Deja Moo... The Feeling I've Heard This Bull Before

Hello all! I hope everyone has had a week that is better than the thought of wombats synchronized swimming to Ballroom Blitz!

Alright, so I am just going to get this out of the way. As a resident Spokanite I should probably say a few things about this whole Rachel Dolezal thing, mostly because non-Spokanites won't stop asking me about it.

I find it a little funny that right before this whole thing blew up I wrote a piece on this blog about cultural appropriation. No seriously, scroll down, it's the post right below this one.

Just in case you need a refresher however, here is that lovely definition of cultural appropriation again:

Keeping that in mind, here are the points I would like to make:

1. No one is denying that Rachel Dolezal did a lot of work in the area of equality. The conundrum is that she trampled equality and was deceitful in doing so. You can't claim to be "culturally appropriating for equality" anymore than you can claim to be "bombing for peace."

2. No one in Spokane is mistaking Dolezal's self labeled transracial, which is not really a viable thing actually, with Caitlyn Jenner's transgender transition (how many times can I fit "trans" into one sentence). That was a comparison ya'll outside of Spokane developed and ran with. For the record, no, they are not the same, and no one (outside of our news media, which is weird anyways) in Spokane believes they are the same.

3. Spokane is a weird city. No, seriously, the first headline on the Spokane local news that I read this morning was "Spokane pizza delivery killer denied early release." Honestly, there are so many things in Spokane that could make international news, we're just shocked that the Rachel Dolezal mess was what made it.

So if I've satisfied all the news scandal interest I do have a quick announcement to make. While I work on edits for my third book Life is a Roller Derby Run by a Sphinx, I have decided to release a little collection of stories called Free the Shorts!

This collection will feature four new stories and two stories, one each from my previous books. The best part, it's going to be free! That's right, zero dollars and zero cents!

If the internet deities smiled upon me it will up within the next week or so, watch for more announcements here, on my Facebook and Twitter (@AllisonHawn).

We're Not In Kansas Anymore...

Hello all! I hope you had a more fabulous week than the thought of a Civil War reenactment fought with marshmallow guns!

Well, I had a lovely little adventure this past week (and by "lovely" I mean "bizarre and unbelievable," of course).

I was a bridesmaid in a wedding (Congratulations to Annie and Caleb Reynolds!!!), which was located about two and a half hours away from where I live.

The wedding rehearsal was set for the night before the big day.

"No big deal, I'll just drive over there directly after work and everything will be dandy!"

I lived in that optimistic delusion for approximately forty-five miles of interstate. Suddenly, I was met with a sea of brake lights and I found that the interstate had been transformed into a parking lot.

Now, please keep in mind that I drive a 1993 Dodge Dakota that has working air conditioning approximately half of the time. The odds were not in my favor that day as the summer sun pounded down on our immobile vehicles. My truck became an oven on wheels as I sat, still in my work clothes, in the middle of the slowest seventy mile per hour zone I have ever been in. Legless turtles in molasses could have made it to Prosser, Washington before me.

At one point I turned off my truck's engine, got out and started a conversation with my fellow captives. None of us could figure out what the hold-up could be.

It is construction season in Washington, but usually that only slows things up as opposed to creating a dead stop. One guy postulated that there must have been a multi-car wreck, but no one had seen ambulances going the other way which would have indicated such a catastrophe.

Finally, after over an hour someone up ahead yelled, "I think we have movement!"

Excitedly we all rushed back to our vehicles, started our engines and waited in anticipation. The car ahead of me began to roll forward and I followed, relieved to finally be moving. Then their brake lights flashed on and we were stopped again, a whole foot and a half gained.

We inched onwards like this for nearly an hour. Miles of cars were piled up behind me as we trudged ever onwards towards our seemingly impossible destination.

Finally, after having been thoroughly roasted in my own vehicle, I crested a small hill and saw that I was near the front of the line to escape the mass of trapped cars.

I also saw what had created our two hours of traffic purgatory: A two story house had fallen off of a trailer and had landed smack in the middle of the interstate.

Yep, you read correctly, someone dropped a two-story house and created a several mile long parking lot on a seventy mile per hour stretch of road. As I drove by I half expected to see the Wicked Witch of the East's feet curl up and vanish under the house while the Wicked Witch of the West yelled, "I'll get you my pretty and your little dog Toto too!"

As I inched forward I got the opportunity to watch a tractor pull the second story off of the road.

My two and a half hours road trip turned into a four and a half hour long test of my ability to not scream at slow moving vehicles. When I finally did arrive, well after the rehearsal was completed, and explained my predicament my friend Annie just shook her head and said, "Only you would travel to The Magical Land of Oz and leave to try and make it to a wedding rehearsal."

So what lessons can be learned from my little misadventure?

1. Make sure you properly tie down any and all houses you might want to move. Particularly if you are going to be transporting them on the main artery through a state so that you don't give it a coronary or kill any unsuspecting witches.

2. You can cook an egg on the hood of my truck on a hot day. Granted, I didn't have an egg to test this with, but considering my plastic water bottle melted there, I'm guessing it could effectively fry an egg.

Don't forget to follow all my adventures on Facebook,  Twitter (@AllisonHawn) and Goodreads!