I am not spending a lot of time looking out the window, hands clasped behind my back, noting the clouds scudding over the distant hotel, thinking of the girl on the ferry, but from time to time I notice that the people in the wing facing my portion of the Fred all have their blinds down. All of them. All the time.
Sometimes when I walk around in the evening I note how many places are dark - odd for a building with a low low vacancy rate. Where are they? Is everyone out doing social things? Or, more likely, the lights are off and they’re staring at their phones? I note the people who’ve piled things against the window, an inexplicable move that suggests disorder or lack of care. There’s one that mystifies me. I had to zoom in to see what it was. I still don’t know.
Canvases, I think. That’s a modish 1960s fireplace thing on the left. Bottom right, looks like a picture of a room . . . that has pictures.
Friday afternoon I started the move from the large unit at Zork Storage to the smaller unit. The paperwork had been signed the previous day in a small office, the harried property manager tapping and clicking on the computer while I tried to suss out the complicated nomenclature and purpose of her many arm tattoos. Either a lot of people had been born or a lot of people had died. I suppose both are true.
Got my keys for the 5 X 5, took a cart to the 10 X 5, the wheels shuddering and twitching like a drug fiend, making the cart bang into the walls again and again. Upon opening the 10 X 5 I thought: huh. This really is a lot of stuff.
Nah, it’ll fit!
I moved a load, stacked boxes. Thought:
This isn’t going to fit.
Went back, got more boxes, thought:
This isn’t going to fit.
Took them to the 5 X 5, thought:
Nah, it’ll fit!
We’ll see. No going back now.
Did 1/4 of the move because Birch was in the car (in the cool air-conditioned interior of Zork, mind you) and was leaving when I got a message. From Public Storage.
ACCOUNT PAST DUE
PAY NOW TO AVOID LATE FEE!
Oh for CROM’S sake for the LOVE OF BOG
Two exasperated phone messages later, the matter was resolved.. Thus assured that all was fine, I made the Friday stops. The first is CUfB, to see if there were bacon sales, and secure a pizza.I have become weary of the bacon price-shuffle: They just mix up the price tags once a week, and we fall for it. Wow this is $5.99 this week, it was $7.99 last week! And then it’s $6.99 next week and the other bacon that was $3.99 on a super door-buster sale is priced in a way that makes you suspect they offer financing options. Because it's hardwood smoked! Oh. That’s marketing, I suppose, and I don’t mean to go all commie on you but I yearn sometimes for a predictable bacon price-point. An anchor in a maddening maelstrom of arbitrary bacon evaluation.
I know this all makes me sound penurious, but I’m just being careful. (And tight.) For example: CUfB had a two-for-one on the Southern-Spice Cod Wedges, and I leaped at that: eight dollars for four meals. Since I no longer have a freezer in the basement, a sign of a life demolished, I have to be careful about buying frozen things. Space management enters into the purchasing decisions. When I got home I put the wedges into plastic bags, because they can adapt to the space with more flexibility than a box. In the process I got Southern Spices all over the counter and the floor, which meant getting out the cheap little vacuum cleaner and hoovering up the crumbs.
I used to have a good vacuum cleaner, I thought. A proper beast with voracious suction. Before that, I had a Dyson, an elegant device without a cord; we danced around the house every Sunday. Before that, we had a monster of an Oreck, which could suck the grain out of the wood if you stayed in one place too long. That was always my Sunday duty. I didn’t mind. Happy to have a chore!
A million years ago
Yesterday
Was it a month and change or ten years since strangers came in and rearranged all we owned and put price tags on everything - and it was gone, and then there was a strange day where I helped a stranger carry the pieces of my bed down the stairs and then the next day or the day after I drove away forever and it was not home and would never be mine again
What the hell happened and why do I have this cheap Bissel
I am not surprised that I have these thoughts; I’m surprised that I don’t have them more often.
After CUfB, what? Well, Kowalski’s, of course, to secure the meat required for Saturday Burgers. But not the old neighborhood Kowalski’s where I had the Friday chat with the cheese-sample lady. I miss that running conversation, the occasional praise for being the good husband who bought his wife cheese to signal the end of the week. Oh I loved that. If only you knew the cosmic injustice about to be visited upon my kind and considerate head! Well, it's been nice talking, I do enjoy this brief interval where I can control the narrative.
Last week I texted eventually-to-be-ex a picture of the cheese on a plate with some salami and a small glass of wine and another matching glass, empty. It got a heart icon in response.
I didn’t do it this week, because it seemed stupid. I had the cheese myself - an excellent Emmental - and gave Birch a ration. Then I drew the shades and put in the AirPods, set them to white noise and settled in for the late afternoon nap. Honest to God I dreamed we were at back at the old house enjoying cheese and crackers, and then discovered Birch had gotten into his pills and overdosed on phenobarbital.
When we spoke last week I told tales and made her laugh, and also said you’re not off the hook and just because I’m doing better doesn’t mean any of this isn’t mad and sad and bad. Do you think of me? Do you miss me?
Of course, she said in a sigh of intimate familiarity, and I believed her. Then I put it out of my head and did things and worked out and walked the dog and did radio and researched motels and cut up newspapers and finally decided, yes, it’s this poster, not that one, and ordered a fake plant and called it a day, a week, a month, whatever. All I know is that I am having eggs for breakfast tomorrow. With what’s left of an excellent Emmental.
In keeping with our Monday tradition, which became a "tradition" for reasons I can't recall and probably don't matter, we continue with our Monday trademark. For this year we'll do 1936.
If you know, you know:
I just had to, you know? Great or not-so-great, I'll alwatys watch something by . . .
We meet our hero, who is Mild Mannered, and not at all a yacht-rock songwriter:
He's walking home, and sees a cad beating a woman. He's horrified!
He lays him out with a mighty blow of his umbrella - and saves the lady!
Hey, wait a minute -
Hey, wait a minute -
Don't we know her from another movie? Don't we know that hat from another movie?
Why yes.
It's the cast of Woman in the Window, back again for another merry interval of betrayal and fear! It's much more Langy than Woman in the Window, and Lang really plays on the hat. Who knew it could be so ominous:
There's a delightfully fourth-wall / self-aware / wink-wink moment:
Visually, it's much more interesting. Welcome to Film Court:
I don't want to spoil a thing. It's one of those movies where everybody gets just what they deserve.
That will do. It will have to do. It's an odd retirement when you look at Sunday with faint dread, because you have three pieces due on Monday. But it's good to be wanted. The only thing worse than having three pieces due is having no pieces due, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde. I worked all weekend on what's due and what isn't - the machinery is working again, the gears meshing.
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