Good Harvest

Dirty laundry, so off to town. Needed to check the degree of mess left at the museum from the wedding reception, stop for a quiet beer at the pub. Delayed because the lake is deserted and I spend some time there, watching ducks, then stop at a newly worked fallow field. Probably planting a cover crop, a legume, to fix nitrogen. The field has been harrowed, not plowed, and I search for arrowheads. Find three, two perfect and one chipped. Three young Mexican guys, early twenties, at there laundromat, and they are all packing clean and folded laundry into suitcases. My suitcase is a laundry basket, really, has been for years, and I finally have to ask: they don't have green cards and stay prepared to run. The wedding mess is extensive but not deep, I grab a handful of mints and leave it until tomorrow. The pub, after one o'clock, is dark, cool, and empty, I get a free Stella and order a small salad, eat at the bar, watching ESPN for the highlights. I'm not a sports person but I appreciate grace wherever I find it. The impossible Willie Mays catch in the outfield is one of those places, the dive, the full extension, the ball snapped into a glove, it defies reason; when the shortstop fields a ball behind second base, does a forward tumble and fires the ball to first base, gets the runner out by half a step, we've seen something magic. Crows at the lake, a pair, and they're having an argument, Crovid are the smartest, far as I'm concerned, those beady eyes. These two are sparing, squawking, pecking at each other, and I wonder what's happened, to make them so angry. Most likely one of them got a morsel the other had seen. I want to call my younger daughter but the phone is out, a product of the fire, there must be sixty trees poised to take out the line, so I write off-line, make a note to Send later. Add to my list a back-up ream of paper and an extra black cartridge, some new socks, a couple of those cheap ball-point pens they give away at hardware stores. I need utility candles, boxes of five at Big Lots. Three-quarter inch diameter, six inches tall, they burn for two nights at least, and oil for the lamp, two quarts minimum. Stop, assess. My needs are what? There is a yard filled with firewood, there is a larder, I can walk with a stick to balance, good to go. There was something further here, that sounded like a boy scout motto but the power went out. Basement at the museum flooded badly Saturday night (my driveway almost washed away) and some things to be done for that Damned Brit. Casters on the set pieces. The moms have finished painting and this is the best scenery ever at the museum. The boat is splendid. Not trusting the talent to propel backwards, I need to add a screw-eye on the stern and let it trail a rope coming onstage, so that the stage-manager, or someone, can haul it offstage. The Brit did lighting today and was crowing like a cock, the added system D and I added (for free) greatly enhances what can be done. Sound cues, light cues, head-sets for the various crew members. We've definitely upgraded these kid's shows, don't want to lift the bar too high. Out-load the wedding reception: the bride's parents are gems, clean the place like they were after the janitor's job. Then Liza calls and wants to premier the Docu-Drama in three weeks at the museum, the Cirque kids being the cast, and this is way cool, but requires logistics, and there is a sudden shift in attitude, like what I imagine happened when a submarine encountered a convoy in WW2. I'm the only one who leaves at 5. All the rest of them are on the phone, all of them. I imagined the geese would enjoy these small soft sweet mints that there were bowls of at the reception, so I bagged a bowl, and stopped at the lake. There were a lot of fat young couples fishing for stocked trout, and I don't know what that means, but the geese are congregated down at the spillway and no one is fishing there, so I walk over and feed them mints. They like them, a lot, I'm a long way from my truck, and they're acting funny. Aggressive. How do I get myself in these positions? "He Was Pecked To Death By A Gaggle Of Geese." Even if it was true, no one would believe me, that wolf thing, you cry to often and no one believes anything. I was running, you would have laughed. So fucking awkward, ducks chasing a penguin, and now the phone is out, I couldn't Send if I wanted to. It makes a certain kind of sense, that nothing works, you reach a point in your life where you allow substitutions.This is as good as that, I heard a whole conversation, that was, I swear: "that was this, this was before that' and I'm confused. What did they mean, exactly? The bat woke me, get up to pee, a glass of juice, 4 in the morning, I have both electricity and a phone.