Free Lunch

Into town for lunch with TR, but he's a no-show. Watching ESPN on the flat-screen behind the bar (I only get a half-hour of this a week now) and my banker friend Tyler comes in. He's in better physical shape than anyone I know. He and his wife are both into Cross Fitness training. He's also quite bright, and we enjoy each other's conversation. He and his wife have recently finished renovating a house, and I was an advisor. He buys me a draft and lunch. After he left, I went out back, where there are chairs and an ashtray, and rolled a smoke, and TR showed up, delayed at the museum, as I had expected. We catch up, he agrees to print out some more pages for me. When I get home the phone is ringing and it's Frontier saying that the service I had already bought from them was not available at my location. This, after me warning them at least a dozen times that it was not the piece-of-cake they seemed to think it was. Now they want to install a dish. I'm having trouble nailing them down on a price. I need a few hours with a shrink. This is lapsing into the ridiculous. I have to spend some time on the phone (if I have one) tomorrow, figuring out what I'm being billed for. D was adamant though, that I had to lock in a server, before I bought any equipage. Fortunately I hadn't canceled AOL yet, but I had canceled MCI, and I thought I was going to have a higher speed connection. I have the strangest sense that I'm a switching error. I should have at least expected that no one knew what they were talking about. I hope they are recording this message. Dire Wolf. I might take their dish, because they offer me a discount, they've fucked up so completely.The woman who called, from Cincy, wondered where I lived, that the company didn't have service. She sort of knew the area, having camped in the forest. I tell her about the dam and the draining of the lake. She thinks I should go with the dish and get a lap-top. She and her son hiked in to Campsite 6, which is about three miles from the ridge, as the crow flies. I tell her to call, next time she's in the forest, and I'll fix dinner for her and her son. Despite the pleasant conversation, I'm without a connection. It's frustrating. Even the people that work for the company can't believe they sold me something they can't deliver. This a step up from denial. I was pretty sure I'd been led down a seeded path. Hash, topped with an egg, some mushrooms in a reduced butter sauce. Glad I stopped to eat when I did, a tremendous, powerful thunder storm, moved in and I had shut down. Sheets of lightning and buckets of rain. The phone came back on and I was able to call the power company about my outage. They called back to say a drunk had taken out a pole and it would be afternoon before they had it cleaned up. I was up late reading, I'd decided to reread William Least Heat Moons wonderful book about Chase County, Kansas Prairie Erth; and there's a house shaking storm, the lightning almost constant, brighter than day. We probably get four inches of rain in an hour. I had on my headlamp, and I was humming the opening of the Prelude to the Sixth Cello Suite while I lit a candle on the island, so I could pour wee drams as necessary, and lit the smaller oil lamp on the table, so there'd be a bit of ambient light, and I might not trip, or break another toe. I'm incredibly careful with open flames, and I've done this many thousands of times, I have a check-list, I know what I'm doing usually. With this new generation, they reach so quickly, I don't know. I think I'd rather be left alone.