2010 ALLEGORY IN REVIEW

at the motel in newport where i spent mine and caroline's divorce weekend in april, it was the chair at the dinette table, a danish knock off that i didn't regret not trying to stuff in the rental after i found a real one at the newport antique mall. i probably would have paid twice the $65 dollar tag if i could have found a way to get it into the sub-compact. i suppose i could have just paid the extra to enterprise to get a larger car. or sent caroline home on the bus and put the passenger seat down. she was, after all, marrying someone else after a couple of weeks.

at the prater motel in hood river it's this lamp. i want it. the beaded shade with the beaded fringe are just icing to the bulbous, transparent pink lamp body with the flowers painted on the bulges and the clouded glo-tube inside. the bulb goes on too, but it's too much light for the twilight zone marathon. the light from the tube through the pink lights the champagne bowls just right as well. (those we had to bring in the car.) the lamp wouldn't be hard to take, and, from the sound of things, prater's will probably have bigger problems tonight than petty theft. "'alfred hitchcock presents' is more my speed." duchess, apparently, prefers murder.

prater's was the first vacancy sign past downtown without the "no" illuminated (i put amanda palmer's version of "i will follow you into the dark" on the driving mix), and the "$39.95 and up" sign was encouragement enough for duchess and i to pull in. the woman at reception who croaked from behind the partition wall that we'd interrupted her nap looked just like the cashier at georgia's grocery on 12th and stark in portland (minus the red hair dye), a slightly alarming development since the particularly thick gravel in her voice could just as easily have been coming from her doppelganger as well.

"just a minute. she likes to know when guests are here."

she made a phone call. "yeah. we got a couple." a couple come upstate from the city for a holiday getaway. we'd already conjured the fantasy: she just knew her part.

we had a choice of two room types since the man who checked in for the night yesterday evening -- but then decided to stay a second -- had been taken away by the police earlier in the day. "and, you know, sometimes we get the people down from the "hospital." we give them vouchers, you know? they just have to give us the voucher, and we give them a key. but one time, this guy wouldn't get out of the cab. we just hung out there in the parking lot. crazy people." two virgos having brought up the possibility of bed bugs isn't a casual conversation, but after that introduction we had our minds on different possibilities. and then we forgot, because prater's might not have much more going for its rooms than kitschy lamps and heat, but its views of the columbia are spectacular.

just one more plus, because if something happens to us tonight, it's also happening to us in fancy dress. dead or alive, you'll find us well. now, hood river, who wants an excuse to punch me before 2011?