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if you know what I mean
Sunday, November 10 2024
It was cool enough this morning to justify a fire in the woodstove as I drank my coffee (Gretchen might've had some decaf leftover from yesterday) and we played Spelling Bee, though not collaboratively. At some point Gretchen read that New York Times Digital is going on strike, and that readers shouldn't "cross" picket lines by, for example, playing their favorite New York Times word games. Having once been a labor organizer and always wanting to do the right thing by labor in such situations, she played a variant of Wordle where the answer turned out to be, well, "LABOR." I suggested that if she wanted to play Spelling Bee without crossing the picket line, she could play my version, which spiders the New York Times Spelling Bee page once per day and otherwise gives them no eyeballs. She said she would, which made me happy, as I'd implemented a lot of the features in my version with the hope that she would use it, something she has never done. (That manifestation of inertia against an easy change is how platforms get away with enshittification, something I've been reading a lot about now that I don't have the stomach to follow the actual news.)
In the late morning, I broke out the little hand jackhammer and continued clearing away old concrete, bluestone, and mortar on the slab in front of the front door so that I can repave it. Later in the afternoon when I took Charlotte for her second walk of the day (Neville didn't come), I went up the Chamomile Headwaters Trail about a third of the way and then climbed the steep, low hill to its south. Up there somewhere is an abandoned old bluestone mine, and I wanted good pieces for my repaving project. I found some great pieces, including one that would've been way too heavy to carry out had I not also brought my firewood-hauling backpack. That piece ended up being a bit large for my repaving project, so its probably going to end up at the Adirondack cabin.
This afternoon Gretchen texted our mutual college friend Kristen down in New Paltz to check a reference from a tenant prospect whom Gretchen had just shown the Brewster Street rental to and who knows Kristen. But she seemed to Gretchen, well, "crazy." "I think you should trust your gut on that one," Kristen texted back. They then had a voice conversation, talking for some time about the recent disastrous presidential election. And in so doing, Kristen gave voice to something I was feeling, which is "trapped," or maybe it was "caged." We're stuck with this horrible human as our president "whether we like it or not," and his effects will be so large that not even leaving the country would be a means of escape.
This evening Gretchen and I drove to the Garden Café yet again for yet another meal. This time we were dining not just with Gretchen's ex Barbara, but also our friends Lynne and Greg. We quickly established the ground rules for our dinner conversation so as not to cause anyone too much stress talking about the disastrous result of the recent presidential election. I suggested we could talk about it, so long as we didn't dwell on it. And that seemed to be the rule, though perhaps with the ability for anyone to knock the table as an indication that dwelling had begun. Initially, we talked about how evil Elon Musk is, something I said I was comfortable talking about for the entire meal. Lynne and Greg actually have a Tesla, which they think is a great car. But, like many Tesla owners, they'd bought it before Elon showed himself to be a crazed Nazi-adjacent blowhard. They said they'd even consider putting a bumpersticker to that effect on the back of it (though they agreed with my assessment that Tesla people are not the kind to put stickers on their cars). Other topics included what sorts of candy we all like and what sort of dynamics existed in our respective high schools regarding parameters such as familial wealth and academic success. Barbara had the most interesting perspective, having been born into a poor family but having only attended private all-girls Catholic schools. When she mentioned how large her class was after her little school combined with a bigger one, I noted "That's a lot of Catholic schoolgirls all in one place!" "You know it!" Barbara replied, using the tone of mock predator."
Gretchen and I have been joking for weeks about a country song called "Miles on It," which features a line in the chorus that goes, "We can break it in if you know what I mean." Compared to a Nina Simone song we'd just heard on the radio (where Nina sings about wanting a little sugar in her bowl), "Miles on It" sounds crass. Nina never felt the need to add "...if you know what I mean." This had led Gretchen to note that if you add, "...if you know what I mean" to any statement, it suddenly becomes sexual. This observation bled into this evening's dinner conversation, with "...if you know what I mean" being a recurring punchline. We also chuckled over various lines from Spinal Tap's "Big Bottoms" when Greg went out to his car to get a cushion to sit on. I began that with, "The bigger the cushion, the sweeter the pushin'."
At some point Leah, the restaurant's owner, came over and gave us a huge about of red bean soup to go completely gratis. She then regaled us with stories of the four or five people who tried to sue her or otherwise get her to fork over money during the past ten years or so. One such story involved parents knowingly feeding their kid peanuts and then freaking out (probably as an act) when he started projectile vomiting everywhere.
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