LILEKS (James) :: The Bleat for Thursday.

Two days to go.

I’ve made the decision to eat out this week because everything horrible and I deserve French Fries and and it doesn’t feel right to start the new routines until she’s on the road and gone. Last night I went to Dave’s Hot Chicken. Good! But what is this decor? VIBRANT URBAN or something incoherent.

The cheerful young lady at the front counter was astonishingly enthusiastic and also 74% unintelligible, rattling off the Dave’s Script at rocket speed. I felt like an old guy: I’m sorry, what? Had to say it twice. She said something about the spice level 7 - I had to sign a waiver, it was so hot. Who runs this place, William Castle? I asked for a 4, just to see how they calibrated things.

“Medium,” she said.

I suppose. When you have a seven-level scale, and you choose 4 over 3 or 5, you don’t want to hear “Medium.”

It was really good. I told the manager it was really good. He was really happy.

I went to the gym after that, did some quick lifts. Back to FredBase 1, down to the gym to do the treadmill. Log in with the app, which has been counting my steps. I had redlined the number of steps for the day and the app was pleased with me. Then I went upstairs and looked at the separation papers she left for me to sign on Sunday and said . . .

Nah. Eventually. But I’m not on her schedule anymore.

Except of course I am. Wednesday was spent . . . wait for it . . . cleaning! When I arrived at the house I was handed a list.

Clean fridge
Clean oven knobs
Clean freezer
Clean studio, vacuum behind all desks and shelves, dust shelves
Move sweater box to trash pile
Move all indoor trash to trash pile
Clean laundry room shelves
Clean bathroom drawers

And a few other things. Had to be done. I set to work. I like cleaning the fridge, and I’ve done it a lot. It was one of my jobs. I like a well-ordered fridge - open the door, you see what you have. No mystery boxes, no rice in a take-out box from a fortnight past. Shredded cheese always escapes the bag and collects in the Cheese Area, and yes, I had a Cheese Area. To my astonishment I found that the plastic film on the edge of the shelves was still there, so I set about removing it, so the edges could look bright and new. All the shelves came out, and got sprayed with that really good glass cleaner that smells a bit like Ditto fluid.

Check the box. Move on. I did a good job, I hope. We’re talking toothpick-in-the-crevasses detail. Best of all, I had the place to myself. QQTBF was off at a lunch with a friend, last goodbye, and then tennis with another friend, last match.

I asked her how she felt about these lasts. Particularly, the trip to the dog park. She said she enjoyed it and was appreciative of the time she had been able to enjoy the woods.

This seemed rather . . . bloodless. That’s the thing you say when you’re on your deathbed, perhaps, or moving on to something better. She loves the woods and the river, the great canopy of green above, shot with sun, a carpet of life beneath you, the happy barks of dogs all around. That’s her paradise. And now it’s done. It’s over. She’s going to a dog-absent cactus-land. I’d be wrecked. I am wrecked.

One thing I did in between cleaning: one last walk. Of course I am appreciative of the times we’ve done this together. Gratitude is good and healthy and I might come to rest there eventually. But now I’m screaming mad and heartbroken it’s over.

We alight for a moment in Ralston. Wikipedia notes that the town, in Pawnee, is “Iriíraatuhukaataku, reetuhruukaataku.” This looks absolutely Finnish. For that matter, the entire Wikipedia page is bizarre.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total of Seven people in it. 0.5 square miles (1.3 km2), all land.

Ohhhkay, but the basic-stats sidebar says 266, according to the 2020 census. And then the demographics sections says “According to the United States Census Bureau, Ralston's population is estimated 328 (2012 Population Estimates).” And then:

There were 2 households, out of which 100% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 100% were married couples living together, 0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 0% were non-families. 0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.52 and the average family size was 7.

Aerial maps show more than two. Anyway, let’s start.

A previous Google picture of the 1922 structure:

And now. So one of those 7 or 266 or 328 is a bored youth with a spray can.

That's not a pane of glass at the bottom. A Google artifact.

That’s a surprisingly well-preserved building for an old, emptied-out town.

The HARRY BROS.

Believe it or not, our source on its history is our old friend, cinema treasures:

The Ralston Opera House was built in 1902. There was a hardware store on the ground floor, with the opera House upstairs on the second floor. It was running movies in the early-1920’s but had closed by the end of the decade.

After sitting unused for almost 60 years, it was purchased by Bill Hiser in the mid-1980’s, with plans to restore the theatre, but sadly he died before it was completed.

Huh.

So . . . someone was working on the Silver Moon Cafe to restore it, and they did the windows first and left the rest open to the elements, or it was the Silver Moon, and the roof fell in recently?

Huh again

Did they uncover the old name and build a restaurant around the old history? It has the Google Street View sign for dining, but doesn’t look like a going concern.

Double huh.