Last Holiday, Sans Peanut, Days 18 & 19

Well, it's not a cat but it is small and stupid with a face like a nightmare so it just might do.

Day 18

Grim. Don't feel well at all -- did I get too much sun? Nauseous nauseated, ill at ease. Drive to Cap Pele in a futile search for potato salad ingredients. When did white wine vinegar become so exotic? Company coming between 6 to 6:30 so I start barbecuing with a mind to serve dinner around 6:50. This being the maritimes, people arrive at 7, and C tells me that we won't be eating until at least 7:30, because "people need a chance to visit first". So the meat is well done. I'm also told that "there is no sense of time at the cottage". I'll remember that.

C opens up all the windows before going to bed because it's "stuffy" (Fresh Air Nazis rejoice) and to give the sideways-driving rainstorm full cottage access. It nicely soaks a pile of books she piled up for me on the windowsill (actually it's some kind of fucking cat ledge, but don't get me started). She says I should have closed the window when I was stumbling around in the dark at 3 a.m, when I was chased to the couch by someone's kicking and snoring. I stand corrected. Anyway, what do I know? I haven't slept for days. There's no sense of time at the cottage!

Day 19

Big rain. I sit at the table by the front picture window (the one C would turn into sliding doors) and watch hummingbirds be cruel to each other. I pay some bills, write some postcards. Later I'll make a nice fire. Lunch, nap. No Chinese gangsters today, which takes the edge off. And I do feel better.

I deal with the garbage (it has to be hauled up the road and of course C likes to fill the bags with bottles and bricks, I swear to God she'd put in an air conditioner if she could) and walk to the store. After some potato salad leftovers I have my twice-weekly shower (C once yelled at me for having too long a shower, at which point I said Fine, bring on the stink) and play Cranium with C. I win so she immediately disparages my guessing skills. Then we go over to Cousin Jane's, where a mystery guest awaits ... turns out to be a guy who works just up the hall from C, who happened to visiting the shore and had no idea C was down here. The work stories go on until midnight (I guess ... with all this futility of time, I threw my watch in the ocean), and then we wobble home in the dark.