Stand Off! Tightroper Walker VS The Woman in the Yellow Dress

My friend Leslie turned 44 a couple of weeks ago. She shared her celebration with John Javna, author of Uncle John's Bathroom Readers.

The party was at ScienceWorks; Leslie's husband, Alan, and a few other hands had put together an amazing circus spread, with dart throwing, aerial silk spinners, and Cracker Jacks.

I had called Alan an hour before the party and asked if we were to dress nicely, or dress up, or what. Alan told me that everyone would be dressed as circus folk. So I wore a black suit with a red boa, some gloves, fake eyelashes, and a nice big feather. Like...a tightrope walker. Or something.

It turned out, Alan (the ringmaster) and I were the only ones in costume. After a half-hour of people thinking I was a party performer (embarrassingly, I was more dressed up than even the silk spinners), I shed some of my bling in the car, and looked, for the most part, normal.

A couple hundred of Ashland's upper tier, the now 60 year-olds who came to Ashland from Berkeley, etc., tossed rings at milk bottles, gawked at jugglers on unicycles, and filled and re-filled their wine glasses.

I visited the fortune teller, who foresaw right away what I was there for (without giving it all away, I can say it has to do with an agent and a certain MS I've scribbled). While I heartily accepted my cards that told of my lovely marriage, true friends, a happy home, I tried to defy the card I picked from the stack second-to-last, the one with the woman in the yellow dress: "He Commeth Not."

After some lemon cake and sultry singing by Javna's high school daughter, I went to my happy home to my lovely marriage, and my solid, loyal husband said that the paper woman in the yellow-dress could kiss my red-feathered ass.