Angeline

She is a tiny owlish woman with more ticks than an abandoned sleeping bag. She blinks her eyes, scurries around like a neurotic cat and she has dozens of self-assigned tasks to complete. When we go shopping at the supermarket, she invariably has a list from at least one other resident and sometimes two lists to fill. She is convinced that without this service that she does, the other resident will surely starve--at the very least. She is all about punctuality--except for herself.

Once, in the middle of winter, the weather broke perfectly with blue skies allowing the Mountains to the west to show their latest snow covering in all of its glory. Since we were on the top of the hill and the mountain view was only a few blocks away, I suggested that we take a few minutes to swing around the hill and view the mountains. It was one of those days that everyone on the bus was a woman. The other girls loved it. They ohhed and awed at all of the appropriate places. A couple of them pointed out where they had lived. Everyone was having a great time. Everyone except Angeline. I could hear her in the back, saying 'shit!' and 'God damned it!' in short emphatic bursts. She wanted to get back and we weren't getting back nearly fast enough.

A month or so later, on another shopping trip, she became absolutely convinced that som of the bags had got mislabeled or something of the sort. She came off the bus cursing and damning us up-and-down. She was nearly beside herself. (Later, it became clear that there was nothing amiss.)

An hour later, she appeared with a letter for me. It was a letter of apology. It was not particularly easy-to-read for the handwriting, but she insisted that I read it; I was insisting that there was no need for apology. It was the usual fairly childish letter of apology. I looked up from reading it and said to Angeline: "But it's all right; you can't help it--you're Italian!" Angeline blinked a couple of times and brightened. This was exactly right! She was Italian! It wasn't her cursing me out but those aweful Italian DNA that she couldn't help. (She had told me she grew up in the Rainier Valley of Seattle when it was known as Ulcer Gulch for all of the Italians in the area.) She was delighted that she had apologized and better, she was off the hook. It wasn't Angeline, it was the cursed Italian blook that had made her swear and act badly.

She danced off to find another assignment.