|
|
|
fruitless hunt for cherry pie
Saturday, January 13 2024
Overnight we'd had a long period of drenching rains that reinvigorated all the still-running rivulets in the forest. I'd awaken at around 3:00am, worried that it might be too much water for the outdoor unit, which was sitting at a tilt on the side of a steep slope. So I'd gone out in one of Gretchen's rain-proof winter coats (since I didn't know of any raincoat that fits me). I could only fit an arm in one of the sleeves, but even so I was able to use blocks to get the outdoor unit mostly level on the slope. It's designed to be out in the rain, so I'd figured that would be good enough.
The day started out balmy and nice, with temperatures in the 50s, but by this evening at the second stop of the day I made at Ghettoford Hannaford (details below), it had turned blustery and cold.
Once we'd had our usual Saturday morning ritual in the living room, Gretchen went off to walk Charlotte while Neville and I drove to the Herzog's in uptown so I could get a better-sized masonry bit for my drill (the one I'd been using was making holes that were a little too big). I got a $8 DeWalt bit that promised to cut faster, which seemed like a good thing. While near the Ghettoford Hannaford, I also got some provisions: various vegetables, tofu, tempeh, Chobani oat milk, and a six pack of strong Belgian-style ale. As I was checking out, the transgender cashier in the 14 items or less line looked at my ale and said, "9.5% alcohol? That would kill me!" I took the opportunity to take $200 (the maximum) off my unemployment cash card while paying. And then, on the way out of the store, I found an additional unclaimed $20 bill on the floor. That never happens to me!
Back at the house, I resumed work on the split installation project, this time using the Ryobi battery-powered drill (set to "hammer") and the new bit. This combination worked great for drilling all the holes I needed to hang the external-unit support bracket, though I broke off two bolts in the wall as I was tightening them.
Once I had the bracket in place, it was time to scootch the heavy outdoor unit up the hill and then hoist it somehow to get it onto the brackets. I'd figured I'd have Gretchen help me with this, but I managed to break this process down into steps small enough for me to do them all myself. First I set up the pallet the split had been shipped on next to the brackets. Then I got the managed to wrestle the outdoor unit onto it. After that, I first propped up the pallet until it was level. Then I gradually lifted the outdoor unit one corner at a time, sliding a series of blocks under it until it was nearly level with the brackets. Once that was the case, I could use myself as a crane to gradually scootch the outdoor unit onto the brackets. But I had to be careful doing this, as the brackets were not designed to be pushed parallel to the surface of the earth.
After getting the outdoor unit secured to its brackets, I proceeded to do all the wiring, both at the outdoor unit and down in the basement, where I needed to shoehorn yet another circuit into the crowded circuit breaker box. (This required making two new slots by crunching down four circuits into two slots using so-called "tandem breakers.")
Meanwhile Gretchen and the dogs were over across the Hudson socializing with Falafel Cathy, her husband Roy, and their dogs at their newish dream house. Cathy and Roy had just spent several weeks in Isræl for Roy's pilot training (he's an El Al pilot), but mostly what they had to discuss was the fucked-up war unfolding in Isræl as it pummels Gaza in hopes of making Hamas pay for the atrocities it committed back in October.
When Gretchen returned from visiting Cathy and Roy, she and I eventually decided (partly in celebration of the split installation near-completion) to go the Broadway Lights Diner for dinner. We arrived at around 6:00pm, a normal dinner time, but it was during a lull in diner business. Our waitress was very on-the-ball and managed to take our order without writing anything down. We both ordered the veggie burger (as opposed to the Impossible Burger) since that was the mood we were in, as well as plate of spaghetti with marinara sauce. Gretchen went with the waffle fries, while I had the regular kind. The food was pretty good, though Gretchen found the spaghetti inedible because the noodles had been slightly overcooked. Over our meal, we mostly discussed the situation in Isræl. Gretchen said that Roy's view was that Isræl's major fuck-up had been in the aftermath of the 1967 war, when it decided to occupy the West Bank and Gaza (and, perhaps, the Golan Heights, though that tends to be mostly uncontested). I wasn't so sure, though it's true that Isræl's occupying and settling those territories is the thing that Hamas and others use to justify the terrible things they do. I pointed out how the worst of the terrorists and the hard right in Isræl, different as their world-views might be, mutually benefit by doing the things they do, since it marginalizes the political center and political left. As Cathy told Gretchen this evening, "there is no Left in Isræl any more."
Before we left the restaurant, Gretchen asked our waitress about the cherry pie she'd seen in the front display case. Had it been even vegan-adajcent, she probably would've ordered a slice. But the waitress came back from the kitchen after talking to the baker to tell us it had been made with lard.
On the way home, Gretchen hoped to satisfy her desire for cherry pie by stopping at the Ghettoford Hannaford. After crossing the bleak, windswept parking lot, we made a scattershot shopping foray through the store, eventually ending up in the bakery area. Unfortunately, the only fruit pies they had were apple and blueberry, inspid fruits that Gretchen wasn't craving. So she bought frozen cherries in case she was going to have to bake her own fucking pie.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?240113 feedback
previous | next |
