The Weed Women
Once upon a time in a land that, for all intents and purposes, had looked very Oz-like to us at first blush, a very Oz-like event did, in fact, take place.
The occasion was a garden party at our friend’s John and Larry’s in their newly tarted up historic Victorian in the now-famous NE 23rd district of Portland, OR. It was the great unveiling of their city-sanctified Backyard Habitat designation. Cool thing, great idea for a party. We happened to have two old friends from Salt Lake visiting so we took them along. We parked the truck in their drive, threw my ever-present camera over my shoulder, and in we went.
As always, it was an eclectic gathering and diverse as only parties in the oughts in PDX must, by decree, be. People of all stripes and colors were milling about, scarfing up tasties from the multiple buffet tables, admiring the new deck and the tandem swing set farther out in the garden. There were raised beds aplenty with starts of what would soon spring into butterfly and bee heavens galore.
Our foursome was splintering and chatting up others when I spied a gathering of folks out among the garden proper getting, what I assumed, was the hosts tour of the actual vegetation. As I made my way down the deck steps and through the raised beds it slowly dawned on me that the grouping was resembling more a circle that a classroom setting and yes, they were passing a pipe around.
Now here I must pause and say this was waaaay before marijuana was what it is today. In a word, legal. And my spouse, Dave, had never…I mean never…had even one toke in all the 60’s and the decades since. I, on the other hand, had, but had given up all altering substances when we got together in 1993.
Back in the garden, it was obviously to all that I was approaching the circle. Too late for a graceful exit, they were already creating a break for me to insinuate myself into. I glanced around and decided Dave was with our guests on the garden swing chatting and eating brownies (which I should add at Larry’s house could potentially be lethal as well….ask Bandit the dog). I slipped into the Hora-like circle and as the pipe came inexorable my way I figured, what the hell, one toke would be polite and then I would exit myself to another group.
A Large Miscalculation
One toke I had; “excuse me but I must go see to my guests and make sure that they are meeting folks”. Said guests, and said husband, were still swinging and I therefore thought the extra seat was the perfect landing spot. I slid onto the porch swing and we all were admiring the design, the new deck, and the house and gardens combined. Maybe it was the back and forth of the tandem garden swing, I have never been able to read in a moving car or even sit in the backseat of one without extreme nausea, or maybe, just maybe, I had miscalculated my first hit of pot in 15 years. In any event….
Garden Party Compost
That is where I was heading and at a not so gradual pace. Flopped. My entrance to the swinging garden benches. Thinking I was safe, not. I quickly became aware that my sensory systems, balance, visual, auditory, you name it, they were all severely compromised and, like a patient being admitted to the ER, there were gremlins frantically running around in my head screaming STAT…CODE BLUE…UNRESPONSIVE PATIENT. When I attempted to speak, the tape I was hearing in my head sounded like an ultra-slo playback of a normal voice, neither version of which I could place as my own. Think Munchins.
I had to exit myself, now
I realized I still had a camera dangling around my neck and the odds of me taking a picture now were sub-nill, so I reason it could be a good excuse to get to the truck outside to “put it safely away”. As I rose to head to the back door, across the garden and UP three steps, my visual field did a perfect rendition of Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” where the entire house, including the lovely pathway I was traversing, did a vicious twisting (full rotation) that including the path under my feet. Instinctively, I reach out for the stair rail only to have it, too, elongate out away from me at the same moment I was reaching out for it.
Disaster loomed
I got into the house (I really do have some blanks here…remember ONE toke) and through the dining room, out the front doors, down the front steps, and across to the truck. Managing to open the door and fling the camera somewhere inside the cab I found myself too completely exhausted and visually depleted to take another step. So, I hung onto the open driver’s door, keys dangling in hand, and tried to keep my bobbing head upright and myself from dropping the keys somewhere I knew I could never retrieve them. In my barely conscious subcortex, I gradually became aware that I was a true-to-life example of a “don’t let you friends drive drunk” poster in the making. To save someone (and myself) from that certain ignominy, I did, with great effort, manage to get myself (crawl?) up onto the front porch, deliciously empty of others, and collapse on a sofa where I was to remain for the rest of the party safe thought I, from interactions that could later prove embarrassing. Dave and our guests came around finally, (How long? Who knows?) Our guests, fresh off the Conestoga’s from Utah, wanted to continue the festivities on to Silverado’s, the infamous all nude male strip bar downtown. The best I could mumble was “take me home”.
Disaster Diverted
Or not. I called Larry the next day to apologize for my behavior. Gracious, as always, assuring me no one had noticed a thing other than when they (plural mind you) had come to sit with me on the front porch I was uncharacteristically quiet. “Stone cold silent” was thrown about I believe. It seems that mostly the entire party, as they were leaving for the day, stopped and had, if I’m truthful here, less than scintillating conversations with me but graciously never commented (at least that I remember) on my total lack of participation.
I was explaining to Larry my last cohesive recollection being the pot circle and a couple of very friendly lesbians I had not met before. Instantly Larry interjected…..
“OH! The Weed Women!!!
Followed by as much of an explanation as I could decipher, he explained: They were the back fence neighbors who were growing this special iteration of hydroponic pot that, in my opinion, should have toxic waste stickers affixed. “We never touch that shit, it’s fucking dangerous!”
