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nervous inertia
Monday, August 15 2016
location: Twenty Ninth Pond, Essex County, New York
Months ago when Gretchen booked the cabin on Twenty Ninth Pond, I had no job and was deeply underemployed. So she booked it for two weeks. Since then, I got a job, and of course I couldn't take two weeks off from a job I've only had for a little less than four months, so she re-negotiated the deal with our housesitters (who needed to attend an art opening in London during that second week anyway). The new arrangement was for me to return home this morning but for Gretchen and dogs (and a number of visitors) to stay at the cabin during my absence. I got up at around 8:00am this morning, made myself a peanut butter sandwich, loaded several bags of things into the car, kissed Gretchen goodbye, closed the door so Ramona wouldn't run after me, and started driving for home. I stopped at the Nice N Easy in Pottersville for coffee and jalapeño-flavored potato chips and then got on I-87 southbound, listening to podcasts as I drove. It took two and a half hours to drive back to Hurley, and I had to stop at the rest area in New Baltimore to take care of the two excretory functions. I would've bought french fries at the Roy Rogers, but they obvious were doing their stupid "breakfast menu," and instead of french fries they only offered things that looked like slices of small potatoes (though they probably weren't that).
When I rolled into the driveway at the house, I saw Overstreet out there with my tools working on some sort of platform for a mattress in the van, which looks exactly like what comes to mind when someone uses the term "perp van." He said that the van was having some sort of trouble, shaking strangely when it ran. I wondered if perhaps one or more of the cylinders weren't firing.
In the house, I chatted briefly with Stephanie and then began my remote shift at The Organization. She Overstreet took off after about an hour.
After they were gone, it took awhile to track down the various cats. The first to appear was Celeste (aka "the Baby"), and she looked so shell-shocked that I wondered if perhaps she'd witnessed Oscar eaten by a coyote. But Oscar was the second cat to appear, maybe an hour later down on the stone patio outside the basement master guestroom. And then I saw Clarence out on the east deck, his right eye looking fairly crusty from his intractable tear duct problem. At that point only two cats were missing, and I wondered if perhaps Sylvia was up on the solar deck. Sure enough she was, and she was so still I would've thought maybe she was dead had she not been so upright in her prone posture. The last cat to materialize was Julius (aka Stripey), whom I encountered out on the south deck. He was so surprised (and perhaps delighted) to see me that he started making that weird short, quiet meow he only does on occasions like this. Even so, he seemed to be nervous that I was a mirage, coming towards me hesitantly and seeming at any moment ready to bolt away. He's lived through many housesitters, though it always takes him awhile to come down from the nervous inertia they cause in him.
This evening, on a recommendation from Ca (the most sardonic of my remote colleagues), I started watching The Lobster, which was a little over-the-top absurd for my tastes. But it also had a taboo eroticism and was pleasantly Kubrickian, which are always good things in a film.
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