Apples of the American Side
Work was INSANE. It took all my patience and fortitude to not swipe the laptop off the hotel room’s desk and head out into the wilds and live wild. But I persevered and pulled through the crunch session. I logged off and left the Cour d’Alene hotel behind and stopped in Post Falls to have lunch with my boy, the future lawyer. He tells me he managed to get kicked out of Irvine Law School, one of the top schools in the country, over a damn foolish Instagram post he made about guns and asking if anyone wanted to come learn about the 2nd amendment in person. It went viral, showed up on the local news, and there was even talk about charging him as a domestic terrorist. So he's been contending with that for the past year and trying to figure out what to do with his life. He's frustrated that he's living with his parents while his younger peers are getting jobs starting at $200K. Poor bastard, that's tough and he alone is the cause of all that turbulence. After a long talk we said our goodbyes and I left confident that he’ll figure out his path.
The drive west to the Okanagan was stellar. I’ve always loved Washington State and I even lived here for a few years, a few years ago. As the wheels on the car continued to spin, open fields turned into apple orchards of which I’ve never seen in all my time here. How I would have loved to pick one of those apples straight off the branch!
Eventually the orchards turned into rolling hills and I made my way into Tonasket to meet my own source of turbulence (of which I’ve contributed to magnificently myself). Now wasn’t the time for antics though, and I worked alongside her setting up tables and chairs for her mom’s funeral in the next day. It seems like the natural condition is a sullen one, punctuated by brief moments of lightheartedness. As we finished up our work I said goodbye for now, and left my work laptop with her since I didn't want to take it north across the border (and doing so could cause an international incident; we had one happen just a few weeks earlier when some lad brought his laptop to Canada).
Right before I crossed the border I realized I had an open bottle of vodka in my bag so I hastily stopped at a patch of woods on the road right before customs to hide it. I crossed the border without issue and the customs officer had a strong Canadian accent that highlighted the “o’s”. I pulled into Osoyoos around 9pm and realized my phone didn't work on the local network, and I couldn’t pull up directions to the hotel. Luckily I was able to find a picture I had taken when I booked it of the hotel's address and then was able to navigate there by looking at street names throughout the small town. The guy at the front desk got excited when I handed him my Colorado ID and he saw that I was an American. He said he stayed at the 12 Tribes Casino in Omak the night before and somehow giddily explained that he didn't win much money there. I was happy to hear he didn’t lose any though, because I’d feel partly responsible as the local representative of some 300+ million Americans. I’m all about avoiding international incidents.
I got settled in the room and then went downtown to the local bar and then Boston's Pizza. There are typically nice Canadians everywhere, and it's cool to see TSN and all the hockey games on the screens. Some player got a huge 6-year deal in the NHL, and was grinning ear to ear on the TV. The other patrons looked just as happy as him too, even if they weren’t watching the TV. There’s a carefree attitude here tonight.
In the light of the next day I was able to take inventory of my surroundings, and saw that the rolling hills of the American side had reached a crescendo on the Canadian side. I visited the mountains for the afternoon before crossing the border and then on to the funeral. Perhaps this liminal land was where my brief moments of lightheartedness began and ended.
