Mid-January, Rain - January 13, 2012 |
September 15, 2008 The Airing Cupboard Mousie, oh mousie, when will you go home? ******** It's laundry day. The home washers here seem to take longer, and we had three loads because this machine is smallish; but she has what she calls an airing cupboard, which is a tiny room off of which is the sauna. Yes, in this very old house there is a little sauna. The furnace or something is also in there, so it stays warm and dry with the door closed. A perfect place to dry clothes, other than the fact that there's only one dowel to hang hangers on and we had to invent other places to hang or drape things. I'm hopeful that my jammies will be dry by tonight. We had a lethargic rehearsal in which we had nothing into which to plug the bass, so we alternately pushed the headstock against hollow furniture or the plate glass window to get enough vibration to hear it a little. None of us was much into it, but we slogged through a few things. By then Chris was anxious to get to our agent's house to drop off equipment so that we can do the car switch and PA pickup tomorrow. We're covered with the rental cars only up to 21 days according to the credit card, so we're having to re-rent halfway through the tour. I believe he's trying to get one with a roof rack but I'm foggy on that, as he's picking up rails somewhere also. All I know is it's been a pain the neck for him to arrange and logistically the rest of the tour will be much more challenging. The cost is also staggering. Anyway it's only 13 miles or so to our agent's house from here, but it took him about 45 minutes on these tiny roads. My impression is that he's pretty sick of all the driving already, and I can't blame him. ******** C&C did not go to the open mic last night. It's too easy to just feel lazy and not bother. I've gotten used to this tea habit too, so instead of the one morning cup of coffee or half-caf, I'm expecting another infusion or two of tea caffeine later in the day. Think I'll skip it today, though, and maybe take a nap before dinner. I did make a beautiful fruit compote this morning from blackberries I picked yesterday, at my peril. I got tripped up on some brambles and fell splat onto my hands and knees at one point, though as I was going uphill I wasn't hurt at all. But my berries went sprawling. Just before coming back I managed to step in dog poop -- with both shoes, no less -- and had to scrub my shoes when I got to the house. In spite of all these fairy tricks (!), I managed a nice little container of berries and along with apples, banana, plums and the juice of a squeezed orange, they made a beautiful fruity mush for breakfast. Re: falling -- thinking back on it later, there was almost a kind of pleasure in the way I tripped and fell. It was so thorough, like when I was a kid and I'd really fall, out of control, no way to save myself. I was glad there was no injury especially to my wrist, but it was a way of letting go that I guess I needed. Maybe the fairies were doing me a favor. Looking in the fridge for a little butter in which to pre-fry the apples, I found butter-blend margarine, another margarine without hydrogenated oil (don't know how they got it emulsified), lard, and shredded suet. I can only imagine the shredded suet was for the birds -- they do feed them here -- but, I don't know. And the lard, man. People cook with lard here. Urg. The fabulous roasted parsnips I had at the pub yesterday may have been coated in lard, I realize. And... how do you shred suet, anyway? ******** I spoke with Dar today and our connection was better. He said he'd spent the morning trading terrible text-message puns with Rose. I guess Rose and Marc ARE sleeping at the new house by now. I'm envious and at the same time taking a great vicarious pleasure in their new digs, their relocatedness. I want to go and spend the night there. ******** Our host, David, is away now until Friday, so our hostess, Marian, is cooking dinner for us tonight. We've been doing our own food here because of various schedules and feeling a little antisocial because of that. It'll be nice to eat together -- though Marian rarely stops to take a breath while talking and it's very hard to either get a word in edgewise or leave to do things like check the fruit compote or the laundry or take a pee. At least I won't have much of the burden of making conversation. Tomorrow is the third of five hump days. After tomorrow we'll be halfway through our trip. |
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