“How you doing tonight,” said the Traders Joe clerk.
“Resigned to dying in this cold, cold place,” I said. “Every year I ask why we endure this and every year I do nothing about it. Either it’s an inability to make significant life choices or the other qualities of the state and its people make me willing to live another winter.”
“Well that’s a lot,” she said, beeping the goods.
I suppose it was. Cold and on my own for waaaay too long. At the start it was odd to be all alone in the house morning and afternoon and evening and night, with the only human contact outside of the office building being guys who wanted to sell me a car. Or rather were there if I wanted to buy one.
Me after two weeks alone:
But! Wife returns tomorrow. That means lots of cleaning on Friday, but not that much. I've kept the place clean and well-ordered, because that is my wont. I admit to letting the flowers in the vase on the kitchen island turn into a lovely bouquet of dried flowers, and they're quite photogenic, if you're doing a video shoot about homes inspired by "Sunset Boulevard." Without the dead-monkey smell. As far as I know. I mean, you live in a place, you get used to things.
Then again, do we know if the monkey in "Sunset Boulevard" had been embalmed? That would be a different suite of aromas. At Target tonight - it was a big stock-up sweep - I considered buying some air fresheners. They come in three varieties.
Mist, which immediately falls to the floor
Candles, which are forgotten and burn the house down
Diffusers, which coat everything in oil
The third option looked to be the most effective. The scratch-and-sniff labels on the packages did not give a full account of the aroma, though, and it made me wonder if every item on the rack had been scratched, and sniffed, and there just no more instructive molecules left. I didn't want anything sweet, or flowery, or "Fresh Linen," or "Mountain Stream." I wanted "Woodsmoke and Pipe Tobacco," or maybe "Burning Leaves and Hai Karate." I don't know. I didn't get anything. She hates those.
I could open a window, but it's three above, and it would cost a lot of money to bring everything back up to 66 degrees.
Well, Wife will say something. She will also note that I drastically reduced our sauerkraut supply. She bought some at Costco to go with a forty-pound slab of corned beef. Lunch supply. The kraut container took up a lot of fridge space, and she used approximately 6% of the contents in a three month period. I made a command decision to move a portion of the kraut to a small glass bottle, and consigned the rest to the Disposal.
Bushels and bales went out over the last month. The Purge of the Expired. The Restoration of Order: cupboard shelves whose contents can be discerned at a glance. The personal / medical drawer in the hallway arranged by purpose and likelihood of use. If I expire in my sleep tonight I leave a well-ordered house, a well-fed dog, and a complete account of my life and work backed up and arranged in well-ordered photos. But I will not, so I am looking forward to breakfast tomorrow. Fresh green-chili salsa!
Oh by the way. I had a fast-food dinner tonight. First time in a long time. Just a Chik-Fil-A sandwich, that's all. Spicy. Delicious. But it was spicy, and it gave me a bit of a slick-scalp from the heat. That's the thing about living here and eating hot food. You walk outside and your scalp ices over.
I'm done with this, I thought, but of course, I knew, I wasn't.
We were leaving a resort in England - a wonderful place that blended seamlessly with a nice quaint little town - but it was difficult to leave because the hallway that led the check-out was thronged with people. I was trying to push around some of them were blocking the way and one of them was a large child would completely block the passageway when I pushed around him. His mother shouted don't touch him he's autistic! In the meantime the Porter was telling me stories about his life is a professional baseball player; he had a lot of women.
More from the same prompt:
In the majority of generate images, there were lots of people staring at their phones. For some reason.
LANCE CHINSLAB era, very early. Good thing we know the cashier's name is Blake, that helps a lot
This year we're going back a (gulp) half century. Remember, just because they were low-charting in the top 250 doesn't mean they didn't rise up the next year. For my rankings I use the Whitburn collection, and I'm sure there are other charts that dispute these particular ranks. Who cares! It's just for fun.
Lynn Anderson, from Grand Forks, North Dakota. "Anderson is regarded as one of country music's most significant performers," says Wikipedia.
What a Man My Man Who is a Man is, An In Addition, He is a Man
Elizabeth Jane Anderson (née Haaby; January 13, 1927[1] – October 31, 2011) was an American country music singer-songwriter who was one in a wave of new-generation female vocalists in the genre during the 1960s to write and record her own songs on a regular basis. Writing in The New York Times Bill Friskics-Warren noted, "Like her contemporary Loretta Lynn, Ms. Anderson gave voice to female survivors; inhabiting their struggles in a soprano at times alluring, at times sassy."
Anyway, that's it for now! Thank you for your visits, and I'll see you Monday.
