Wulf. My girlfriend Cindy and I went to Wulf's drunken Orthodox Easter a couple of times. He celebrated it on the normal Easter Sunday rather than the Orthodox one, but otherwise it was authentic, kind of, according to him. Wulf had Ukranian ancestors so he was celebrating Ukrainian style Easter. People would meet up at his house early that Sunday. Well, early by Sunday standards. Nine or ten. When most of us were there we'd caravan to Lake View Cemetery on Capitol Hill. Lake View Cemetery is where Bruce Lee is buried. We'd set our blankets and supplies down not far from there, at a grave Wulf selected when he first celebrated Ukrainian Easter. Since he didn't have any relatives buried there, he adopted one. Every year after that he would adopt another. The supplies we brought included plenty of vodka. According to Wulf the Ukrainian custom was to feast and toast at your ancestors' graves on Easter, leaving a little food and spilling a little vodka for them. Which brings us to what I found attractive about Wulf's Ukrainian Easter celebration: getting drunk in the morning. In those days normally I didn't get drunk in the morning. I saved that for afternoon or even evening. Getting drunk in the morning was a special treat. Cindy was an enthusiastic companion for that. I think mostly because she was enthusiastic about me. Plus she did like to drink. To be fair I was extremely enthusiastic about her. We made Pysanky. I had a couple I made I kept for years.
Waid's. I hooked up with Cindy at Waid's, a once beloved dance venue that's now closed. At the time it was the home of blues dancing in Seattle. Once a week the tunes switched from R&B and hip-hop to blues and an almost all white mob of dancers mobbed the joint. I'd danced with Cindy once before, at Folklife, and oh my yes, chemistry. I knew she liked to go blues dancing and I was keen on dancing with her again, so I went to Waid's. I didn't see her there at first, so I did a few desultory dances with whomever. I'm not a blues dancer. I never fit in very well at blues dances. I just love dancing to the blues my own way. When I watch elite blues dancers on YouTube the dancing does nothing for me. It seems forced, stident. Like the dancers are trying to prove a point rather than simply creating art together. But when I watch elite tango dancers…
Then we spotted each other. Her smile when she saw me was dazzling. She had a dazzling smile to start with and right then she had it turned up to eleven. We threaded our way through the crowd to each other into a hug. We danced three or four songs together then separated, promised to reconnect before we left. I did a few more desultory dances with blues dancers. Then our eyes met across the floor and it was all over. Or rather we were all over. All over each other, to the point you can do that on a dance floor. We danced close and sexy, we made out on the dance floor. We closed the place down. When we walked out it was pouring down rain. Like it almost never rains in Seattle, like it rains mid continent, a heavy downpour. We stood under an awning a few doors down and would have made love right there if we could but all we had was, you know, sidewalk. Otherwise it was a perfect reenactment of my night at The Vic. We were dry in the flood and getting it on. Only way better because instead of us kissing good night and parting I followed her home and we really did make love. That night and every night for more than a year. Here's some 12/8 blues, a song we both liked dancing to back in the day.