during Terry Gross' interview with Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King recently, King described how Kudrow's character is making fun of the overused yoga namaste praying hands that all the actors are using these days to say thank you or goodbye. I didn't realize this was past cliche' but hey, I'm not always the first to find these things out.

but wait, I still like this gesture. do I have to stop? and what would I do or say instead? I just kept thinking about this. are things different now that we can interact with hundreds of people a day? and we can see in an instant how humans in every other part of the planet are doing and saying it right now? and then now? won't any gesture become cliche' within minutes? do we do nothing? do we do the old boring standards? I can't Stand just about any closing anyone can use in an email and I have no suggestions for new ones so I tend to leave it out. sometimes I even say "I can't think of a closing that I can stomach so I'm leaving it out" for my closing, which I guess is a lie since it's in the location of the closing. but this thank you/goodbye gesture is still on my favored list. go figure.

so this morning I was driving to meet a friend for a hike. I came across this construction guy in his 60's who'd lost half his insulation all across the freeway exit ramp. I stopped to help. these sheets weighed maybe a pound each and were 5 feet wide by I dunno, 12 feet long. think sails. on an exit ramp. two hundred feet above the ground heading over the freeway we had just exited.

he stayed with the panels still on his truck to keep them from blowing away while I pulled the pieces over from the other side of the ramp. he did comment that he felt like he wasn't doing anything but I didn't care, that's how things fell out, I was happy for the exercise, happy it wasn't my mess and I could walk at any moment. I heaved each one against the wind and shimmied it up to him. this only worked because he could miracuously hold onto each piece with one hand while I blindly angled it up to him and hoped he could grab it before the wind took it and me away.

halfway through, a cop stopped for a visit. he advised that the load was too high and he could lose it again but he tells the guy to let his conscience be his guide. I thought I've never heard a cop talk like that -- well, it was still in that power strutting voice, but those words. and to be honest, my stereotype of a construction guy wasn't one who'd respond to something about his conscience either. but this guy did seem to be a gentle soul although the cop hadn't had enough time to figure that out for himself at this point.

the cop asked me if I was with him or had just stopped. I said I had just stopped. twice throughout this, he tapped me on the shoulder and said thanks for stopping but I felt like he really wanted to give me one of those guy slaps on the back. the cop went back to his vehicle, the construction guy finished tying up his cargo. I said that I was going to take off now if he was ok. he gently thanked me for helping him and raised his hands into yoga make-nice praying hands. I did too and left.