collect them at my front door. If you want a copy from my delivery, you’ll have to come to a reading:

Friday, Feb 15, 7:00 PM– Ballard Writer’s Collective Annual Event, Sunset Hill Community Center.

Tuesday, Mar 12,  7:00 PM– Book Launch, Phinney Books

Thursday, April 11, 7:00 PM– “It’s About Time,” Ballard Library

Meanwhile please consider buying a copy from your local bookseller. I think you’ll enjoy the read.