I Took My Mom to a Dispensary
Written and illustrated by Kelly O’Grady
Recently, Mom and I took an Amtrak sleeper car up to Eugene, Oregon, to go to a wool festival called “The Black Sheep Gathering” (which sounds more like a Black Metal music festival than a gathering of wool enthusiasts).
My mom is a self-identified “loom lady”; she has three of them, and miles of Angora fur she uses to make mittens and hats. I was joining her because I could use a vacation, and also, recreational marijuana had just become legalized in Oregon. The ride up was beautiful, and my mom kept herself entertained with her romance novels.
We arrived in Eugene and took a cab over to the fairgrounds where the Black Sheep Gathering was taking place. It reminded me of Burning Man, except fewer drugs and more wine and spinning wheels.
There were RVs and tents for miles. I was one of maybe a handful of men at the event. I saw someone’s husband being tied to a post to wait quietly while his wife went to wool-dying seminar.
My mom was in her element: she was spinning wool and drinking (her beverage of choice is Vodka 7s) and talking about her bunnies back home (Spaghetti and Meatball) to the other Loom Ladies.
There was a big to-do because a famous Loom Lady and mystery novel writer Nora Flanora was teaching a seminar on how to make purple dye out of urine and crushed up bugs. It was four hours long; I was dragged along because I had nothing much better to do. I confess it was pretty interesting actually.
On the second day, I brought up, half jokingly, that we should go to a marijuana dispensary since it was now legal in Oregon. To my surprise she seemed game.
“You know, I’ve always wanted to try one of those ‘marijuana brownies,’” mom said.
