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Yeti and Intervention
Monday, December 13 2010
The other day I'd ordered a saw for cutting down overhead branches. It consists of two pieces of rope attached to length of chainsaw chain. You toss it up over the branch you want to cut off, and then pull the strings back and forth until the branch is cut through. It even has little metal fins to make sure the chain usually ends up teeth-side down. Unfortunately I'd been distracted while buying this saw via Amazon.com, and had accepted the default shipment method, which both cost money and required my signature when the saw was delivered. So of course our lazy mailman hadn't bothered to try to get my signature yesterday when he'd taken it on his route, meaning I'd have to go down to the Hurley post office to pick it up, a hassle, remember, that I wouldn't have had if only I'd remembered to check off "free shipping."
So I drove down to Hurley and parked in the post office space closest to the Stewart's. I got the parcel containing the saw from the post office and a sixer of warm Mountain Brew from the Stewart's. I continued performing errands all the way into town: checks into our account at the Hurley Avenue branch of Mid Hudson Valley Credit Union, and then some staple groceries (including two large-bottled microbrews) from Hannaford. I wondered if I could buy any cheap units of mirror in the Just a Buck store, but I really shouldn't have gone in there. There are few experiences quite as depressing as seeing people doing their Christmas shopping in a dollar store (the only thing worse would have been if this experience had been had in Canada).
Back home, I tried the limb saw on a few oak branches that intrude into the house's winter sunlight. The saw worked okay, but it's a bit of a mess to use. Nothing can get into nasty tangles quite like a sharp chainsaw blade attached to two 25 foot nylon ropes. The chain kept getting into those loopy kinks that can only be backed out of (by contrast, a rope with an identical kink can just be yanked taut).
Gretchen went out for dinner and I made another of those black-eyed pea curries that I love so much. Later I indulged in one of those large beers I'd bought earlier today. It was a Yeti Imperial Stout, which I'd bought only because of my good luck in cases where the adjective "imperial" had been attached to the term "India pale ale." Yeti, though, was a stout, a kind of beer about which I am ambivalent. (I like Guiness okay, but I really don't like Keegan Ale's Mothers Milk.) It was a surprisingly viscous fluid, pouring out of the bottle into my glass with the darkness and consistency of hot motor oil from a car that has not been receiving regular oil changes every six months. I put it to my lips and was astounded by the flavor: a blast of perfume followed by malty sweetness and, a rush of hoppy bitter, followed by waves of coffee and chocolate. It's the kind of experience you should try at least once before you die. I have a feeling I'll be trying it a lot more than that. Gretchen, who is a fan of wussy beers such as Stewart's Mountain Brew and Miller High Life, tried a sip of the Yeti and reacted in repulsed horror. You can't find a beer less like Miller High Life than Yeti Imperial Stout. (For the record, Gretchen actually likes Guiness, but only when in Ireland; she thinks something bad happens to it in transit across the Atlantic.)
While on the bottle Yeti suggests drinking it with grilled steaks, strong or salty blue cheese, or chocolate, I combined it with the latest episode from the new season of Intervention. Tonight we were treated to the story of the sore-festooned street junkie Rachel. She sleeps on the street with her abusive boyfriend, but when he winds up at Rikers, she takes up with a pot dealer with a mouth full of rotten teeth. Rachel's boyfriend drops a dime on Mr. Pot Dealer and the two trade places. Though her sores healed up in recovery, I was disappointed to see Rachel adopt a frumpy fashion sense and housewifely hairdo. Did kicking heroin really require the complete loss of her edge?
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