[title type="h5"]Saturday, March 28, 2015.
Ho-Hum, Part 570583.[/title]
The dog fence we installed at the Cool Water Ranch a few months ago forces me to park my PT Cruiser beneath trees. And now the car is covered with drippings, ranging from bird poop to sticky, sweet sap to pine resin. The accumulation of this makes my car look abandoned. I run it through the car wash, just to see what I'm dealing with. Only about a third of the residues come off. This will probably become a $100 wash job. Afterwards, it will all start over again. The fence leaves no slots for me after the Marys bring their automobiles into the bay. I have no good argument: with twelve years old and 220,000 miles, the Cruiser is the oldest unit in the fleet.
Mary Ann and I co-host the Saturday show on WWL again. All this week, she listened to recordings of our broadcasts, and says they are good enough that she will market them to stations around the country. The unspoken footnote is: if she gets a job in, say, Portland (either one), will she move there? And what will I do?
[caption id="attachment_28268" align="alignnone" width="480"]
The view from the deck at The Chimes.[/caption]
It's a nice afternoon, so we have an early dinner on the deck at The Chimes. The place is on a wait list at four in the afternoon, and it's a big restaurant with a great view. Quite a hit for the Baton Rouge interloper.
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Grilled oysters, the best dish at The Chimes.[/caption]
I like Chimes's food a little less every time I'm forced to eat there. The raw and grilled oysters remain reliable, as do the hamburger and the blackened catfish. But other dishes I once enjoyed have become slipshod: the grilled shrimp remoulade, the soups, and the fried seafood generally. The sides are terrible. But Mary Ann still loves not just the place but the food.
Sometimes I catch myself wondering what life would be like if I were married to a woman who shares my tastes in cooking and eating. But even in a discussion with myself, that's undiscussible. Everything else about our marriage is too good to think about such trivial matters.
On the other hand. . .
The Marys are preparing for their third attempt to go to Germany and the Czech Republic. MA is cleaning up the house and packing. The dogs sense this somehow. They always know when we are about to leave them behind. I wish I could tell them that I will be there during the Marys' absence, but I don't speak German Shepherd fluently.[divider type=""]
[title type="h5"]Sunday, March 29, 2015.
Ho-Hum, Part 570584.[/title]
All the authorities who must sign off on my singing the Easter Sequence at Mass next week have done so. After singing in church choirs since fourth grade, this will be my first solo. Denise, our director, lingers after today's service so I can run the song a couple of times. I am not confident, but the funny thing about learning a piece of music is that is seems to come around in your sleep, even with minimal practice. Later in the day, I find a version of the song on YouTube. That's almost as helpful as knowing how to play the piano. It's the first word and first note of any song that trips me up.
The Marys spend the day getting ready for Munich, to which they will fly tomorrow morning. In the midst of that, they call to invite me to join them at La Carreta. Where else but there or The Chimes?
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Choriqueso would be good in an omelette.[/caption]
The waiter is sorry to say that the eating of molé poblano has at last caught on, and they were completely out of the luscious, bitter-chocolate-based sauce. I have huevos rancheros instead. One never knows what one will get when ordering that, although the most common version is over-scrambled. This one is more like an omelette, with avocado and (at my request) chipotle salsa. It's pretty good, and it gives me an idea for next time. How about this same omelette with choriqueso folded into the middle? That will give me a reason to go with the Marys the inevitable next time we are here.[divider type=""]
[title type="h5"]Monday, March 30, 2015.
Buddies Not Welcome.[/title]
The Marys are up at three-thirty in the morning. They are off to the airport by four-thirty, and at five-thirty they are denied entry onto a flight to Atlanta, the first leg of their trip to Germany. The Marys are attempting to use the deeply-discounted "buddy passes" that Mary Ann gets from present and former airline employees. It's all on the level, but buddy passes have one huge problem: users of them must fly standby. If a revenue customer shows up, the buddy leaves the plane and waits for the next one.
The Marys would watch six flights go off without them as morning turned into afternoon. That made them miss their flight from Atlanta to Munich, and that was that.
And this is why I never, ever fly on buddy passes. A friend who was a 747 pilot for many years told me once that the best use of buddy passes is to hand them off to one's ex-spouse.
So the Marys return home with their tails between their legs. Strike three, it is not to be. But wait! Mary Ann has another idea! Tune in tomorrow for what happens on the next episode of "The Woman Who Makes Up Her Own Rules As She Goes Along."
Home life, including that of the dogs, resumes for the moment. We make ham and cheese poor boys while Mary Leigh bakes a batch of chocolate-chip cookies. How lovely of her! She is doing that mostly for me, knowing how much I love getting away from the keyboard for a minute to eat half a cookie.
But Mary Ann is very busy, making sure that tomorrow's strategy--exactly same one that flamed out so badly earlier today--will not turn out the same way. One of her buddy donors tells her that the problem today was that a lot of people travel on Mondays, and Tuesday won't be so bad. And there are other issues. The suitcases they checked at the airport this morning are somewhere along the itinerary, but nobody seems to know exactly where.
I head off to chorus rehearsal at seven. The Marys are too busy to notice. When I get back at nine-thirty, they are abed, with the alarms once again set for the wee hours. Mary Leigh tried to dump out of the new plan, but the Force is strong with Mary Ann, and she cannot be dissuaded. They will make it to Berlin and Prague or die trying.
The question that keeps coming up is, "Why?" I have no idea. I am just happy I'm not going.
Written by Tom Fitzmorris April 06, 2015 12:01 in
