Fire Water Burn/I carried a watermelon
Mary has commandeered the remote control for the evening and the tv is stuck on Dirty Dancing.
Hot.
So I’ve decided to write.
Tough choice. It’s what I have to do though.
Patrick Swayze is always great. If it was Road House or Point Break, this wouldn’t get written today. But Dirty Dancing?
Girls love Dirty Dancing. Every single girl. Seriously. It’s true.
Every single girl loves Dirty Dancing.
So I can’t. Especially since I almost made a Dirty Dancing reference in normal conversation the other week.
It was bad. The neighbor MK was recounting a story to us. The story did not have much point, but the gist of it was that he was told there was going to be a big party at a certain cabin here on the reservation. MK had in fact invited mary and I to this party, and so we already knew that in fact the big party did not take place. But MK had to tell us the story the next day anyway. He said he was told to come over and that there would be a big party. And when he got there there was no party. Just a couple family members sitting around. But he had carried a watermelon over. He had carried a watermelon. And there was no party.
That ‘carried a watermelon’ line was a Dirty Dancing reference. When MK said it I wanted to laugh. At first I thought he was making a Dirty Dancing reference, and I thought that was funny. Then I realized he was just saying it. That was funny too, because I still thought of Dirty Dancing, and of my friends C&T who used to frequently use that line. But I’m a boy. So I wasn’t able to laugh at MK saying that he carried a watermelon. And I wasn’t able to even tell anyone about it after that fact. Until now. Ahhh….catharsis.
So today is one of the coldest TX days in recent history. It’s been all over the news and everything. It’s like winter. And it sucks. Except, that since it’s so cold and that they’re not used to it, everything shut down today. Mary and I were supposed to sub, but they cancelled school. And like little kids, we were excited when we got the news that schools were closed. It was awesome. Until we realized that that meant we were losing out on $80 for the day. Oops. We were still happy to not have to work though. The library also closed today. The post office was open, but postal trucks didn’t drive today so there was no express mail, nor did the new shipment of holiday stamps arrive, much to the dismay of the lady in front of me in line. There was nobody out on the roads. And guess what? There was no snow. Not a drop. Just really really really cold. Granted, there was some ice on the road this morning, but that was all gone by 9. Silly TX. It’s different though here when it gets cold. Since it’s usually warm, the cold is a lot more dramatic. There was a show tonight that I wanted to go see, but it just seemed to cold to go to it. Which is dumb, b/c if I were in VA, I’d go to a show in the winter. Crzy. But it feels different here in TX.
The freezing temperatures brought on another new experience for me though. For the first time in my life I built a fire. Woo hoo! I’m such a man. Lookout world! Actually, that’s not true. (the fire part, not the man part). When I was in grade school I would go to summer camp at Highland Retreat and we slept in cabins and had to build fires every morning. But I haven’t built any fires since then. And I’d never built any inside a fireplace. Until now. And now it burns burns burns. A ring of fire. It burns. Mary built the fire last night and this AM when I got up I had to get it going. To be honest, some of the embers were still hot, so it was a little easier than usual. But I did get it going. All by myself. And we’ve kept it going all day. It’s pretty fun. Fire is powerful. It burns things.
Also today we finally got a contract printed up so that I can officially become a band manager. (Not a band manager like a high school band manager, a band manager like a cool manager of a real band—like the Colonel and Elvis, or that guy that managed the Beatles, or that guy that managed other people…..shoot. I can’t think of another famous band manager. That’s ok though. They’re behind the scenes, but important). It’s possible that the band will not sign the contract, but it’s exciting to be one step closer. I think they will. I’ll report more on that later.
Since it was so cold and nasty this morning I contemplated just getting hammered. It seemed like that would be an excellent thing to do. In fact, I figured that’s what would happen. But for some reason it didn’t. I made myself 1 warm wintery drink with supper, but that was it. It’s wacky. Up until suppertime I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol since Friday night. It’s been good to detox! I drank more than my fair share on Friday night anyway. Friday night was so bad that when I saw a couple kids I know the next night at a concert they said “wow. Glad to see you’re still alive”.
We didn’t have much food in the house to make supper tonight though. So I volunteered to introduce Mary to one of the delicacies that I lived off in college: frozen turkey and gravy tv dinner. Mmmm…in college I loved it. My one long time girlfriend and I used to eat it all the time. You just cook up the tv dinner and then get a piece of bread and throw some of the turkey and gravy on top it, and it’s a great open faced sandwich that didn’t cost you hardly anything. I hadn’t had one in years. There was a tv dinner in the freezer, so we decided to cook it up tonight. I was pretty excited about it. Holy crap. It took almost an hour to cook in the oven. I would have just nuked it, but that took 25 minutes too, so I just cooked it in the oven. I figured that would be better, and that the cabin could use the extra heat anyway. Mary and I played a mad game of Boggle while waiting for the turkey to cook. (I crushed her). And then the turkey was done. I had to show Mary how she was supposed to eat it. At least one of us was eager with anticipation. Holy crap. It was awful. Nothing at all like it tasted in my memory. It was horrible. Nothing good about it. Mary was pissed. I was disappointed. I couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. At first I thought it was the bread. Surely the bread must have gone bad and caused the sandwich to taste like cleaning products. But then I smelled the unused bread. It smelled fine, and I remembered that I’d had a sandwich for lunch, and that it was great. I couldn’t believe that my mind would let me down like that, but it appeared that it had. And then I saw it. I saw the box it came out of. The box looked normal. So I just bought it. The college tv dinners that I so successfully turned into gourmet open face sandwiches were typically Swanson, or Hungry Man tv dinners. The one today looked like a Swanson or a Banquet. It had a nice blue ribbon on it. Don't one of those have a blue ribbon? I think so. I was tricked. As it lay empty on the stove I read the words printed inside the blue ribbon. “On-Cor” it says. On-Cor brand. What the heck is On-Cor brand? I have no idea. But it sucks. It sucks bad.
(Son of a gun. That sandwich I had for lunch was a turkey sandwich too actually now that I think about it. A cold turkey sandwich, but a turkey sandwich nonetheless. If I’d remembered I’d already eaten a turkey sandwich today I surely wouldn’t have suggested more turkey for supper. And we could have filled our bellies with better food. Shoot).
We didn’t accomplish much else today. We rode our $2 exercise bike a handful of miles, until the smell of burning rubber started to make us nauseous. Turns out the bike wasn’t $2 only because it’s old and rusted. Also because it’s slanted. The wheel doesn’t spin cleanly. It rubs up against the tension piece. And it burns it. and burnt rubber is not the most appealing smell in the world.
Gus is refusing to pee. He says its too cold. I can’t say I blame him. He held his morning business as long as he could. He usually takes care of stuff at about 8.30. 9.30 at the latest. This morning he thankfully, for both our sakes, waited until 10.30 when it had warmed up 4 degrees. It’s now 9pm though and the Gus hasn’t been outside since. He’s hilarious. He can hold it forever. He’s been sleeping on the couch for the last couple hours. He got up to stretch about an hour ago and I told him we should go outside so that he could potty, and he hid his face and refused to go. So now he’s back up on the couch, a bundled up pug in a rug (blanket). I don’t think he’s going anywhere anytime soon. Silly Augustus.
Update: at 9.40 i tricked Gus into going outside. I had to give him food to get him off the couch. Then i took him outside. He was not happy, but he did his stuff and ran back inside.
Silly Augustus.
More exciting stories from earlier in the week later.
Stay warm
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