Saturday, September 12, 2015.
Snip Snip. Recognized At The Gate. Veronica's Salmon.
The usual errands, and then some. Breakfast is one of the biscuits I made last week for me and Mary Leigh, before she left to begin her new life. And how many dozens of
those have we made together over the past two decades?
I get an overdue haircut, and my record remains perfect: after seven tonsorial visits to The Lion's Den in Covington, I have still not had the same haircutter twice. All have been ladies. This one gave me a fine cut tapered all the way down the back, to avoid that mullet look.
I have a one-hour radio show to perform, from two until three. My schedule gets strange in the beginning and later the end of football season.
Our friends the Fowlers invite us to dinner at their handsome abode. I suspect that Mary Ann had a hand in this. She's still in Los Angeles, and may be thinking that I need some company. Mike and Veronica Fowler also invite the Fontanas. Dwight Fontana's son was in Boy Scouts the same time Jude was, hence the connection. Veronica comes back from Fresh Market with some big fillets of salmon, which she sort of braises on top of the stove. I would have cooked it little less, but I'm sure my tastes are the odd ones here. I don't give unasked advice about cooking when I'm in a friend's home, because I'm convinced that no matter how sympathetically I put it, the host will be at least a little embarrassed.
The conversations covers a wide range. Like all other gatherings, the most-discussed person is Donald Trump. Amazingly, the five of us consume only two bottles of wine, which is not a commentary on the wines. I read somewhere recently that the Italian government has set one bottle a day as the threshold of heavy drinking.
On the way into the gated community where the Fowlers live, and where I go for no other reason, the guard stops me to ask my destination: "And where are you--wait a minute. You're Tom Fitzmorris! You may pass!" Now I'm getting somewhere.
It is actually cold outside when I leave. It's still ten days before fall begins.
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Sunday, September 13, 2015.
The Unit Uses Passive Voice.
Mary Ann is conscientious about never letting me run out of clean underwear or towels. But she has been gone for two weeks, and I am out of socks. I gather a pile of my dirties and put them in the machine. I am quite capable and even willing to do my own laundry. (I did it myself from 1970 until 1989.) But when I try to start the machine, its digital screen says "A problem has been detected with this unit." It will give no other service. I do what bachelors always do in a case like this: go to the store and buy two dozen more pairs of socks.
The weather is still cool, and it's a pleasure to cut the grass. So I add the meadow by the pond to my assignment. If this weather holds, this might be the last time I do that for this year.
I shower and take a nap, then have dinner at Zea. I will have the Sunday tomato bisque and the house salad, but this standard order needs something else. I see crabcakes I don't remember trying. The server says that they just changed the crabcake concoction, giving it a Southwestern flavor, with chili peppers, cilantro, and the like. I get three of them, and while they don't make it into the Twelve-Best list, they are very good and supply the last piece of this puzzle of flavors and textures.
The conversations covers a wide range. Like all other gatherings, the most-discussed person is Donald Trump. Amazingly, the five of us consume only two bottles of wine, which is not a commentary on the wines. I read somewhere recently that the Italian government has set one bottle a day as the threshold of heavy drinking.
On the way into the gated community where the Fowlers live, and where I go for no other reason, the guard stops me to ask my destination: "And where are you--wait a minute. You're Tom Fitzmorris! You may pass!" Now I'm getting somewhere.
It is actually cold outside when I leave. It's still ten days before fall begins.
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