Hello and good morning to y’all! (I think I got the y’all spelled properly this time).
As you can see by the title of this blog I’ve been doing a little exploring in my new hood and much to my surprise found out there is such a thing as a nightlife around here – even on a Wednesday! Sure it doesn’t resemble the Seattle nightlife. But I’ve never been all that keen on karaoke at seedy bars where you’re packed like sardines and the floor has that mystery stickiness to it that, if the alcohol hasn’t made you queasy yet, the constant “shsstick! shsstick!” sound from your shoes and faint smell of sick in the bathroom will. Um, not that I’ve been to places like this. I mean, not recently anyhow.
Um, anyway…No, the place I visited last night was in fact a coffee shop. Yay for java after hours! There’s nothing like a little Joe to wind down the evening. Hey, I don’t drink alcohol so I have to have some vice, right? Why not caffeine? But I’m getting a little ahead of myself.
Yesterday was one of those days that I wish would have just left me alone. It was raining (no surprise there) and so assumed the roofers would not be showing up. I was looking forward to a day of peace and quiet spent in my own place when I saw a truck pull into the driveway. Still in my pjs (a bit unusual for me at 8am), I greeted the roofer at the door and asked him to give me a few minutes to get my dog up to my parents’ place. Scout, of course, was proving the necessity of this by barking frantically at him through the window.
After hastily gulping the last of my coffee and throwing on some clothes, I left the roofers to do their thing. At least I could look forward to the roof being completed faster. I can tell you, friends, this is not the case.
While I tried avoiding the house for the next few hours what I did not know was that my roofers were no longer there. One of the guys’ son had hurt his arm and was at the emergency room. The other was perhaps trying to sort out why the wrong roofing material had been delivered to the house moments before.
I arrived back at my parents’ for lunch and discovered the lack of productivity going on at the farmhouse. Slightly miffed, I figured I could at least go back to the farmhouse and enjoy my afternoon in peace. See how I was TRYING to make lemonade? And it would have worked too, had it not been for the moment I pulled into the driveway a semi-truck with crane in tow followed in behind me.
Scout gave them her usual greeting by barking furiously from the backseat as the workers attempted to maneuver the truck closer and closer to the house. I got out and asked if they wanted me to move my car – nope, just there to replace the wrong roofing material with the right stuff. Well, that was good.
I decided if they were just dropping off roofing material I’d be fine taking Scout into the house and getting some work done. Within minutes I realized what an enormous error this had been as the crane roared to life outside and began dropping 100 lb crates of shingles onto the roof.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Now, as most of you may know and I’m sure the rest of you have picked up on at this point, my dog is a little neurotic. A lovable neurotic, mind you, but neurotic. She is also greatly disturbed by loud noises, hence getting her out of the house whenever the roofers were working. The earthshaking racket created by the crane therefore did not go over well. It is quite possibly Scout suffered a mini aneurism before I got her leashed and snuck her out the back door.
It was this coupled with a lack of sleep that put me in a foul mood and the need to get out for a while. Perhaps, Venice, or maybe Florence – I hear it’s nice there this time of year. Alas, I resorted to walking up the hill to my parents house to see if my dad had broken out the scotch yet because what more is there to do in this town on a weeknight? Thankfully, I would soon find out my
After a little prompting and lecturing from my dad (thanks dad!), I checked out the “Things to do” list in the local paper. I’ll admit, my hopes were not high. After all, I remember growing up in this town and for the most part a night out meant cruising Front street and hanging out at the pier. I doubted this would be the best scene for a single 30-something woman.
Much to my surprise though there was an open-mic event at a coffee shop promising an evening of music, poetry, and dancing…in Sequim. Old ladies in square dancing skirts and some old fart taking his dentures out to play the harmonica suddenly surfaced in my mind. You must understand, if Port Angeles is known as a logging town with the nightlife of beer and cruising the pier, Sequim (pronounced Skwim)is the old folk’s center with nightlife of prune juice and cruising the lobby of the retirement home. Yikes! But with my dad starting into one of his two-bit lectures about how I have to make things happen if I want things to happen, I decided to take my chances with the blue-haired bitties.
Arriving at The Buzz shortly before 9pm, I was again surprised to see it still bustling with activity. Weren’t all the retirees in bed by now? As I walked up to the door and peered inside I realized how very wrong my assumptions had been. A full house of young and old were packed into one room kicked back on couches, country benches and old armchairs. Two hip middle-aged women were jamming on guitars on a small stage at the back of the room. The place was literally buzzing. I entered through the coffee area and grabbed a mocha – one of the best I’ve sampled thus far – and stood by the door listening to the folk/rock music. Soon another group was up on stage. The music was amazing, and not a single blue-hair in sight. These were lively, fun people seizing the opportunity to enjoy a good time.
I scanned the room I found I wasn’t the youngest in the crowd either. Several groups of teens and twenty-somethings were there too. And I could see why. For a Wednesday night this was fantastic! I’d even go so far as to say this was just as good or better than many of the events I’d been to in Seattle. Soon I found myself relaxing onto a worn wooden bench to tap my feet to some good ol’ guitar and fiddle music. One after another, the performers graced the room with their unique voices challenging my arrogant assumption that a small town could not possibly hold such passion and talent. As the evening wound down around 10pm, I reluctantly walked back to my car feeling like I’d just spent the last hour or so in the company of good people and that I’d found my Wednesday night thing. I will certainly think twice before judging the little town of Sequim again…now to work on my mindset of Port Angeles. 🙂
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