Friday, Feburary 28

Another perfectly good month has slipped on by.  A short one to be sure but a very, very rough one.  Sick.  Snow.  I feel ok now and the snow is something I have finally just resigned myself to, but with a forecast of another 12” this weekend I am sinking into the valley of ‘shite’ once again. 

The Gurler and I have just crossed the frozen lake.  The sun was bright but did little to warm us as we slid across the surface of the Westchester Lake in the late afternoon.  The dog didn’t like the ice much and kept veering off towards the closest shore.  I had to keep calling her back-and she came, but reluctantly.  Off on the easternmost side, just shy of the dam I stopped short.  It looked like the water was fluid at the weir and I decided not to test the strength of the ice in that area.  Good chance it was plenty thick enough to support us as the rest of the lake seemed to be frozen a good foot thick.  Instead the dog and I climbed out and up the bank to walk home via the road.  Gurler looked relieved to be off the slippery ice.  I was overheated in my long johns, vest, and heavy coat.  Dressed way too warm.  

We stopped and visited our friend Jan and her dog Christie and played for twenty minutes until both dogs were exhausted and Gurler wanted to get home to dinner.  We finished the walk stamping our feet on the porch and leaning my walking staff in the corner near the front door.  Inside the house the air was thick and steamy with the smell of homemade soup.  Elisabeth put a ladle on Gurler’s dry food and the dog jumped like a circus performer in expectation of the treat.  She gulped her meal and came over to me to get ‘burped’, tail wagging.  I swear she smiles.  Yes I do!  I thought to myself (though I believe she can read my mind) I am lucky to have you.  You make a cold day on an icy lake seem like a vacation.  Thanks, Gurler.

DVDs From the Library-The Van

In the library there is a bin full of DVDs. One may take up to five and keep them for a week. Don’t forget to return them on time or you will pay a hefty over-due penalty, or worse, they will develop a terminal mold and eat your furniture, flooring and, eventually, your brain. Join me now as I take a look at one…

I like the librarians at the local public library (The Field Library-Peekskill, NY).  Sometimes we talk about books and the weather and, well, that's pretty much it!  Fact is there is not a whole lot to talk about in Peekskill.  It's a funky little city that doesn't have too much going on and if it wasn't for the library, the coffee shop and the Social Security office I don't suppose anyone would ever need to go there.

I was reading a series of books by Roddy Doyle and the librarian mentioned another book that I might like by Mr. Doyle.  Not that I liked the other two all that much.  Both had been made into movies. "The Commitments", was a really good movie, about a Dublin soul band.  The second, "The Snapper"-about an expectant, unwed mother and her Irish family- was not much to my liking, either the book or the novel.  She put her recommendation on reserve for me.  When I went to pick it up I found instead the DVD pictured above.  What this DVD has to do with the works of Mr. Doyle is beyond me.  I checked it out anyway.  Oh well!  I got it, so I will review it.

In a sentence: an early 1970's porn film with no real good stuff (meaning sex) to speak of.  There are a few quick shots of natural bosoms (no implants at the time even in So. California!) but it has all the other fine qualities one would expect of a period correct porn piece from ca. 1977.  The hairstyles are perfect.  Forgetabout the clothes!  Short short cut-offs and tee shirts, etc.  And who doesn't love a Dodge B-100 "Tradesman" van with a waterbed, an 8track and furry stuff all over every interior surface except the roof (which is mirrored for optimal sexual enjoyment!).  The exterior paint job is bright yellow with a blazingly phallic arrow motif going on all over it.

It would be impossible to describe the plot besides to say it is boy-meets-girl, girl-hates-boy, girl-learns-to-love-boy, happily ever after.  Okay, now you know all you have to know about the movie except for some comments about the cast.  The DVD package notes that Danny Devito appears in the movie.  In fact his is the only name on the cover of the package but the truth is he plays a crappy little part of little consequence (that is, of even less consequence than all the other parts in the movie which have no consequence at all!)  I postulate that Mr. Divito was the only one on the crew who ever made another film so they used his name as a "grabber" to suck you into watching this movie.  The only thing worse than watching this movie might be paying to watch this movie.  God bless Andrew Carnegie and the free library system.

 I sadly have no more odoriferous award in my arsenal than "six smelly socks" but if I did I would gladly bestow it upon "The Van".  Instead I award "The Van"  "six smelly socks twice"!

 

Coffee

I love to make the coffee in the morning.  To do it I must be up and out of bed before Elisabeth, which is usually not possible.  She likes to get up very early and lately I have stayed in bed later and later…

Making the coffee is a religious ritual of a sort.  Its origins go back a long ways.  Its whys and wherefores are clouded in history.  I can try to give you the precise order and progression of the making of the coffee but I can not be 100% sure that I am correct in the telling, but I will try.

Only turn on the lights you need in the kitchen.  One over the sink is plenty.  If you need more than that perhaps the one over the stove. (Not for working-God no!  There is plenty of light for working with just the one over the sink or the one over the stove, but for warmth and comfort of the soul.  I need that.)  I come in sometimes and the kitchen is gray and cold even with four pots bubbling on the stove and a chicken in the oven.  Elisabeth can work in the dark and it doesn’t seem to bother her a bit. I am the one who needs light.  I turn on the strong, overheads and the kitchen brightens like a movie set and Elisabeth will look at me with a look that says “what a waste!”  When I leave she might shut them off and just turn on the one over the sink. 

Next I take out the ingredients and the coffee pot and the filter.  For the past thirty-five years we have made coffee with a glass pot and a filter and a funnel.  We have had Mr. Coffee, percolators, presses, and those new, tiny single-serve containers that make individual cups but none of the alternatives has lasted.  The funnel and filter survives (I think) because of the ritual.  Oh, the coffee is better too, but it is the ritual that has made us funnel/filter people.  

These are the essential elements of the morning making of the coffee:

The glass coffee pot and plastic filter funnel

The coffee

The spoon(s)

The glass pot filled with the correct amount of water

The stove

The coffee comes in a can.  It is already ground and is of the very fine, dark, drip variety.  We have a coffee bean grinder and it sits on the counter.  We have not used it in a while but it is left there, on the counter, to remind us that we may use it again sometime.  It is loud and disturbing and never became fully part of the ritual.  We are not purists when it comes to grinding our own beans.  Out-of-the-can and already ground is fine.  Elisabeth buys coffee like there will come a day when no more will ever be available.  When it is on sale she will come home with five or ten cans or whatever the limit is that she can buy.  We will never run out of coffee for the ritual. 

There is a specific amount of water that is put into the glass kettle and set on the back-left burner.  The gas for the back-left burner is turned on.  The knob for the front-right burner is turned to the “light” position and the stove ticks loudly and ignites the back-left burner.  After it is lit, quickly shut the front-right knob.  The igniter on the back-left burner is defective and this method allows one to light the burner without the use of matches.  There is a box of wooden kitchen matches on the top of the microwave but we never use it for the coffee ritual.

When the back-left igniter went defective I began for a short time using the front-left burner to heat the water but Elisabeth explained to me that is the wrong burner (there is a practical reason for this, but it is lost to the ages and the back-left burner is fully accepted as the correct burner now.  See note below for possible explanation.)

While the pot of water heats, take the filter and put it in the funnel.  We have used the white, bleached filters.  In a pinch, many, many years ago we even went through a phase of using folded paper towels.  The ritual now is firmly entrenched and we use brown paper, unbleached filters that come in a green and red box.  Again purchased en mass and stored in the pantry in the garage, but the ones we need each day are loose in the bottom drawer of the kitchen cabinets where the Pyrex pie pans and casserole dishes are stored.

The finished carafe, funnel and filter are placed on the front-left hand burner-burner Off!

This is the point where the ritual turns contemplative.  There is time to think.  Time when the water is not boiled yet everything is prepared.  Incorporated into the ritual at this point the seemingly unrelated ritual of emptying the dishwasher may come into play.  If there are dishes that are clean they may be put into the cabinet. Quietly!  Very Quietly! 

Remember Elisabeth is still sleeping.  Banging dishes can wake her.  Clanging silverware may wake her.  (I don’t mind putting the dishes away, but I hate putting the silverware into the silverware drawer.  It is like an early morning test that a psychologist might have devised to see if one is capable/awake sufficiently to put the forks-into the fork place and the teaspoons- into the teaspoon place…etc.  It is a maddening test).  And finally the pot on the left-rear burner begins to whistle!

I have already measured out four, fully rounded tablespoons of coffee and put it into the filter.  That means I have a dirty tablespoon but no teaspoon with which to serve the sugar.  It used to be that the coffee was just dumped into the filter straight out of the can in a healthy dollop, but that part of the ritual has developed to a carefully measured four tablespoons.  But!  Where we once used a long handled ice-tea spoon for the sugar the tablespoon (which we just used for the coffee measure) has evolved into the ice-tea spoon’s place.  I don’t know…I find that uncomforting.  One can not use a tablespoon for sugar.  It must be unhealthy.  I grapple with the complexity as I grasp the kettle with the boiling water and begin the pouring.

(Note: one possible explanation as to why the left-rear burner must be used for the kettle.  If the front burner was used one would have to reach over the flame to pour the water over into the filter cone vessel sitting on the left-rear burner.  It is a longer reach not to mention the possibility of burns as ones arm lingers above an open flame/front burner.  As I said, the actual reason for this is lost so I only conjecture here.)

The pouring of the water.  I prefer to drizzle the water in a thin stream and just soak the coffee, not pour the water in and fill the cone up to the top with boiling water.  After the coffee is soaked I drip more and more on until all the water is used.  During this process I usually put my face over the cone once or twice and breathe deeply the aroma and steam of the brewing coffee water.  I swear I get high from the smell.  I also never let Elisabeth see me doing this.  I am not sure what she would think or do if she did. 

When all the water has dripped through I put the coffee pot with the filter, funnel and all onto the left-rear burner and turn the flame down to the lowest setting.  There is sits gently warming while I get my cup and sugar (using the long handled ice tea spoon) and dollop of whole milk ready.  I put that into the microwave for forty-four seconds so the milk is hot and then (and only then!) I pour in the coffee. 

I pretty much only use one of two cups (this is not strictly part of the ritual but I thought I would mention it here in case any of you ever sleeps over and inadvertently begins to use one of these cups-Don’t!).  One is the white mug with the blue letters underlined in red that says “Dad”, and the other is the Homer Simpson cup with the portrait of Homer and the words “Atomic Dad”!  These cups are the exact right size and weight and thickness for my coffee though I try to be flexible on this.  There are other cups that are very nice and if you visit you are free to use any of them.  One is a very thick mug with the saying on it- “Coffee should be black as night, hot as hell and strong as Love!”  and I find it very attractive but it is just too heavy for my coffee.  Besides, it would be incongruous for me to drink my coffee with milk in a mug that comes right out and says coffee should be black!  Am I wrong?

Snow Blows!

The past couple of days have seen snowfall that is measured in feet not inches.  According to the TV we have had double the average snowfall for the year and the winter has a long way to go until spring.  Remembering back to a twenty inch snow fall in April several years ago, I know that the coming of spring is not necessarily the end of the snow season. 

I long ago grew tired of the TV/news fodder that snow storms bring.  The endless reports of chain-reaction auto accidents on the turnpike, people stuck in their cars for the night or the day, jack-knifed tractor trailers.  Also there are the collapsed roofs in Wal-Mart stores, apartment houses without heat due to grimy landlords and shortages of salt and pot holes on all the roads.  I am no longer comforted by the sound of the snow plow at 3:00a.m.  In fact it is downright bothersome.  The salt pollutes the streams and ponds while the plows represent my taxes squandered (on overtime, no less) clearing or tearing up (depending on ones point of view) the black top, helping to create the potholes and distributing tons of the poisonous salt as they scrape noisily through the night.  Lastly, the bright orange, salt spreading behemoths invariably plow the half-melted, heavily packed snow into the mouth of my driveway.  This icy, salty, compacted mass blocks me from either driving out or from easily clearing the driveway as the mass is plowed high and is as dense as concrete and twice as heavy.  As my neighborhood is on the ass-end of the town the plow drivers take a perverted pleasure in hiding here, on the loop of road surrounding our little lake, on gray, snowy days and nights.  I have (no exaggeration here) seen them make six or seven passes of the neighborhood with their trucks over the course of an hour.  No doubt to kill some time and have a smoke or listen to the radio while they ride in their heated cabs and collect double time.  These are the same dudes who normally hold on for dear life to the pipe grips on the rear end of the garbage truck, jumping off and on in the rain and sleet collecting the garbage, recyclables, and trash.  The heated cab is like a vacation in Florida compared to a normal day of garbage pick up.  So, on each pass of the diesel sucking, smoke belching, salt spreading monster my driveway gets more constipated and the town’s coffers become more depleted.  And winter wears on. 

As the winter grinds on the layers of snow and ice building up on the sides of the road -the virgin white tippy-top fresh stuff down to the bottommost deep gray/brown-slowly narrowing the path and making it increasingly difficult to drive or walk.  Pickup trucks with plows spread wide like the wings of steel birds add to the danger on the road.  Taking the dog for a walk becomes more of a task.  When the school bus rumbles down the slick street my dog and I look nervously at the canyon walls of ice, slush and snow rising up three or four or more feet on either side of the road and contemplate emergency escape…just in case.  Defecating becomes a canine challenge as well.  Over the course of weeks the walls lining the sides of the road are not only discolored by soot and soil but by dog urine and turds.  A flat patch of exposed dirt or leaves is like an oasis for the poor mutts who find no pleasure in squatting over a slick of ice or a steep sided pile of snow four feet high.  I normally pick up my dog’s waste when she goes on someone’s lawn or by their mailbox and deposit it in the woods or high grass to compost naturally.  But when it is cold, the wind is blowing, or it is deposited in a pile of snow and salt I just walk on by and let it dissolve.  Apparently that is the practice of all the dog walkers in this neighborhood as one may not walk fifty yards without seeing monster piles of shit on either side of the street.  I judge not lest I be judged.

What would happen, one might wonder, if the snow plows never plowed?  If the salting never began?  If the roads were left all winter to the natural covering of snow, and the natural thawing/freezing cycles of the sun and temperatures?  Would we be trapped inside our homes for the duration because our automobiles would not be able to navigate on the virgin snow, the ice or the thawing puddles?  Would we find that the compacted snow would be fine if you had a four-wheel drive or perhaps sleighs would make a comeback?  Would we pull out our trusty cross-country skis and bear-paw snow shoes and melt away the layers of lard on our arteries getting to the store, to come home tired but healthier?  I wonder. 

Wanderlust

Sitting on the sofa (where I have been spending a lot of time lately, trying to lose this aggravating cold) I thought back to my last trip down to Florida.  Strangely it occurred to me that I had driven all the way down there and back to New York by myself.  That is a long trip.  I would estimate that it must have been a total of approximately 3000 miles.  It is not strange that I did it, but rather strange that I never gave it a thought.  In fact I have done the trip many, many times.  Alone.  Just me and the radio or the tape deck and a book for the evenings in a campground or motel or a relatives couch or spare bedroom.  One of my nephews told me I was “couch surfing”.  Hit the nail on the head.  I am a couch surfer. 

While I am on the road like that I do a lot of thinking.  Long stretches of highway lend themselves to contemplation.  I think about my marriage and my family.  I think about myself.  I keep mental lists of the money I spend and the places I see along the way.  I list the things I would like to do in the future and think back on the things I have done in the past.  It is organizing.  Not productive but orderly.  I process mental snapshots of the lives of my friends and relatives as I visit.  Without fail I find myself thinking about what it would be like to live in each of the places I stop to eat or sleep.  There is almost always something attractive about each of the places but when I reach the Palisades Parkway in New York, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I am overwhelmed with my appreciation of “home”.  Glad to be back.  Never more to roam, until the next time. 

So, until my cold it gone.  Until the Fall when Lizzy promises we will be moving on to a new chapter in our lives.  Until the wanderlust and the road draw me out of my cocoon on the sofa in my own house.  I will try to enjoy "Home".  

Out in the flatlands of the Florida Prairee a little bit of Oz-The Heartbreak Hotel