Home
January 20, 1998
|
x |
x |
n |
I stayed at Nancy's last night after the Martin Luther King Day community sing at Temple Emanu-El. Black ice was forming on the highways and I was nervous about driving home. I suppose I could've made it safely but black ice is awfully hard to see in the dark. I slept until 8:00 AM. I never even heard Nancy leave to go to work. I was up, dressed, and at the Gulf Station to fill the Auntmobile's gas tank in 10 minutes. Don't know how I did it. I stopped off at the Dunkies on Hope Street for a small dark roast, black, and flirted with the waitress. Well, actually, she flirted with me. She flirts with Nancy too. This is an known feature of this waitress. She has a cute Russian accent too. Anyway, I got my coffee and headed home to feed Wilbur, change clothes, and head to my therapy appointment. I bought another cup of coffee at Butler's Pantry just as the UPS man was delivering some cookware.
The last couple of times the gift shop has gotten a load of Beanie Babies, the lines have been around the block stopping traffic. Even worse than the lines at the fish market on Christmas Eve. I suggested blocking the street off. They all laughed and I took my coffee through the back alley and across Earth Food Store's parking lot to the therapist's office. A woman walking a Boston Terrier came up behind me. I thought she wanted to get by, so I moved over and turned to say something. Then I noticed the Boston Terrier was walking her. The dog wanted to sniff me and was pulling the woman along for the adventure. I leaned down to pet him and he licked my hand all over. He sniffed my shoes, my jeans, everything. When I finally got to my therapist's office, her dog took a sudden interest in me. She sniffed all the places the Boston Terrier had been and then plunked herself down at my feet for the session. She never does this. Sometimes she'll greet me briefly and retreat to her kennel. Most times she stays in the kennel. Awhile into the session, she finally did go back to her kennel where she fell asleep. This is the first time I ever heard a dog snore. After therapy, I bought a combo plate at the Earth Food Store: vegan chili and polenta, shepherd's pie with textured vegetable protein, and sesame tofu. The chili wasn't hot enough - either spice wise or temperature wise - but the rest of the combo was great. The shepherd's pie was particularly good. The TVP was so authentic, I was sure they'd slipped me some ground beef. As I was eating my combo plate at Starbucks along with sipping my grande half-cafe latte, one of the baristas [forgot his name] challenged Pete [another barista] to eat 7 Saltine crackers in one minute. He bet him $5 he couldn't do it. While the kid went out to get the Saltines, Pete sipped on bottled water and swished in around in his mouth to prepare. He laid out the 7 Saltines on the bar and set the espresso shot timer for 1 minute, and the crunching began. He chewed and swallowed and chewed and swallowed, and got down the last of the final Saltine just as the timer went off. The other kid handed over the 5 bucks and it was over. After lunch I had a weird urge to paint with watercolors. This is something I started before I quit working and thought maybe I'd play with on sabbatical. I mostly haven't. But today I really wanted to. So, at the expense of time away from revising my piping plover essay for Paul and designing Zsolt & Istvan's web page, I painted a not very good watercolor of a ginkgo leaf surrounded by a tori gate. I did a miniature still life of a purple jar, and then gave up. Suddenly it was dinner time. The day just got away. | |
|
x |
x |
|
x |