Woke up early, before dawn. Couldn't lie in bed any longer. Shuffled to the kitchen to hit the button on the coffee maker, but I heard something. What was it? I tiptoed around turning my ears this way and that. Something I couldn't quite sneak up on. Faint. Spooky. Wait a minute. I looked under the sink. Water was coming from somewhere. Everything was wet, but not too wet. Apparently it had just begun. I pulled everything out from under the sink and reached in to find the leak. What to do? I went outside to look for a shutoff valve. Apparently, my mother's house does not have one. I began to panic. Bucket--get a bucket. I went to the garage and found one. I tried to put it under the leak, but the pipes were in the way. I forced it in anyway. Sort of. It was catching only some of the water. I went back to the garage to find another, flat pan. I found one. It was catching all the water but filling up every five minutes or so. I sat there watching, emptying, watching. This would not do. I got my iPhone and turned on the flashlight. I got painfully on the ground and shined the light up under the sink. I could not see the leak, but I could reach my hand up and feel it. There were small knobs. Hmm. I started twisting one--twist twist twist. The water stopped. I'm a dumbass, I thought. I got up and tried turning on the water. It was the cold water tap I had turned off. I got towels and dried up what I could. This was going to be an easy fix--for a plumber. I wasn't even tempted to try. I'd fuck something up and flood the house. I've done that before.
When my mother got up, I informed her.
Whatever.
In a little while, I'll call a plumber.
That is how today began. All my hopes and plans and dreams and aspirations. . . .
I just ain't catching any breaks.
Still, let's look on the sunny side.
I stalled and stalled and stalled before going out with cameras yesterday. Going among the throng with the a camera was anxiety producing. But I forced myself to pack up and go. I'd take the Xterra now that it was running. I loaded up the car and left the house somewhere after noon. The sun was beating down. It was hot. It was humid. I parked the car around the corner from the hipster market in the big parking lot of the liquor store. I'd spent enough money there. I wouldn't be that long.
The hipster market was bland. Row after row of sun shaded clothes racks, old t-shirts, shit that the Salvation Army had thrown away. Hipsters dressed in the same faded cloths. I had an ultra wide angle lens on the Leica. I walked through the crowd seeing nothing of interest. I saw a girl with a camera taking photos. She was a young hipster and would surely not get into any trouble. It is good to be a young woman if you are a photographer. My advice: don't be an old man with a camera.
I may start dressing in drag.
I walked back to the car with a camera full of film, hardly having snapped the shutter. I decided to drive. . . somewhere. I made a few wrong turns and ended up in a place I hadn't been for awhile. There was a sign painted on a wall. I stopped the car and left the engine running. Grabbed a camera and took some photos, then went back and got another camera. O.K. When I got back to the car, the temperature guage was up and the a.c. was blowing warm. Piss shit fuck goddamn. The thing still isn't fixed. But as soon as I started driving, the temperature gauge dropped to normal. I hit a long red light. The temperature gauge climbed. I turned off the a.c. It dropped a bit.
And that is how I spent the rest of the day. I turned the a.c. off at red lights, then turned it back on. I was sweating bullets driving through town.
I finished a roll of film and decided to take it to the film lab. After that, I took the car home. What to do? Wait until winter to drive it?
I put everything back in my mother's car and drove to Whole Foods. I had told my mother when I left that I would fix a steak for dinner. I picked out a good one, a big, thick Porterhouse. Asparagus. Baked beans. And, oh, yes. . . tapenade. A bottle of red wine. That should do it.
And it did. I let the steak sit out for two hours to come to room temperature. I patted it dry with paper towels and rubbed both sides with olive oil. Salt. Pepper. I punched a thousand holes into the meat with a fork. I let it sit while my mother and I drank some wine and ate the tapenade with crackers.
Just before six, I set the Dutch Oven on the burner turned to Hi. In a few minutes, when it was good and hot, I seared the steak for one minute on each side, then I turned the heat to medium and cooked the steak with the top on the pot for three minutes. Flipped it. Three minutes more.
You could almost cut it with a fork. Holy smokes--I've learned to make a good stovetop steak. It was a huge steak, but there were no leftovers. I gnawed the last bits of meat off the bone feeling like Bobby Kennedy Jr.
I've called the plumbing company and now we wait for someone to become available. My Sunday is shot. I'll be here enduring whatever the fates have planned.
But look on the sunny side.
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Until next time. . . .
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