WHO: Alexi & Anja Weiss WHEN: Friday, May 25, morning. WHERE: Somewhere on the streets of Fall City SUMMARY: Anja is after coffee and makes some other discoveries. WARNINGS: None that I can think of.
If she were going to be teaching an online class from Fall City this summer, the next step was to check out the local library and to see what she would be dealing with there. It was no doubt significantly less than University of California's systems, but she could hopefully make do with most of the online materials, and work within the constraints of the system here. Seattle was not so far over if she needed to pop over to the University of Washington and see if they had things.
So it was that she was up early to first get coffee, and then to go to the town's public library to check it out. The car that was parked on the side of the road was older, and would have completely escaped her mind, if not for the clear sight of someone sleeping in it.
Vagabonds, was the snap response to that, with a significant amount of judgment attached to it. Why would someone presume that parking a car on the side of the street would be an appropriate way to live? At least get one of those small trailers that were so en vogue now. Tiny living Anja could get behind - it held a low environmental footprint. But that was completely different than living out of one's car.
Unless, of course, they simply couldn't afford any of those things, she scolded herself as she glanced through the window as she passed and stopped.
"Alexi?" she spoke out loud, startled by the realization of her son being the one in the car. She wrapped on the window. "Alexi?"
Who didn't like a midday nap? Alexi had started helping out at one of the farms- not the most glorious job or use of his talents, but it was something to do. Alexi needed extra cash. He did not have no money to his name, he had money from his father, the boy merely choose not to use it on his adventures unless he had to. Parachutes could get expensive.
Startled awake by the familiar shrill voice of his mother- that he had not heard yell at him since he was a child- and the tapping on the window, bright blue eyes blinked the sleep away to look confused at his mother's face.
Rolling down the window, he scratched through his thick hair. “Hi, mama. What are you doing today?”
Anja was reasonably certain that not that very long ago she had been living what qualified as a normal, and even boring life. Now she was finding herself in a strange town, navigating a fully online course that she normally taught as a face to face, while her daughter dealt with an unplanned pregnancy, and her son apparently thought it was reasonable to sleep in his car. She tilted her head. She felt as if she scolded all the time, and it wasn't pleasant and she hadn't seen Alexi for so long…
"I was going to get coffee, and then the library. What are you doing?"
Looking up through half-lidded eyes, Alexi smiled. “Taking a nap?” Even if the scolding was not written on his mother’s face, Alexi could feel it emanate when she walked up and knocked on the window. “What are you going to the library for?”
"I'm going to be teaching my courses online this summer," she responded businesslike. " I was going to see what sorts of resources would be available to me here and whether or not I would need to go over to University of Washington." A beat, and she peered at him. "Why are you taking a nap here?"
Alexi nodded, playing innocent to his napping location. The motherly suspicion might not have been something he had experienced in a long time, but she obviously had not lost her touch over the years. “Because the police kicked me out of the park? The sun helps with Weltschmerz.” Alexi could not help but laugh, almost proving the point that napping in the car in the sun would push away the down feeling of the pressures of the world around them.
Perhaps Anja was getting old, but she found that things simply weren't amusing like they once had been. Or maybe she was kidding herself that they ever had been, and it was more that she'd dreamed a dream of being easily amused over the absurd. Because this truly was absurd all the way around.
"Perhaps you could try the porch at the Inn," she told him. "Do you not have a room there?"
“I’m not a part of the film crew. As lovely as they are. I doubt they want me napping on their porch.”
"If you are a guest I doubt they would mind." She persisted.
Another mischievous, lazy smile crossed his lips. Alexi knew this game. Stretching his long limbs back, he curled his arms around the headrest. “But the car keeps me safe should it rain. A porch wouldn’t.”
It was unclear whether the desire to smack him, or bang her own head on the top of said car, was stronger. Anja shook her head. "You cannot live in a car, Alexi. Do you not have a room?"
“I mean, the inn was full and have you smelled that motel? It’s worse than living in a camel pen.” While it was not a full admittance to not having a room, he knew his mother was not an idiot. The entire family were a bunch of weird geniuses in their own ways. And yes, he did know what sleeping amongst camels smelled like, but that was a conversation for never.
"And you have plenty of experience with living in a camel pen, do you?" Anja sighed. "Get out, come with me, I'm going to buy you a coffee and a danish, and you should at least sleep at night when it's not so bright. I think this is all the reason more for me to get a small apartment. Enough room for you to have one."
“You’d be surprised.” He smiled brightly. Holding up his hands as if he were to be arrested, “How can I say no to coffee?” Rolling his windows back up, as he had too much gear in his car to leave it unlocked, Alexi got out of the car and stretched once more.
“You know I’m good. You don’t need to change your plans for the short period I’ll be in town. I still have some waterfalls to go over up-state.”
"It's not a change of plans, I'm getting one anyway in case your sister needs to get out of the Inn for a bit," Anja told him matter-of-factly, and for a heartbeat she resisted the urge to reach over and mess his hair. For a heartbeat and then she decided he rather deserved it, so she did it anyway, not particularly looking at him or giving any recognition that she knew what she was doing or that it might annoy.
"Waterfalls, hm. Were you going to come down to California to see me?" She asked him.
“Ach, He!” Alexi exclaimed at the tossling of his hair with a scoff. When she stopped he smoothed out his hair once more, not that it helped any. The curl of his dark hair rarely looked better than a messy mop.
“You see, I was in California. And you weren’t there.”
"That would be because I was here," she said with a smirk that matched that which either of her children could give easily. "But I suppose now we are both here, so it is a moot point. Tell me about your waterfalls," she requested as she stood aside so that he could close up his car. "I want to know which ones you are seeing."
“Waterfalls?” Seeing was an understatement. He had plans to meet up with friends after he left Fall City to go Kayaking over the waterfalls- see them from the inside. “Some friends and I are going to the Palouse Falls first and then seeing where we can go from there.”
Closing his car and locking it, he turned back to her mother. “Kaffee?”
Anja had more questions about which friends, and even more about their plans with the Falls, but for now she supposed coffee and then they could ask the questions while drinking coffee, and she could really catch up with her son, something she hadn't truly had much of an opportunity to do for a while. Her class preparations would wait, more than likely. One thing she had learned in her life, was that there were some things more important. She gave him a quick smile. "Coffee."