NORTHWESTERN EXPOSURE

I don’t know about all you cats and kittens out there in blog-land, but personally, I had a pretty good Christmas/New Year’s holiday. After gorging myself on a hearty Saint Nick’s Eve meal of turkey, jellyfish, and cranberry sauce, I caught a non-stop flight to Washington state, where I met the parents of my awesome girlfriend, K., for the first time.

The plane ride itself was uneventful, save for the bit about the in-flight movie. Originally, we were supposed to watch the new Nick Park claymation flick, “Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.” Unfortunately, something went wrong with the tape. The quick-thinking American Airlines crew substituted a different movie, which turned out to be “A Shot in the Dark,” the film that introduced Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau character. Please note that Blake Edwards’ “A Shot in the Dark,” which is extremely, extremely funny, came out in theaters in 1964, so it’s not exactly a recent release. It’s genial good fun, but it got me to thinking: Do passenger jets routinely carry a back-up movie, in case something happens to the first one? If so, who chooses the movie? One of the flight attendants? Also, do they keep it in a box with red block letters that read, “In case of emergency movie replacement, break glass?”

Moreover, the feature itself is preceded by the original theatrical trailer, where a talking bullet refers to co-star Elke Sommer as the “prime sexpot,” when he isn’t blowing things up in a loud and redundant manner. This came across as a bit crude, compared to most of the in-flight entertainment I’ve been exposed to over the years. Once, I was watching a sitcom on an American Airlines flight, and they actually bleeped out the word “whore.” Now I’m watching Sellers and Sommer frolic around a nudist colony. Desperate times, I suppose, call for desperate measures. At least they didn’t show “Alive,” “Airplane!” or “Cast Away.”

Now for the part you’ve all been waiting to hear about. The visit to Hoquiam, K.’s hometown, went great. Her parents are really cool, and their house is awesome! K. had told me stories about how her folks tend to amass… things, and yes, the family room is quite the sensorial experience. But they also have a record player in the living room, and lots of LP’s that K. and I, and her niece and nephew (B. and T., respectively) danced to. And did I mention that K.’s childhood home is located next to the bay? We spent a nice morning walking around a rocky path, staring off at the line of trees jutting up from the mountains across the water, while the Canadian geese honked their particular serenade, and the distant paper mill blew its smoke into the sky.

As a lifelong city boy, I must confess that town life—specifically, life in Hoquiam and its surrounding places—struck me as pretty cool. Yes, the weather was kind of brisk; a clinging kind of cold, as K. told me beforehand. But that’s not the cool I refer to. Rather, I speak of tranquility and simplicity. People on the street gave off a vibe of cordiality that would seem downright suspicious to a fellow from New York. Meanwhile, the library was so charming, and the supermarket so cheap! True, waiting for public transportation seemed like a losing proposition, and the gym and the shops with better variety were located in Aberdeen, several minutes’ drive away. But in theory, any inconvenience of having to own a car would probably be offset by the relatively low cost of living. That is, if one could land a job. It might be easier to get educated elsewhere, then move to a place like Hoquiam. K.’s former high school pal J. did just that; he became an assistant conductor in Sweden, and is practically a local celebrity.

The best part(s) of the trip: Arriving in Washington for the first time, and driving past the welcome sign to Aberdeen, which read: “Welcome to Aberdeen. Come as you are.” (It was the birthplace of legendary Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, who supposedly hated the town with every ounce of his tortured soul.) Also great was the New Year’s Eve party hosted by the Lutheran church from K.’s neighborhood, where I confidently pretended to have some idea of what I was doing with my life (I figured, “By the time I see any of these people again, they’ll have forgotten every fully-baked half-truth to emerge from out of my blathering pie-hole this evening”). I also had a great deal of fun watching the various movies recommended by K.’s dad, not to mention K. herself, for evening consumption, such as “A Thousand Clowns” and “Chicago.” Speaking of consumption, on New Year’s Eve, before jetting off to the Lutheran Church party up the street, I helped prepare roast pork and tempura as part of the all-day graze-a-thon that takes place every January 1st at K.’s family’s house.

But perhaps all you loyal readers are waiting to hear about charming Olympia, or metropolitan Seattle. Well, I didn’t actually spend a lot of time there, only the last day before the flight home. However, what I saw was really awesome. Seattle has a great-looking waterfront and—get this—floating bridges! Also, if you can’t make it to Seattle, Olympia also looks cool. They have nice restaurants down by the docks, and at least one good comic book store.