Special Delivery, ATS (A True Story)

It was a spectacular breakup – we'd had a stormy on again off again relationship for a few years and through a few states, but we were back in St. Louis and he was really pushing my buttons. We were in his rented room. He liked to fancy himself a free spirit so he always rented a room, kept his possessions to a minimum and his jeep ready to take off. Really he was just good at running away. Anyway, we were in his rented room and he was sorting through things and throwing some things out and packing others – we were about to enter another off again phase and I was getting pretty fed up with it. "You see what I'm doing don't you?" he asked. "What's that?" I said. "Getting rid of excess baggage." The meaning was pretty clear and pissed me off royally. "Tell you what I'll do" he said, picking up his bag of dirty clothes, "If you do my laundry I'll take you to the best restaurant in town before I leave". I was about to tell him where he could put his laundry, but something stopped me. "Any restaurant I want?" I asked. "Yep" he said, "the biggest and the best – you pick it." "O.K." I said, picking up the bag. "I'll make the reservations for 8 o'clock – call me at 6 and I'll tell you where we're going." "It's a deal" he said handing he the bag. I headed down the stairs. I wasn't sure what my plan was, all I knew was that I was leaving that room with just about every stitch of clothing he owned. I came out the front door of the building and made a right – and then I saw it across the street – a mailbox. I made a bee-line for it and started stuffing clothes in as fast as I could. I heard a yell and looked up and saw him in the window – I could hear him yelling but couldn't quite make out the words. About two or three minutes later he was running across the street to me – laughing and crying at the same time – he always did have a good sense of humor. "You crazy bitch – I can't get those back -what am I gonna do for clothes?" "Wait for the mailman" I said "Maybe he'll want to go to dinner." Walking away was one of the most satisfying moments of my life.

Kiss-Met, ATS

I was singing at a bar, The Temple Bar, on the edge of Union Square in San Francisco. It was a nice steady gig, good pay, great players, and I was having fun. I never wore my glasses in those days and hadn't yet gotten contact lenses, so my field of vision was restricted to about the end of my nose, everything beyond that was a little on the fuzzy side,okay, a lot on the fuzzy side. . My friend Nancy had come to hang out and was sitting up close, having a drink and enjoying herself. It was September 1989. The band was swinging. When next I looked around I saw Nancy's cousin Joe sitting at the bar. He was a close friend of mine too so I wasn't surprised he was there, but I was surprised he wasn't sitting with Nancy. I hadn't heard anything about a fight so I figured he must be depressed. So, every time one of the guys was taking a solo I tried to let him know I knew he was in the room, a little finger wave, a smile, general "I see you over there" indications. We finished the set and I headed for Nancy's table to say hi, which put me about 20 feet closer to the bar. I glanced over to see if Joe was going to join us, and froze, "Oh my God, Nancy, that guy's not Joe!" I blurted. She turned to look in the direction of my horrified stare – and said "wow, he does look like Joe." "I'll be in the john" I said, making a diagonal bee-line in the appropriate direction. Now here's the funny part. The guy was British, a dead ringer for Joe, he'd only been in town for about an hour, and was normally very shy – but because of my brazenness he must have thought everything he ever heard about San Francisco was true – and he cut me off at the pass and introduced himself, his name was Jim, and he was totally charming. He came back to the gig the next night and we chatted on the breaks. Coincidentally, some friends who were living in Heidelberg, Germany had just visited and had talked me into coming to Heidelberg for Christmas. It would be my first trip to Europe. It occurred to me that here was a guy traveling in a strange country, not knowing anyone and soon I would be in the same situation – on my way to see my friends, and I decided to befriend him and invited him to a game night friends were having – getting together playing Trivial Pursuit and such like. About half way through the evening I started noticing how cute this guy was, very smart and with that wonderful understated British wit and great sense of humor. His employer at the time, the Daily Mail in London, had sent him to Sacramento to take some computer classes for three months. He had a two week break after the first session and immediately hopped into his rental car, drove to San Francisco, checked into a hotel on the edge of Chinatown. He wandered down the street and seeing the "live jazz" sign at the Temple Bar had wandered in and we'd met. He'd come back the next night. He'd scheduled a five day trip down to LA but came back after only two days and stopped by the club. We'd set up a date for Saturday afternoon and I was looking forward to it. I gave him a ride back to his hotel that night. Did I mention it was September 1989 when we met? So much was going on. It was fleet week, the famous Battle of the Bay world series was happening, and he had failed to book a room before he left for LA. As we were sitting in the car he was telling me he might not be able to keep the date the next day as he was going to have to look for a new hotel room. I was a bit distracted, waiting for him to make his move and kiss me goodnight, which he finally did. My toes started to curl. "Do that again" I said. Well you can be fooled the first time. He did. More toe curling. "Are you unencumbered?" I asked. "Oh yes, quite free" he replied. "Have you ever ax murdered anyone?' I asked. "Well, just the once." he replied. I fell hard. "Okay" I said, "I have a futon in the living room that makes into a bed, you can stay at my place. That ruse lasted until he showed up the next day, Saturday morning. He walked through the gate, dropped his luggage and put me in a lip lock that seemed to be eternal. We went into my cottage and didn't emerge until Monday. Then the earthquake happened, but that's another story. Shortly after that he had to return to Sacramento for more classes, but we spoke on the phone every night and he drove back to visit, even with the bridge out, every weekend. Still and all when he left to go back to England six weeks later I wasn't sure I would ever see him again. Then he called the next day, and every day. In the course of our conversations I mentioned that I had decided rather than fly directly to Germany I had decided I would fly to Amsterdam and then take a train down to Germany to visit my friends at Christmas, thereby getting two countries and a train ride for my adventure. Jim then pointed out that if I did that, it would be easy for him to simply fly over the channel to Amsterdam and meet me and we could train down to Heidelberg and spend Christmas together. Sounded like a plan to me. Amsterdam was magical, the train ride was wonderful, my friends picked us up at the airport Christmas Eve and ferried us back to their place in Heidelberg. The next morning as we awoke in the upstairs bedroom, I turned to Jim and said "If someone had told you a year ago that you would wake up Christmas morning 1989 in Heidelberg with your American lover, what would you have said?" He thought about it for a minute and said "I think I would have said fast forward please." We've been married now for 20 years.

A Tale of Wales, ATS

We had been to visit some friends in Wales, as a side trip on one of our trips to England to visit Jim's family. We were having a grand time, driving through the countryside, stopping as the mood struck us, I was marveling at the enormous amount of slate laying about everywhere, a byproduct of the mining Jim told me. I began to wonder what they did with it all and started devising a slate based menu for a small cafe, slate soup, chipped slate on toast, slate and chips, just having fun and enjoying our freedom. We stopped for the night in a small village on the coast, not far from Portmeirion, where "The Prisoner" had been filmed. We planned to go there next. We found a likely looking Inn, booked a room and headed for the pub for some libations and a meal. As we were sitting having our drinks, listening to the piped in music and waiting for our pub grub an Abba song came on the the sound system and it made us giggle, it just seemed a bit incongruous for the 1990's. The next day was nice and we decided to explore the village a bit before taking off, which for me meant checking out the shops so we hit the high street to see what was what. As we were wandering about one shop an Abba song started playing on their piped in music system. I looked at Jim and we both burst out laughing, which of course made the people in the shop look at us as if we were loony. We tumbled out onto the street still laughing, and as the day was advancing decided to have lunch and found a lovely little cafe not too far away. We ordered tea and sandwiches and as our order was being brought to the table, you guessed it, more Abba! It was completely surreal. I looked at Jim and said "all right, we really have to get out of town now". We ate quickly, rushed to the car and got the hell out of Dodge, as they say. As we drove away we were speculating about the events and what might have caused them – a ship had sunk offshore and a crate of Abba tapes had washed up on the beach – all the people in the town were descendants of Abba, or the town simply had a high tolerance for 70's Swedish pop groups. It's a mystery that may never be solved, and I have to say that after that experience walking on the beach in Portmeirion where "The Prisoner" was filmed was a bit of a denouement.

How could I know that years ago when I first came across Anita Wardell's music, www.anitawardell.com , on the internet (and immediately bought three of her CDs) and dropped her a note, that we would become friends, that years later I would meet and hear her in person in London and that years after that I would be running a jazz  party series in the SF Bay area to which she would come and sing?  And the bonus of having her stay with us for two weeks - icing on a great big giant cake with a cherry on top! 

From the moment I picked her up from her flight to the moment I dropped her off at SFO to reluctantly send her back to London,  we laughed, talked and shared stories over endless cups of tea, comparing notes on the music business on both sides of the pond - pretty universal as it turns out.

We went out to hear singers we both love (Rebecca Paris and Jennifer Lee), watched the building next door burn to the ground (to the water, actually because we live on an estuary) and the boat that was tied to the building burn through it's mooring ropes and float down the estuary like a Viking funeral pyre (we don't do that for everyone who visits - just so you know).

I drove her up to Sebastopol to sing at Ernie Shelton's House Concert series with Larry Dunlap and sat  and basked in the amount of incredible music that two awesome musicians can create together.  It was also wonderful to get a tour of Ernie's garden, see his and Susan's beautiful house and see how someone else runs their series. 

The next day she taught a class on improvisation at the Jazz School in Berkeley and then did Bird's Nest Jazz (our series).

Somewhere in here we had a singer's dinner with Laurie Antonioli, Jennifer Lee, Shanna Carlson, me, Anita, and Karen Jeffries.  Anita got to catch up on the lives of friends and we all got to catch up on each other and enjoy the fabulous food at Le Cheval.

She took a side trip up to Seattle to do Nich Anderson's house concert up there and another event as well.  I had a gig of my own to distract me while she was gone (Ladies of Jazz, four singer/songwriters at Noe Valley Ministry Music Series). 

Through all this we sang each other songs & lyrics, played music for each other, she showed me a fantastic method of improvising over chord changes and we made plans for getting together on her side of the pond - perhaps with my singing/touring there and doing a workshop with her students (watch this space as details develop).

In any case she'll be back next June - to teach at Jazz Camp West - and I can hardly wait to see her again!

Cathi