Festivities

Beautiful day. I slept on the sofa, which I'll do all summer, to stay below the heat, and the sun wakes me early, coming through a south wall that is mostly glass. Ablutions, a yogurt, I head off at a leisurely pace. Stopping to look at a couple of shrubs that Glenn had thought might be Dogwoods, but I think are wild plums. Pink, in Dogwoods, is rare. Plenty of time to take my coffee below the floodwall. Tubular river fog, I love it: all the way into town I was looking across the river at lush Kentucky, but when I got into town and down on the riverbank, I couldn't see a damned thing. A string of barges is called a tow, though they push them now, and I make a note to find out what that's all about. I think it had probably always been a push, rather than a tow, because your own turbulence impedes your forward progress. A metaphor for something. I like that. My assigned task is that I make Sharee's event happen. And I do, not a problem, but it takes most of my day. Setting up chairs, and the large video screen that we had to bring up from the basement. One thing I've learned, is that you can't be paranoid enough. Motherfuckers are out there to get you. Just saying. I pinched a nerve, out there, somewhere, and later felt a twitch. Phantom pain. Much later, I noticed that I had left a space, and it looked like paragraphs composing a narrative. I never know where I'm going. Just before four, when people started arriving for the Awards Event (Sharee raises money all year, so she can send some kids to art camp) I slipped out the back door and headed home. I care and don't care in equal measure. On the way home I stop for some fried onion rings at the Diary Bar, they're so good I almost drive off the road. Ketchup, however you spell it, is a great condiment. Sweet, acidic, and salty. Stop at the lake to watch the geese swim their overlapping chevrons. Two things. First, that the soundscape is heating up; and second, that the wind in the trees is a big part of that. I'd gone out back with a wee dram of single malt, rolled a smoke, sitting on the top step, and it didn't feel like rain. If you pay attention, you grow sensitive to the air. A rattle in the leaves, maybe wind, maybe a couple of young squirrels. First snakes in the road, sucking up that heat. I have to stop and blow my horn. Snakes don't like noise. A little blast of the horn and they scatter likes ripples on the water. Friday we took apart one of the artifact cases and it turned into a big job. While we were trying to finish up, the intern, from that time eight years ago (Liz) we installed the collection, showed up from Chicago with her mate Jake. We both like Liz ,and her friend is bright and funny, so we go over to the pub after work to have a couple of draft beers and chat. I stayed in town and watched Hulu for the first time in months, didn't feel like navigating a wet driveway after dark. Slept like a rock. Over to Kroger first thing, for a bag of coffee and a cheese danish. D doesn't get to work until after lunch, moving Carma's grandmother into an assisted-living place. When he gets there, we finish the display case and then clean everything. Pre-drilling, then tapping 3/8's inch plexiglas is messy, and those little curls of plastic get quite hot. When we're done, I put everything away, then hang around to talk with TR and D for an hour. TR and his Mom and Uncle and Aunt raise "show" chickens, but "show" chickens lay eggs too, and he promises a couple of dozen. They're all laying right now, and TR says there are hundreds of chickens. Omelets into the distance. Stop at Kroger again, for weekend supplies, and wend my way home, windows down, sniffing the spring breeze. I see that kid Travis's bike at the bottom of the hill, and sit there for a while, because I don't want to run into him while he's walking down the driveway, but he doesn't show and I want to get home, so I finally engage four-wheel drive and head up the ridge. I meet him, of course, at the beginning of the steep slope, but I can't stop, to pick him up, for him to use my phone, because if I stop, I'd lose my momentum and would never make it to the top. He stepped over the grader ditch and thought that I'd stop and pick him up but I had to keep going.This is 4:15, at 6:15 I start hearing a sound that isn't quite a crow, I finally have to put my shoes back on and walk out to see what the fuck is going on. It's a person yelling, I can tell that much. I walk down around the top curve and there's a very fat lady leaning against a tree; she's yelling "Travis! Travis!" at the top of her lungs. I don't want to be any part of that, but I glean that Travis is missing. I tell her that Trarvis isn't here. If I had a fetish, young boys isn't it.