Under Control

On Navaho time, exactly one day late, I got up early and heated water, did some dishes, washed my hair, took a sponge bath. Ready for the day. Glenn called and he's going to visit in July, rent a room at the lodge, so I can take a couple of baths, this is good news because I'm deeply dirty, a soak and a rinse would be a good thing. We can drink some good whiskey, and talk. The lodge is air-conditioned, and they have a mediocre dining room, also I can fix a few things, sliced pork tenderloin with thickened morel gravy, Brussels sprouts with browned butter and peppers, an omelet, caramelized onions and a sweet red pepper, a piece of toast, smeared with butter and a wild plum jam. Glenn's always liked my cooking and TR swears he's coming out from town. I craved fried chicken gizzards so I drove out to "The Briar Patch", the premier fried food counter in the area, picked up a pint and some potato logs. I only do this about once a year unlike the usual clientele which runs to prison guards and their families. It's an odd place, sprawling, with a huge parking lot. Most of the guards from the Lucasville Prison live around there. It's a huge maximum security facility, with the killing floor for the state, and easily the most obese place I've ever seen. The beer aisles are extra wide and the food counter area runs for thirty feet with plenty of room for 300 or 400 pound people. Quite the operation. I take my food (I also got a few fried mushrooms, and some fried cauliflower) down below the flood wall in Portsmouth, and spread it out on the bags at a picnic table under the bridge so I can watch the river traffic; a few runners and dog-walkers and one old guy comes over, looks at my hoard, nods his head, and says "The Briar Patch". He readily accepts a gizzard, dips it in the hot sauce, and tells me that I'm a saint among men. A tug goes by, pushing a string of fifteen barges. Twin jet engines, each pumping out 27,500 horsepower. I can't quite piece it together, but the combination of getting the fried food (the gizzards especially, that texture) and watching the river, put me in a very nice state. I did my business, I needed a couple of light-bulbs, I knew I had left-over food for later. Shopping for light-bulbs was amusing. It seems that they don't make 'regular' bulbs anymore and I spent half an hour reading the packages. I wanted a four-pack of cheap 40 watt bulbs. I use energy efficient units most everywhere, but a couple of lights that I use irregularly needn't be expensive. I've done extensive research into stress failure analysis, lifetime cost analysis, the light-bulb in literature, and ground-breaking work on the removal of broken bulbs (the answer, a potato); all collected in a small unpublished volume Searching For Light, that was uniformly rejected by every publisher on the planet. I was irrationally upset when I awoke this morning, then remembered that it was Sunday and a holiday, every reason (in my mind) for being upset. Realized I'd skipped dinner last night, forgotten to eat would be closer to the truth, so I made a wonderful omelet, grape tomatoes and Irish double cheddar, with toasted cornbread, which, as we say around the lab, turned my head around. Samara called, as I knew she would, she and Scott on the last days of a long road-trip. He proposed and she accepted, I proposed a Justice Of The Peace, and I'd come out and cook ribs for a few friends. Marriage is like a stick on the ground, you jump over it and you're married. You leave it there, so if you want to, later, jump back over, you can. My parents were married for 70 years. Diane, who almost visited last week, has been married to Ralph for 43 years but they're separating, which leaves Glenn and Linda as the longest surviving relationship. I've been watching a wasp build a nest, for the last couple of weeks. It seems to regurgitate new material whenever it comes back to the nest. I assume this is non-digestible fiber, which is more or less the way you make paper. Powers is flickering, I'd better go.