Tag: practice

Big Juicy

Tomatoes on the vine. Damn, they look good.

I had my eye on that tomato. I wanted it, but I wanted both of us to be ready.

I don’t know that I saw its flower. There were a bunch of flowers that late spring. They were little yellow stars against the deep green of the vines. I didn’t hone in on one or the other as they twinkled in the morning sun. I was just happy to see them get off to a great start.

The flowers soon disappeared and were replaced by little grape sized globs (or maybe globes?). Tomatoes-in-waiting. Where I am doing the waiting. Waiting for tomatoes. I’m encouraging them, too.

It’s funny how the flowers all appear at, or at least near, the same time, but the indivitual spheres take off on their own pace. Like a race.

So from the undifferentiated yellow flowers springs a free-for-all of vegetables. Some grow fast, some grow in clumps and some hang out by themselves. Sunning themselves, supping on the morning dew, and growing.

The tomato I am watching is not only the biggest, but it’s the one that starts blushing. As it changes from the waxy green, it first looks like a bruised face. Like it was in a fight and the fleshy part of it’s chin took a punch. The discoloration evens out, and it is orange. There is a ring of yellow at the top, near the vine, but the rest of the tomato is more carrot than zucchini.

This is NOT the time to disturb it. The contrast, especially next to its still-green sibings, makes it look red. But it’s not. It’s orange. A rainstorm moves the progress along. Now, when you cup it in your hand, the tomato starts to feel less hollow and more heavy. It passes from orange-red to red-orange. But it’s not done yet.

I very gently and very slowly wiggle the tomato against the vine. It’s umbilical cord is holding fast. Not yet.

The next day was brilliantly sunny. The tomato is definitely red. Any hint of orange is gone as is the yellow-orange ring at the top. I brush away the nub left from the dried up flower at the bottom of the orb. The green vine looks even darker and lusher next to the deep pomodoro red. I test the vine. The vine releases the fruit into my hand.

I draw the tomato to my face and breathe in the core side. It smells a little pine-y with a hint of what might be a whiff of hops, like cascades hops. The top definitely smells green, grassy green. It’s warm from the sun.

The tomato is much heavier than it looks. As I compress my fingers around it, it gives in. You can feel the moisture just inside its waterballoon self. The red walls, though, breathe back. There are no indentations left from fingers.

I bring it into the house and give it a perfunctory run under the water from the faucet. I put two pieces of bread in the toaster. I take the serrated knife and cut off a thin bottom and then gently saw back and forth to make a bunch of slices that I place on the mayonnaised bread. A twist of the pepper mill, a sprinkle of coarse salt and the frills of the outside green flounce of romaine finish it.

I bite in and the wet of the tomato spills down from the corner of my mouth and soaks my chin and my hand.

Did I tell you it was still warm? From the sun?

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Pieced Apart

She-Hulk all freaking out because she did her transforming. Outside of the cartoon are some guys freaking out worse.

Dammit. When did that happen?

She had just run her hand along the back of her leg and was halted by a hole.

Seriously? My pants got ripped?

She used the passive voice because she had no knowledge of a trauma, or any activity for that matter, that would have created the tear.

It’s not like I’m wearing them out. I only wear them May to September.

When she looked in the mirror this morning, she wasn’t happy. These pants didn’t have the most flattering cut. They made her look like a very heavy bottomed pear. She swapped out three different tops before she settled on one that made her look more balanced.

Did I catch myself on something? All I did today was sit. Is it this stupid chair?

She couldn’t stop herself from fingering the hole. She wondered if she could sew it together. If it wasn’t frayed she might. It was too high up to convert the pants to shorts.

Like I’d actually really pull out a needle and thread. I use safety pins to hold up the hem on those khakis.

As she walked out of the office, she half-waited for someone to tell her she had a hole in her pants. Someone who got a peep of her fleshy white leg against the black of the cotton. Then she thought about ripping the pants up. She could think of nothing else.

I’m not going to do anything with these other than put them in a pile where they will accumulate dust. And guilt.

She climbed up the stairs and put her key in the door. She walked into her apartment and tossed her bag on the table next to the door. Next to a pile of unopened mail and unread catalogs. She started unzipping her pants as she approached the couch. She let them fall to her ankles and sat down.

These pants are stupid.

She picked the pants off the floor and put her fingers in the hole. She pulled her fingers apart. She watched as the hole got bigger and the fabric frayed. It made a sound of motion as she rent the leg from the seat. It was a crackling along a path like the gunpowder trail to the powder kegs that gets lit in a movie before the big explosion. She took the leg and found more fabric weakness. She pulled strip after strip apart. She wanted to do the same to the other leg but didn’t have a way in.

Where are those fcuking scissors? All bitches have scissors. Shit. Here’s a knife.

She stabbed a hole at the back of the other leg and continued the dismemberment of the trousers. She didn’t know if it was the sound or the feeling of resistance as she broke through, but it was something. She looked at the tatters strewn on the floor and threads and scraps scattered on the couch. She was breathing heavily.

Done! Damn that was good.

She walked to the kitchen and took a glass from the cupboard. She wiped away the sweat that beaded above her lip. She took a bottle out of the fridge, and, in one motion, she unscrewed the top and filled the glass. She walked back to sit among her handiwork. Drinking wine–in her panties.

Belch. 

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Staggering Through

Boozing it up. Eight tumblers filled with cocktails.

Actually, the worst thing about people being drunk is they don’t know that they’re drunk. Wait. Let me take that back. The worst thing about people being drunk is that they don’t want you to know that they’re drunk.

This is super not okay when they want to prove to you that they are okay to drive. Like those times when they insist that you give them back their keys. Ugh! Let’s just make a rule right now to keep those keys.

But I want to talk about when they’re not driving.

For some reason, drunk people don’t want you to know that they’re drunk. But, let’s face it, they are too drunk to effectively cover up that obvious fact. Yet, somehow, they think they are sneaky.

Drunks speak super slowly. Not because they don’t think you understand them. They just want to be clear and they know that they are not clear. The state of not speaking clearly is also called called slurring. Drunks somehow think that if they slur their words more deliberately, nobody will notice they’re buzzed. It doesn’t really work that way.

Another thing drunks do is try to walk straight. Emphasis on the try. You can watch them concentrate on catching themselves. They forcefully put one foot in front of the other. They might walk a little bit to the left and then the overcorrect and lurch right. Drunks hope that nobody sees their corrections. In fact, they believe that they are slick enough that you don’t see the sudden straightening that then veers off to parts not yet known. They think that their overcompensations are invisible. But, they are not.

The second worst thing that drunks do is act like buttheads. While this behavior is not as bad as driving like a butthead, it’s fairly close.

The feelings of drunks can be both raw and easily tweaked. A friend can go from reminiscing about a joyful event from their youth to careening, in an impossibly rapid pile of tears, about a lost dog, a lost bracelet, a lost love or–and this really hurts–a lost packet of ketchup. Really. Did one need to get bent about a condiment? Definitely the booze talking. Definitely a drag.

Then there is the angry drunk. This can be caused by specific types of booze–say gin or tequila.

The angry drunk can be self-righteous but is more often just plain mad. Mad can be about politics, a difference of opinion over the ending of a movie or about a slight. That slight might be of the imagination or of a single deed that gets distorted into a heretofore unbelievable size. Way bigger than it deserves. Sometimes, the appearance of anger and anger itself can be melodramatically increased via volume of the inebriated. That is, someone sounds more angry than they are, and then they become angry. Silly? Sure, but it happens.

There is no disputing the reaction of the liquored up. It is not wrong. It is not overblown. It is the truth. The truth of that extra glass of wine, mug of beer or shot of liquor. And that truth might be elusive to the drinker. We have to wait for a shot of rationality. At least until tomorrow when they might better be able to admit it.

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Pitchers of Water

Post storm water droplets reflected on the leaves of the tree. This is awesome. Who knew you could capture this on a phone? Really, who knew?

The sky opened up with a fury unleashed from the heavy ball and chain of oven heat and thick humidity. It was like a bunch of frat boys balancing an unlimited supply of beer tubs full of cold water and dumping them, one after another, over the deck and the wet splashing down on unsuspecting bystanders. It was that. With an EDM light show and the deafening boom of Thor’s hammer. And, tragically, without the eye candy of the God of Thunder.

A bunch of people were plastered against the wall of the building underneath a narrow overhang. They must be waiting for the bus. The bus must be delayed. Of course it was, since the “safety surge” is serially shutting down stretches of the subway all summer. The people were mostly wet, some very very wet. But they jostled for dry space as they waited for their mad dash to the H Bus. They held umbrellas and plastic CVS bags against the wet. Almost all of them had at least a small dry patch. They worked to maximize that patch.

There was a man who exuded misery, or he would if anything could come out of him. He was slick with water, his white shirt glued to his back. It wasn’t that he didn’t care. It was that it didn’t matter if he did. His abject look of surrender to the buckets that poured over him was truly miserable. His hair framed his face with a mousy brown fringe. Water drops fell from his sharp nose, from his chin, and his hands were too wet to brush the rain away. They just moved the wet around. He plodded along. He would get on the subway platform and a pool would form around his soggy shoes.

A pair of young women walked on the other side of the street. Their rubber flip flops absorbed nothing. One woman grabbed her companion’s arm to stop her from tumbling into the rushing water as she slipped off her sandal. They both said sorry at the same time. They leaned into each other as they laughed. And they poked each other with their useless umbrellas. “Why are we holding them?” they laughed, again.

The rain ran down from their waists and then splashed up from the sidewalk to soak the hems of their dresses. One wore a skirt that had been flirty before the wet made it hug her legs. The other wore one of those cotton shifts with an overlay of lace. It was heavy now and was causing her legs to chafe.

The one with the chafing pointed to the mojito bar. They shook their umbrellas, squeezed out their dresses, shook their thick manes of curls and stepped out of the rain into the ice box of a bar where they took their spots.

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Shell Game

Oysters, and a few clams i the back.

Oysters are of the sea. Of the rough and tumble sandy, rocky, salty sea. Of dark skies and storms that cold boil brackish water.

The chassis of an oyster tell you that they mean business. They are not the perfectly ridged, delicate, ombré fan of the scallop. They are not the smooth, radial, accreted ridges of a clam shell.

No. Oysters look like street fighters, with a rock hard face that has been pummeled into a misshapen mass of cartilage and bone, awkwardly swollen and of many colors. Not all of them, or maybe none of them, a color of health.

It dares you to open it. It is the door to the witch’s house that you step back from because nothing good can be in there.

What a liar.

When I tip the half shell into my mouth and the oyster sides onto my tongue, my brain hears phantom calls of gulls. I almost look up, to squint into the sun, or to push my face into cold sea spray on a clouded day to see big gray or white big birds challenging me for that briny bite.

I taste the entire ocean, thousands of years, hundreds of thousands of years, concentrated in a chewy drop of sweet saline. If they are shucked poorly, I will bite into bits of its shells. I roll the shale to the side of my mouth and pull out the nature.

When they are shucked well, and adorned with a squeeze of lemon and a spritz of sweet-sour-peppery mignonette they are still of the wild sea. Because that is what they are.

Of the sea.

Posted on by docthink 2

Delayed Rights of Spring

stonetable

It seems like it stopped raining. A recently absent companion, the sun, checked in. It was a welcome warmth.

There hasn’t been a single May morning coffee on the back porch. In any regular year, by this time, there’s usually been more than one seating. When the birds are doing their chirp thing. The sun is doing it’s shine thing. The air is doing it’s tickling breeze thing.

There are few weeks in the year that so fully welcome balancing a morning mug and the sports pages. Warm, bright, dry and bug free. With miserable rain every day so far this month, we’ve already lost two of those potential weeks.

Looking across the back porch, though, it’s not just the weather that’s less than genial.

There are still remnants of the last Christmas party strewn in the corners of the deck. Two green solo cups, one flattened, are joined by yellow half smoked cigarettes, empty charcoal gray seedling containers, a ladder, a racoon trap and detritus–including rusted scrapers, bent racks and lava rocks–from the protected charcoal grill and the busted up gas grill. Oh, and the two faded cans of diet Dr. Pepper that somehow did not burst during the multiple freezes since that party. It was a good party.

There are a few planters, some with dirt and some still virginal. Virginal except for that wintering over, anyway. There are some random pieces of wood–in that they really have no discernible purpose on the porch, an empty propane tank and pieces of a windchime that was weathered down. Six iron chairs are stacked in the corner, next to an upturned plastic trash can and an abandoned votive holder. The really nice one that refracts the flicker of the candle onto an evening meal.

The deck isn’t rickety, although it looks like it might be. I would not recommend leaning against the rails, more out of an abundance of caution. I would not recommend walking barefoot, this is from an abundance of splinters picked out of my feet.

It sounds much worse than it is, though. It’s about twenty or twenty-five minutes of picking up and another five or ten minutes to wipedown surfaces. Once the cushions are set on the unstacked chairs and the red and white striped umbrella is planted and raised, all I need to do is find my favorite tablecloth. The sun-bleached green one strewn with large pink cabbage roses that used to belong to my mother-in-law. It has a  five or six inch double fabric border that is a little more green, a little less bleached. It’s square so it gets angled like a diamond to cover most of the round table.

The round table on the back porch is waiting for my red mug and the Sunday paper and my countenance proclaiming spring. Coming soon.

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High Tailed

The cover of Depraved and Insulting English.

She was so bored but only needed to hide her acute detachment for another minute. Two minutes max.

She hated the performance art required to do staff reviews for the useless staff. He was very earnest in offering her a wider swath of his skills. She wasn’t using all he had. He could do so much more.

She had no interest in his offer. She fidgeted in her head. She had to hear his languid if not meandering narration. She imagined his words to be the babble of a brook. Great, now she had to pee.

She provided the required thanks and hearty if not heartfelt praise as she lowered the screen to her keyboard. She knew as she stood up he would too, and it’d be over. He stood. He articulated his hope for his place in the organization. Sure, she thought, if this place was a museum of old puppets or old muppets. Hah! That was worth an internal giggle. She led him out of the conference room, showering him with her waxy Madame Tussauds smile–you couldn’t hardly tell it was fake–and almost collided with a woman.

Why did she nod to me? Why is she stupidly standing at the door? The bored woman brushed past. She needed to get to the toilet before her next meeting.

The stupid woman called her name. Wait, the bored woman knew her.

The stupid woman called her name again. She reluctantly turned. More time wasted. She was on her way to see her boss. Her meetings were back to back. The woman, upon recognition, was no less stupid.

She motioned to the conferences room. “We have a meeting scheduled,” she mostly asked.

The bored woman shook her head. She styled her layered hair this morning and her mid length flip bounced its objection, too. She usually wore a ponytail. She appreciated today’s emphatic ‘do. She marked this power up feeling. She needed to use the big round brush more often.

She flicked open her laptop. She balanced the device on the heel of her left hand as she started reading the stupid woman her schedule that definitely did not include another stupid meeting with another useless staffer.

That stupid woman was so stupid she didn’t even care. She whipped out her phone and shook it in front of her face, pointing at the appointment that was marked as being initiated by the bored woman and sat plainly at the current time slot on the phone’s calendar.

The bored woman made an obligatory apology and closed her notebook. She really had to go. The stupid woman looked at her stupidly–no surprise there–and offered a taste of small talk. Maybe she was trying to get the bored woman’s attention long enough so she would acknowledge her and reschedule, but that wasn’t going to happen. The stupid woman didn’t want to reschedule anyway. She simply was inoculating against being blamed for a meeting not happening.

She looked at the bored woman’s torso and congratulated her.

The bored woman looked up at her, on the cusp of being interested. “Oh, yes! The new project launch?”

“No,” said the stupid woman. “On the baby.” She seemed genuinely happy for the bored woman who was quite pregnant.

The bored woman wanted to avoid a personal conversation with the stupid woman–and, quite frankly, with anyone at this moment. She had someplace to be and someplace to be before that place.

“Oh, this?” She matched the stupid woman’s eyes and followed them to her swollen belly. “That’s old news. The project launch? THAT’S my baby!”  She was okay connecting on work, just not on her private life.

Did that stupid woman just flinch? Or was it a cringe? No matter. Enough time was sucked out of her morning. She missed her chance to pee. Thanks stupid woman, she thought. You rank up there with that other useless staff member who’s inchoate wordstream caused this need to pee to begin with. She turned.

The stupid woman watched her walk away. Her bouncy high hair reminded her of one the kids’ favorite words from the Depraved and Insulting English dictionary. Feague is a verb that describes putting something (peeled raw ginger or a live eel) up a horse’s arse to increase the lift or the liveliness of of it’s tail.

The stupid woman grinned as the bored show horse trotted away, off to the races.

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Bar None

The Bar.

Brunch was long over by the time he got to the bar. When he walked in, he had to close his eyes for a minute so they could adjust. Although it was gray outside, it was still daylight, and the bar was dark like a bar should be.

He stumbled a bit into the wall. Maybe, though, he was pushed a little as his party crowded into the small square space at the front. There were a few of them and there were already a few in the square.

He wasn’t so interested in his group as they were getting settled. He figured that they would take care of themselves. He looked up at the wall behind the bar, with the shelves of bottles of different shapes and colors. They were mostly the same size, though. He pushed his copper hair away from his eyes. He needed to squint a bit to look at the options.

It was still early, there was room at the bar.  A couple cashed out with the bartender and took their pints to a table. There was more room now.

He wasn’t very tall, so it was a bit of an effort to climb up on the barstool. To make it even more complicated, the stools were fairly light aluminum with tiny backs. They were sturdy enough when you sat in them, but getting into them could be a challenge for the clumsy. The bar itself was old wood, as were the floors, the benches along the wall and the tables. The chairs were a new addition that didn’t make much sense.

He scooched his chair in a bit and put his elbow up on the bar. He glanced at his squad for a second, but they were still disorganized. The bartender came up and moved the Collins glass from in front of him. He looked at her, but didn’t seem ready to order.

He looked down to the darker side of the bar, where people were coming in and out of the kitchen in a very narrow passage. The bar itself had a drawbridge, but the bartender ducked underneath to come through except when she was carrying food. People to his left, around the bend of the bar were looking at him. He didn’t notice them, but they were very interested in him.

After another minute of family kerfuffle, the mom looked around confused and then looked up. He was sitting up high enough that he was almost at her eye level. She looked at the people at the bar a little sheepishly and shook her head. His hipster dad laughed as he scooped him out of the barstool. He grabbed the adorable little sister by the hand and the family disappeared into the restaurant part of the bar.

The people around the bend of the bar were disappointed. They were waiting for him to order. And they were all ready to buy this first-timer a drink.

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Not My Beautiful Cake

David Byrne from Talking Heads in a very ill-fitting and white suit.

He was wearing a department store suit. While he had the trouser legs hemmed and left uncuffed, the attire would have benefitted from additional tailoring. In lieu of that, he could have selected a suit that fit him better.

That wasn’t something he saw. The suit wasn’t too big. It wasn’t too small. It was the right shade of corporate steel-navy. It was buy-one get-one for half price, so it was a value purchase, too. The label on the inside pocket was printed with a name he heard before, or at least a name that sounded like one he knew. It could be a designer’s name. It was definitely not an Italian name.

His wife didn’t see it either. Although the two of them were on the fussy side, the fussiness didn’t extend to the hang of fabric.

His hair was thinning, but was holding onto its off brown color. Off brown in that it was not black, but it didn’t have the warmth a shade of fawn would have. It was a bit steely, without being gray, like the color of his department store suit with less blue.

He couldn’t see the hairless spot at the back of his head. He was ambiently aware that there was less hair there, but he believed there was some. There was actually a barren spot reminiscent of a secret marshy spot, where all the grasses grow long and somewhat willowy around a water-filled hollow. Except the water here was exposed skin.

His gait was like a flat half-skip. His body jangled jauntily as he stepped but his feet barely left the ground. He balanced a huge plastic cake carrier on his left hand. The bottom of the container was dark blue. There was no cake left, but some icing clung to the inside of the dome and was joined by some chocolate flavored crumbs stuck to the edge and along the bottom.

He randomly baked, mostly cakes, mostly from a box, and brought the goods to share at his office. He’d always add something special to the cake, to make it his own like the coaches tell contestants covering Whitney Houston on a singing show. This time he added instant espresso crystals to the Duncan Hines mix for a mocha-flavor. It was his idea. He thought it was very special and very creative. His colleagues thought it made the cake taste bitter and a little burnt. The double coating of frosting was a counterbalance, but they would have eaten it anyway.

He hurried in his half-skip to the escalator and disappeared down the tunnel to the train that would take him home.

Posted on by docthink 1

Markers In Time

Entrance to Glenwood Cemetery in D.C.

Lincoln Road heading away from the Shrine curves around like an S up the hill and then curves to the next S–a reversed S that hugs the other side of the hill between the two cemeteries.  It’s a beautiful park on this sunny spring day.

A crabapple tree extends its branches over the iron fence and shades the road. The tree is starting to switch from flowers to leaves. The flowers are like pink painted orbs against the green that is barging in. Just before the first S there is a Japanese-styled garden with a bridge arching over most likely a rock river. This tribute is new. I remember them moving the earth around and creating some moguls before they constructed a pagoda and then the bridge. Mylar balloons tied to one side of the bridge are lurching toward the sky. It seems strange, attaching balloons to the bridge. There isn’t an obvious marker. I don’t think they were from a birthday party–unless it was marking the birthday of someone dead?

Lifesized cement angels herald visitors at the entrance at deepest part of the curve. Well, person-lifesized. I don’t know what the size of an actual angel would be. Anyway, if you were trying to enter the grounds from the north, you’d have to turn your car 270°. Funeral processions always enter from the south for ease and are guided around a large circle with more angels, some blaring trumpets others in thoughtful prayer poses.

This is an old cemetery. The sign says it was founded in 1854. The stones are all different shapes and sizes. There’s some tall ones that look like the Washington Monument. These obelisks are different heights. Is there some status here? There are some twin stones, maybe marking a couple. Some markers are big crosses. There are square crypts that hold families full of remains. There is an old azaela that sits in front of a gravestone and has just about overtaken it. There are tall trees throughout the winding roads of the cemetery. There are lots of low flowering plants.

Modern cemeteries are designed for efficiency. There are no trees and no above ground stones so the groundskeepers can easily cut the grass. The graves are lined up in rows and are navigated to using simple coordinates. Some modern cemeteries limit the types of homage family and friends can leave behind. There is a sameness.

Not at this old cemetery. The grave markings are as different as the people buried here. There are old trees and young ones, too. Somebody is taking care to ensure that there will always be some shade. The grass is mowed, at least from where you can see from the road. Maybe people have to pay a fee to maintain the plots, but none are overgrown.

The leaves on the trees sway slightly and the sun warms the garden. There isn’t a funeral today, but there are a few people coming to visit those who have left them. They have picked a good day to pay their respects and to walk through the garden.

 

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