A Very Short Story on a Very Snowy Day

 

Yesterday I worked from home, then in the evening I met Cecil Markovitch (the Instigator), the Single B-Boy, R Van the Terrible, and Richard Bonomo for a fish fry at Kavanaugh's. I wasn't going to have a drink, but then they had ice cream drinks, so I caved and had a grasshopper. When we left, the weather was terrible, with sleety snow, but I made it home and talked to Tiffy until Travalon came home from the Van Halen tribute band concert he was at. I had brought most of my dinner home, so he had some of it.

Today the snow continued, and we didn't venture out until after three. I made a video for you of Travalon's train videos the first day of our road trip:

Then I went up into the loft to take care of Jolly Bob, which had a lot of dead leaves after our trip. The Norfolk Island pine looks really bad and may not make it, but it was struggling before the trip. It was so happy at Rich's house, but it wasn't happy where I had it in the loft, so I moved it in front of a south-facing window, and it only seems unhappier. I am at a loss. Maybe it's too hot in the loft, and it loved the barely-heated back room where Rich had it. I was going to take care of the plants in the main plant room (I already did some of that right after we got back), but for some reason I was exhausted after pulling dead leaves off of Jolly Bob, even though my FitBit said it was only seven minutes of moderate exercise. But the FitBit never seems to agree with my lived experience, whether it's saying I had twenty minutes of intense exercise when I was barely doing anything or only light exercise after a walk so vigorous that I can barely catch my breath. It makes zero sense.

Travalon and I went to the pharmacy to get my special face cream, and we got some chocolate and, weirdly, earrings. They are "woke" earrings made of recycled materials or something by indigenous communities. I just really liked them.

Then we went to Barnes and Noble because Cecil had given me a gift certificate for my birthday, and Travalon loves that place and needs no excuse to go. I got a creative writing journal with prompts for short stories, a book about unsolved mysteries, and this little cutie:

No name yet. I haven't even decided what gender it is. (Funny - last night we had a big discussion about gender vs. sex.) All that was more than the gift certificate, but Travalon generously donated his $5 loyalty reward to the cause, so I hardly had to pay anything.

Our last stop was to Klein's Greenhouse, because I had a coupon for $5 off this month on a houseplant for my birthday. I knew just what I wanted, too - a black ZZ plant, because the one at work really didn't like being watered with leftover coffee (weird, because the green ZZ plant LOVED it), and it is barely alive. It hasn't died completely yet, but it hasn't had any new growth in forever, and it lost all its leaves, so it just has some stumps sticking up. Everything I've read says it can recover, but will it? I promise never to water the new black ZZ plant with old, cold coffee. It was also a lot cheaper, even before the coupon, than the original black ZZ plant was. Maybe I got ripped off with that one.

We went back home, and I wrote a story in the creative writing journal. Here is my story, using the prompt "A taxi driver who is hailed by his doppelgänger:"

Easy McGee was out driving his cab last Thursday night when he was hailed by someone who looked suspiciously familiar. He wasn't very interesting-looking, and Easy tried to place where he'd seen him before.
"Where you goin'?" Easy asked him.
"The Four Foot Hotel," said the stranger. "Wait... don't I know you from somewhere?"
"Name's Easy McGee," said Easy.
"Hm," said the stranger as he slid into the cab. "That doesn't ring a bell. I'm Wiley O'Reilly."
Easy inspected Wiley in the rearview mirror, then he let his eyes slide to his own face and realized with a shock where he'd seen the man before.
"We could be twins!" he said.
"Interesting," said Wiley. "Where do you hail from?"
"Alberta, Georgia."
"I'm from Georgia, Alberta. How old are you?"
"Forty-six," said Easy, who wasn't ashamed of being middle-aged, though he considered the question impertinent.
"Me too," said Wiley, and then he turned into five raccoons wearing party hats... and Easy McGee woke up in his own bed.

Me again. I emailed the story to Cecil and said, "Sorry you wasted your money like that." Which reminds me that when we were texting about the Django Djam, he said he was going to have a grasshopper even if it shortened his life, so Travalon said, "Life is short. Why not make it shorter?" and Cecil said, "That is some good Croatian logic!" And in case you are wondering, there is no Alberta, Georgia, nor is there a Georgia in Alberta. That's why it's called "fiction."

I wasn't sure if the Irish session at Lakeside Coffee House was canceled due to snow, and the red-headed flute player was out of town anyway, but Famie went and said there were a ton of people there. I got there a bit late, and my fiddle was only a little out of tune, plus she didn't seem mad like the mandolin - she seemed happy to see me, like, "Ah, there you are again, old friend!" But Famie and I were flummoxed by the sheer number of tunes we didn't know. Once in a while they would play one we knew, but it was too fast for her to play along. Travalon had dropped me off, so when he came back at what I thought was the ending time for the session, I went over to join him, and just then they decided to play the Ballydesmond Polkas, so of course I had to stay for that. According to Famie, the session was still going strong almost an hour after I thought it was ending, but I was done anyway. She said they played a lot more tunes we knew last month, while I was on my trip with Travalon. That's okay, I'll take palm trees over jigs and reels any day.

Famous Hat