Summertime Fun

I went through my print cabinet in the garage yesterday after having done another chore.  I spent about an hour looking at prints, big prints, lovely prints, that just lay in drawers for no one to see.  There were beautifully sterile prints I made during Covid of manicured lawns and enviable homes and little railroad shacks that are disappearing rapidly here in my own hometown.  There were street scenes, mostly from NYC, that took on a new dimension when printed large.  These were made at the end of the printer's life, and in some of the prints toward the end, the colors are not quite right.  Then, later, there were lines running through the prints.  And then it was done.  

Good God. . . I started thinking about buying another large format printer.  

As I worked my way through the drawers, I found some small prints created WAY back "in the day" of my first digital camera and printer.  I had an Epson printer that could do 12" prints, but most of what I did then was smaller.  I printed hundreds of small sized prints.  Back then, I was enamored with what my Apple computer and Photoshop would let me do, and there was a lot of crazy experimentation.  I was in love with putting graphics and words onto photos.  I printed on as many materials as I could run through the printer, thick art papers, almost transparent Japanese papers. . . anything.  Then, when I got the studio, I was doing transfers of all kinds.  A decade ago, I was printing from plates on printing presses and making platinum/palladium prints, as well.  They are beautiful, and they, too, live in drawers away from curious eyes.  

I felt the sterility of my current predicament.  I was moved to bring into the house with me some of the small prints to sift through.  They made me happy.  There were photos of me at the beach, surfing, hair cut like Hugh Grant's in his early films.  I decided to put them up on the magnetic board in the kitchen and in a few other places to remind me of when I was creatively energetic about art and life.  

"You don't put up pictures of yourself," I heard you skeptics say.  

"Eff off," I replied.  "My house, my life.  They are there to inspire me."

And indeed, they did.  I wanted to get out.  I wanted to live again.  Oh, sure, I'm a fat cripple who probably would not be able to surf now (I want to find that out), but there are other things I certainly can do that I am not doing.  And I would.  

So I put on my walking clothes and headed out into the heat of the day.  Noon.  I was going to take the longest walk I have taken in th two months since I went to the hospital.  Has it been two months?  God!

O.K.  It hurt, back, knee, but I soldiered on, and the further I went, the more the pain subsided, or, perhaps, was masked as the nerves went dead.  Either way, I came back home down the Boulevard.  It looked new.  There is a small bookstore I don't go into much.  I would.  There was my buddy's funky wine bar I only go to with "the boys."  I would go alone.  There were places I haven't been to eat in months.  I would not stay in the house anymore, I thought.  Life is "out here" on the streets, at the coast, in towns not my own.  

When I got back to the house, I wanted to hurry and not linger in the manner that has become my habit.  I showered and made a quick lunch.  I Googled some recipes I wanted to make for dinner, then, as happens, way leading to way. . . I realized I was doing it again.  Lingering. 

I jumped in the car and drove to the old, wondrous place full of plants and household stuff that had closed.  The lady who had owned it told me that the landlords were shits and wouldn't work with her on the rent . They didn't need to, she said.  They made their fortune selling land to the giant theme park long, long ago.  Now it was family money, legacy money, and they were filthy rich.  I'd seen a sign that said the super large warehouse building was to become a gym.  "That will be the largest gym in the world," I thought.  But the other day, Tennessee and I drove by and in the window I saw the same things I had seen in the old business, plants and planters and household goods.  "Black Phin" it said.  The place was closed, but outside there were giant truck tires, evidence that there was a "box gym" somewhere inside.  

So yesterday, I went back.  When I walked in, it looked familiar, but there were a number of tables full of people who did not look cross-fit, mostly--or maybe all--females drinking from small cups, chatting, a few of them looking up at me and smiling right into my very blue eyes.  I was dressed in my well-fitted Buck Mason t and a pair of baby-blue linen shorts, and I was feeling almost as confident as I did in those old photos on the board in my kitchen.  Fatter, sure, but the shirt was, as I say, well-fitted.  As I strolled around the room, I tried not to limp.  

I went to the coffee bar and stood behind two women chatting with the pretty barista.  She smiled.  

"Can I help you?"

It was friendly question, not a hard sell.  

"I saw this place had opened the other day and I just want to take a look around.  How long have you been open?"

"Since the end of May."

"It looks a lot like the place that was here before.  Is this still Jen's place?"

"No. . . it is a cross-fit gym now, but. . . . " 

I don't remember what came after the "but," really, but somehow the cross-fit gym and the coffee shop with some very exotic coffees on the menu were connected.  

"This all looks familiar.  Are these the plants that Jen left?"

Her grin was a little guilty.  "Yes, but we get new ones in from time to time."

She was very friendly, and after awhile I said I just wanted to look about a bit, but I'd be back.  There were rooms for hosting events, just like the old place, but when I peaked behind a curtain, I saw cross fit equipment and a VERY FIT tall and slender woman in a VERY SMALL bikini lowering herself into an ice bath.  I don't know why, exactly, but it embarrassed me.  I felt as if I was doing something wrong, so I closed the curtain and headed to the exit. 

"Bye," said the barista, and I turned and waved.  

When I got to the car, I texted Tennessee describing the weird environment and scene that I had just witnessed.  

"When you get back, we'll have to check the place out."

In the past, he had owned a a cross-fit gym that he sold to an NFL Hall of Fame quarterback, so I thought he might get a kick out of this.  But I wouldn't wait for him.  This was a nice alternative to the Cafe Strange.  

I pulled out on the highway and turned toward Fresh Market to get the fixings for the evening meal.  I was making Hoison Garlic Noodles to pair with my own Tuna Kobachi.  Fresh Market was just the place to shop.  I bought a ripe avocado and a fresh piece of sashimi tuna, broccoli which I would cook in a pan of oil with garlic and scallions, and a jar of shichimi togarashi for the kobachi.  But that wasn't all.  Nope.  If you stray from the right hand side of the store, you are in trouble.  I did and was.  

It was 3:45 when I got everything put away.  I decided to go early to see my mother.  

That is when the bottom dropped out of the sky.  Wind, lightening, thunder, and blinding rain.  The streets around my mother's house were beginning to flood so that I had to straddle the middle line to keep from sending up giant rooster tails.  This was much like the day before and what was to come for the next week and maybe the rest of the summer.  Here in the subtropics we become a little Viet Nam.  

I had bought a watermelon at Fresh Market and had brought my mother half.  She asked me to cut if for her, so I quartered it and then cut it into eights.  It was bright red and juicy.  My mother sliced off a small piece to taste.

"Good?"

"Oh yes."

I wrapped the pieces in Sarn wrap and put them in the fridge.  

The rain had stopped.  It was five.  I had done some chores for my mother including fixing her computer which consisted of plugging her keyboard in to charge.  It's always something with the computers or the television now.  The technology has left her far behind.  

Remembering my "life is in the streets" coda, I decided not to go straight home.  I went for tea at the Cafe Strange.  Luckily, there was a parking spot up front.  I was feeling lucky.  I walked inside and my luck failed.  The line for drink and food orders was long as was the line for the Photo Booth.  The air inside was stuffy.  It was too much.  I decided to bail.  I skipped across the street to the liquor store and got a bottle of wine, then went back to my house for a Campari on the deck.  The Campari was good, but after the rain, the deck was humid and buggy.  I decided to start prepping dinner.  

Do you love misery?  Do you watch "The Bear"?  Yea, that will feed your desire.  Season Four.  I've watched some of it.  It is extended, never-ending misery.  It is very popular.  

"Yes, chef."  

Still, you know. . . cooking is an art, and I like to cook.  So. . . chop chop chop. . . eight garlic cloves, six scallions, one avocado, broccoli, splitting each floret so that it would lay flat in the pan.  I cubed the tuna steak.  I put on the water for the noodles.  In a small bowl I mixed the Houisin, soy sauce, sesame oil, and maple syrup.  I put oil in a pan at medium heat.  Broccoli florets for three minutes, covered, then flipped for another minute.  More oil, then the garlic and scallions.  Strain and rinse the noodles, then put them in the pan with the broccoli, garlic, and onions, dumping the Housin sauce on top and mixing it in with the noodles.  Three more minutes on medium high.  Oops. . . add more soy.  Oh, shit, way too much.  It did not have a stoppered pour top and the soy went everywhere. Piss, shit, fuck, goddamn.  

Maybe it would be o.k.  

Tuna and avocado in a bowl.  Sprinkle with shichimi togarashi and mix soy sauce, sesame oil, and rice wine to pour on top.  

Piss, shit, fuck, goddamn all over again.  Rice wine!  Where was the rice wine?  

It was nowhere.  I KNOW I had it.  I tore the cabinets apart.  Nope.  I would have to substitute.  What?  What could I use.  I had a bottle of rice vinegar.  Maybe.  

I plated everything and poured a glass of wine.  It was the worst meal I have ever made in my life.  It was almost unpalatable.  

I ate it anyway, some of it.  

The kitchen was a mess.  There was that to do.  I emptied the wine and poured a whiskey.  To kill the worms, you know?  

"Yes, chef." 

That's the way things go sometimes.  Yea.  

But this morning, there on the magnetic black board are the pictures.  I'll try again today.  Life is out "there."  No moping.  I'm not to be housebound.  

The floor joist.  The roof.  There is plenty of work to be done all around.  But this is my home for longer than any other home I've lived in.  I'll fix it, regardless.  I'll go on.