No Satisfaction

Back into town, to call the phone company. They don't know anything. Glad I went because Cory gave me a plate of salmon, cream cheese and crackers, with a cup of While Chicken Chili that was also quite good. Coming back home I detour around the endless paving repair project on Route 125, where the spring rains badly undercut the road, and drive some roads I haven't been on in several years. I find my way, though I lost it once or twice. Keep the gas tank topped up, carry water and trail mix. The geese have already acquired the entire shoreline on my side of the lake; what will be unfolding, during the next weeks, is the interaction between people, at the shelter hut, a floating roof on stone piers that seats maybe 50 out of the rain, and a flock of geese that are anxious for leftovers. A slippery final approach to the water that is covered with goose-shit, not the iconic goose-shit of record, which is very slick, but the actual thing, which is so fucking slick that there is no way you could even stand, and probably break a few bones just trying to slide down the last few yards. For a few years in there, Fritz, Susanne, Kim, George, we could do anything, the very idea that we couldn't do something would drive us into a sort of over-drive, where we would just do it, and then go eat breakfast in a Greek dive, go back to our dreary apartments to sleep for a few hours. Then create the next illusion. I'd just read a book about sausages, and there were several recipes that used a goose neck as a sausage casing, and I found myself looking out at maybe a hundred geese, thinking I might kill one, in the fall. I have a smoker that has two shelves and several hooks. I like to put a bird, a capon, a smallish turkey, a young goose, on the bottom shelf, and put a fatty Boston Butt on the top shelf. Arrange a foil system that allows you to collect the fat. Rendering unto. Seriously good fried potatoes. Make a pate from the liver and heart, with some of the pork and some of the goose, and some of that divine fat. Sitting there, in the parking lot at the lake, thinking about killing a goose. Thinking about working with people that were good at what they did. Not that the phone company people aren't good at what they do, and I know that I'm the end of the line; they've already spent 10 or 20 thousand dollars, in the last year, maintaining my land-line, and I pay them $28 a month. Nonetheless, they did promise me service. My only alterative is a dish and a signal amplifier, or maybe that I just use the public library, go in once a week with a thumb-drive and send a few paragraphs. I'd rather just sit home with a good book. That world, out there, is seriously out of whack, and, increasingly, I choose to not participate. I'm so pissed about the dead phone that I have to read some fiction, fortunately the library had been holding the new Sandford novel for me, and it's a long one so I can stop thinking for a while. I've always been able to read anywhere, under any circumstances. I think it was in Portsmouth, Virginia that I first got a library card, and since then, the afternoons I've spent in libraries are without number, and the number of hours reading is unbelievable. We traveled a lot, from posting to posting, and always, when there was leave, we'd go back and visit family in Tennessee or Mississippi. My sister and I, in the category of esoteric knowledge, knew the number of power poles between Jacksonville, Florida and Memphis; also where the albino raccoon resided, and a very large snake, that ate rats, outside of Birmingham, Alabama. We often stopped at roadside attractions, because they had decent restrooms and hot dog stands. I don't go that way anymore, because I got caught in a terrible traffic cluster-fuck outside of Charlotte, while they scraped remains off the highway; but there was a great rest stop, I think on the West Virginia Turnpike, that served the best hotdog south of Chicago. My family had a deep affinity for BBQ, and there were places we stopped, roadhouses out in the sticks that wouldn't warrant a second look. Dad would sniff the air and we'd have to stop and try the brisket. Then when we got where we were going, we'd eat a serious meal, fried chicken at Aunt Pearl's, collard greens and fried salt-pork at Aunt Pete's, sweet potato rounds and pork chops at Aunt Sadie's. Eating hot biscuits was a kind of sport. Aunt Sadie made biscuits that might have been slightly better than my Mom's, she barely touched the dough, which is the secret with biscuits, and used lard. I've never developed that lightness of touch. I make great cornbread, and I can pound veal chops, but there's something ethereal about the perfect tart that escapes my rather heavy-handed approach. B came over, to see if I was alive as I hadn't been posting, said his phone was fine, which meant I probably had a problem with my equipage. The phone company guy came by and replaced the connector, where their line and my line met, but my modem still wouldn't work and the phone guy said it had been fried by whatever had fried the connector. I string a new line, hook up a new phone, but the software for my back-up modem won't connect to my ancient Black Dell. Thwarted. I honestly don't know what to do, so I fry some potatoes and make a very nice omelet with asparagus tips and goat cheese. I do trick the phone line back together, no modem, so I can make or receive some calls, and it rings immediately, my older daughter wondering if I was alive. I'd been completely out of touch for ten days, including Father's Day, and she was concerned. She thinks I should get a satellite dish and a new computer, which is certainly true, but I don't know what to get. I just want to write and send, if I could look something up, that would be a bonus. I get a large drink, roll a smoke, and consider my options. I can talk to TR tomorrow, and Cory, at the pub is pretty good with computers. I need to talk to Cory's brother, who is an actual computer person, Charlie, a very bright guy I worked with at the University; he did the sound for the Main Stage theater there, a technical genius. Cory thinks that if I'll feed them dinner, he can get Charlie out here for a few hours. This will take days to organize. I could just buy a cheap laptop and hang out at the pub (free Wi-Fi) but that's not an option. I could lose the Internet completely, work on a laptop, take it into town once a week, and ship it off from there. I could learn Morse Code and tap away on the telegraph. A Saint Bernard with saddlebags? Carrier pigeons? One thing that nags at me here, as Samara pointed out, is that I'm going to have to change the way I work, learn a few things. And I can do that, but I hate fucking with my format. Must be something like changing your swing in golf. I suck into my routine so easily, listening to the natural world. The crows are being obnoxious, then they shut up instantly and I know that another animal is somewhere around. I'm slightly aware of the bear, and concerned about rabid coons.