Cook Book

Funny conversation with Barb about my writing. She's a good reader. Paddy Day parade is tomorrow, I'm going over to help out at the pub in the morning. She assumed the recipes were real. Which they were. I never feed roadkill to anyone without telling them. And it is true that I eat a wide variety of things. Actually, "The Cistern" was reviewed somewhere as a very strange cook book. Which it is. The rest of the text is so intense, the recipes become comic relief. I usually refer to it as the book that saved my life, and eating was a part of it. K has been hired as the intern, starts next week, then this other young woman comes in today, wants to volunteer and has some talents. She maybe would work with K some and we could get some of the load lifted off Pegi. This is my plan. D is in, and we go get concrete blocks, it's important that we do all the heavy lifting on Friday and Saturday. Saturated concrete blocks. Get them inside, into the elevator, take them to the basement, walk them through the maze to where we need them. We're going to use them, spaced apart, to build some walls, where they're needed. Have to be spaced apart because the basement floods, much less now, but, still, a couple of times a year. Have to allow water to get to the drains. Which are on our side of the walls Need to put in a sump pump, but these walls will be very cheap, we scrounged most of the material, and we needed a project for tomorrow with stuff we had on hand. We have a list. Projects to suit any occasion. Added greatly to the list today, in that we hung a Carter painting, behind the reception desk and it's smaller than the previous painting, so there's exposed wall damage. I patch and fill, but we don't have this paint anymore, and that presents a problem, because it's a difficult wall, a stairwell, going up two flights. I really don't want to paint the whole thing, carpeted stairs and landings, and the various stages of scaffolding. It would consume several days of my time, on the other hand, they pay me, so I'll do whatever they say, seems to me we might draw a vertical line between that soffit above the stairwell, and not paint the whole thing. Fell asleep at my desk. Up early to get to the pub to help tote things up from their basement. Sound system, extra kegs, hang another banner. Breakfast there, bangers, eggs, blood pudding, toast, At the museum we set spaced concrete blocks with large tap-cons in the holes, around which we pack asphalt patch, which we just happen to have. After lunch we shoot together the three wall sections, tap-conned into the blocks and the concrete/brick walls. Nice piece of work, somewhat crude, as everything was salvage, but by the time we get some sheet-goods covering the frame, and slap on a few coats of paint, they'll be the best walls down there. We banter, as we work; but the saw. the compressor, and the nail-gun (a triplet) conspire to curtail much of what is said. He rags me about getting old and I rag him about his MFA studies. Pegi and her Irish dancers came in at lunch, to eat and try out the dance floor. Hot little troupe. I've watched them all grow up. The ones that stay dancers, keep with it, don't put on the extra weight that is so endemic, probably pandemic around here, most places I've been, really, except for western Colorado. They don't have time, out there, to get fat. I'd started this paragraph at the museum on a Mac, and though it is my AOL program, I wasn't sure if I could retrieve it on the ridge, so I sat down to look at it, and just finish it off, ship it out. But I can't finish a paragraph to order. Doesn't work like that. I end up breaking into my ridge-bound whiskey, going up on the roof to have a smoke. Town is festive, live bagpipes in the airways from the pub. Two other bars, thus forming a triangle in this case (in most cases it would probably form a straight line, bars lined up on a street) are partying hard. I elect to go nowhere. I'd rather spend a couple of hours working on this paragraph. Language is a plastic medium, and I like that about it. The number of ways something could be said. From the simple declarative to the future pluperfect. From the real or from the purely imaginary. I question boundaries. Would never really stand in line to fill out the paperwork for my next incarnation. This is it, the window of opportunity, cool enough to wear long-sleeves, and clear the fucking brush. Mostly blackberry canes. I'll be a bloody wreak by tomorrow night. If you've never done this, you shouldn't. There must be worse jobs than hacking blackberry cane, but I don't know what they are, I'm sure I'll think about that later. Little is lost on me. No, wait, that sounds like an arrogant boast, that little would be lost on me. I'm more a vector, than disease, I just chart logistics. Looks like a Bell Curve, but what do I know? My knowledge of statistics could be held on the head of a pin. I know they only apply to groups, not to individuals, but I can't help think we're at cross purposes. Clearly, there are patterns that overlap. Not unlike one of those rugs we had talked about, maybe I didn't mention it, there was a search out for a particular Highland Color Your guys got a little rough. I never said they could do that.