I couldn’t write, I couldn’t work on the church project, I was swithering like a’ idiot, so I said it’s a Mental Health Day and when Paul called and said, “Let’s give blood” I said “What a great idea but I can’t stand it for today. I’m coming to your place with my mandolin on my back.” So I walked over there and it started to rain just as I got to the stairs and he left the front door open and I went up the back stairs so he had to go lock his front door and we had a good laugh about that and then I played Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked for him, which he hadn’t heard before. I left him the lyrics and chords, and played it enough times that he started to work up some guitar and I started to practically bleed out my finger ends. It hurts to type today, bwa ha ha. Then we played our way though a couple of Oscar Brand air force tunes, I played my way through the In the Lineup for the Ferry song (I had played it through once and this time he could play along) and then we dawdled and noodled and messed about for a couple of hours, him marvelling that I FINALLY have the intonation problems sorted out on Otto. He’s been out of sorts since GAFilk and he’s now perfect (gotdamn that floating bridge!!! it’s the one thing Peter C. did when he was making Otto that I hate) and if anything he’s louder and more resonant than before. Then I played Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked AGAIN a couple of times because I’ve shifted how I play it a bit, and was now comfortable enough that a) the tune as sung was actually sounding a bit more like the recording and b) the chord structure still doesn’t sound like the recording but it’s better. Then I told him that if we ever play it when Katie and Keith are present for music night they will be singing along with the choruses – Katie and I had it as part of the ‘get going’ music mix for the café – and Keith knows it from the opening titles of Gearbox’s video game Borderlands, which we used to rewatch all the time because it’s like the best opening title in gaming.
Then he fed me lentil soup and beer and crusty white bread toasted with butter and a Non Refrigerated apple – the last apple he served for me nearly made my back teeth pick up their skirts and flee, it was so durn cold – but I admired his new fridge, for a net cost of $175 he got a bottom drawer freezer Kenmore with the door hung the right way although he did nearly spavin himself getting it up the stairs and he now has to replace all the brand new nosing for the stair treads ’cause they all have divots in them now. (It looks like an alien dragged its nasty bits up to the first floor.) Apparently Keith hated the old fridge and did handsprings when he saw the new one and realized that HE wasn’t going to get roped into hauling it up the stairs (his job is very physical) or getting the old one out.
I told him about Replens, as Lady Miss Banjola had told me about it, and how along with eye drops the advice given ensured my life was a better place, except it’s FRIKKIN expensive and could he find eight packs in the States for me and he said he’d look.
We discussed putting together a book of family stories from his side of the family, while his mum’s still with us (doing fine apparently), as inspired by mOm’s numerous efforts, talked about some flying he’d been doing (he’s enjoying the soaring in Enumclaw, and of course I crack up every time I hear that name, for all the wrong reasons.) We talked about Keith and Katie and their marvellous young lives and challenges, the retirement party he went to at the Shark Club (where, apparently, the last pleasant drink servers in the lower Mainland have taken refuge) and the highly excellent noms he ingested there.
Then he took me for a quick shop including healthy food and unhealthy noms and beer AND helped me haul in groceries. If there is a nicer ex in the whole universe then whoever has him / her isn’t publicly bragging.
Then at home we watched a couple of titles from the second season of POI and I turned the steak into itty pieces and cooked it fast with mushrooms and lots of onions and chili seasoning, not too much, and so to bed, where I got 2.2 hours on the cpap and am now ready to start another day, and maybe get a little more done. Maybe. Not a betting woman normally.
