High in the Seattle Sky

By Jim Riva

Amanda Olsen is a girl who just wants to have fun because she knows that she’s going to die before she gets old. Cystic fibrosis took the life of her father, a rock guitarist in the grunge era, and it has her days numbered, too.

Amanda, a drummer who can really throw down, lives in the attic of a rooming house and works at Starbucks for medical insurance that covers the CF treatments she needs to live a little longer with her lifestyle of sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll.

Her drum rug, found stuck to a tree on Mount Rainier, happens to be the flying carpet that went missing in Portland. When she finally finds out what she’s got, the natural-born risk-taker pushes things to the max with some extreme carpet-flying.

A stoner and a staunch supporter of the legalization of weed, Amanda flies high (in the stoned sense of the word) and has misadventures as well as adventures, including a fly-by snatching that gives Bill Gates the shock of his life.

A new boyfriend and a new indie band that gains up-and-coming recognition have Amanda running on empty but still taking it to the limit.

Set in Seattle in the summer/fall of 2011, High in the Seattle Sky, Book Two of “The Magic Carpet Trilogy” is a comedy with a thundering backbeat and a kick-ass crescendo.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jim Riva
• Release date: Sep 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005936624

Jim Riva

Jim Riva was the class clown in his boyhood days. He became a serious student of philosophy at the undergraduate and graduate levels before coming to the philosophical conclusion that the best outlook on life is to take humor seriously.An off-the-beaten-track world traveler who spent the better part of fourteen years in Japan, Jim has written nine novels that fall into the Humor category and more than thirty-five audio sketches that are on The Champion of Reason Podcast.He lives and laughs (and continues to write) in Oregon with his Japanese wife and their daughter.

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High in the Seattle Sky

Book Two of The Magic Carpet Trilogy

Published by Magic Carpet Publications at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Jim Riva

Cover art by Sarah Thompson

The thoughts of the main character, especially those pertaining to the corporation for which she works, do not necessarily reflect the thoughts of the author, and no harm is intended.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

I could not have written this story without the help I received from two talented musicians: Josh Cushing and Steve Gajdos.

Also contributing again in a big way was Matt Joseph.

(Thanks to Crystal Hendrix for helping with the main character’s voice.)

Assisting me in Photoshop work was Juliáe Riva.

HIGH IN THE SEATTLE SKY

CHAPTER ONE: LITTLE WING

(May 14th, 2011)

I pushed off to pick up speed as I skated south on Broadway. It was the first really nice day in what had been a cold, wet spring, and I, Amanda Olsen, was stoked to once again be out of the hospital with the gook cleaned out of my lungs. Cystic fibrosis sucks.

Since being diagnosed with CF when I was eight, the University of Washington Medical Center had been my home away from home. But since my father died of the same dreaded disease eight years earlier, I wasn’t really sure what the fuck ‘home’ meant anymore.

Home is where the heart is, so they say. Well, rock ’n’ roll is where my heart is. Rock is in my blood. My dad was a rocker who played lead guitar. Me, I play the drums. Shit, I rock those fucking drums.

The doctors wanted to keep me in the hospital for another day or two, but I was feeling good enough to get the fuck out, and I wanted to get the fuck out so that I could hit up the Cannabis Freedom March the following day. Power to the people!

It was ridiculous that cannabis was illegal. Two weeks earlier, Governor Gregoire vetoed a bill that resulted in banning state-run, medical-marijuana dispensaries. I wanted to see dispensaries out there so people like me, who didn’t have a green thumb, could walk right on in and buy some weed. Gregoire said that she vetoed the bill, which had cleared both houses of the state legislature, because she was afraid that the feds would arrest and prosecute state employees who participated. Well, big shit. Screw the feds. Screw everything.

I pushed off again and felt the wind on my face and the air going freely to my lungs. Plugged into an old iPod Shuffle handed down by a friend, I was listening to Dave Grohl tear it up on Nirvana’s Scentless Apprentice. Dave Grohl was one of my favorite drummers, along with John Bonham, Chad Smith, Stewart Copeland, Tim Alexander, and Jimmy Chamberlin.

I was in the local band Delicious Dynamite. The lead guitarist, Josh, was, or maybe wasn’t, my boyfriend. We had been going together for seven months, but that dickface came to visit me only once during my eight-day stint in the hospital, and I hadn’t heard anything from him in three days. That wasn’t cool. I checked my messages on my pre-pay phone. Still nothing from him. Why was he being such a dick?

For money, I worked at Starbucks, on Olive Way. I had been working there for a year and a half, since turning twenty-one and no longer being covered by Medicaid. Yeah, I know—boo-hoo-hoo.

Now, with a doctor’s release, I could go back to work, not that I really wanted to. I would have much rather worked at a place where people appreciated a good cup of coffee instead of crapaccinos.

On Capitol Hill, where I lived, there were many great coffee places—Espresso Vivace Roasteria, Fuel Coffee, and Victrola Coffee to name three—but they weren’t hiring because of the jobless recovery. So I was stuck at Starbucks with the dumbfuckuccinos, who had no shame in stepping up and ordering something like a Venti, half-pump Classic, one-quarter pump raspberry, half black tea, half iced green tea with no added water and extra light ice.

Then there were the douchebagiatos. There’s too much foam, they might complain after having the nerve to order something like a Grande Latte with half soy and half non-fat milk steamed together with one and a half Splenda and extra foam.

Too bad they didn’t know that we had a signal-system so that those of us on register could let those of us on bar know that they should give the douchebagiatos decaf instead of regular, or vice versa. Sometimes we took it further; sometimes much further.

I always indicated that a customer was ‘special’ by making an asterisk on the cup next to their name. Of course, one person’s asterisk is another person’s asshole. Woe to anyone who received a double ‘asterisk’ from me. Yeah, have a nice day, you Grande Douchebag.

Don’t get me wrong, I had nothing against Starbucks. Yes, they created a spoiled, entitled customer-culture in which the hordes dumbfuckuccinos ordered the shit they did and expected us