"There is nothing worse..."

December 24, 2007

At the market I am mostly interested in getting things sold quickly, helping customers, cutting down on the time they have to wait. But, being very visual in nature, wanting the presentation to look nice, I employ my helpers to draw up little signs that emphasize the product and its possible uses. Some of them are talented artists, even students at the local college of art. They do excellent work, stuff that the customers even comment on. Then I try my hand at these little sketches, want to put my own stamp on the display. The results are nothing short of terrible; clunky, belabored scribblings, with dark lines hinting possibly at a dark nature hidden therein. Some of the signs, meant to be innocent representations of prices and their corresponding products, are in fact frightening. But, pressed for time, I hastily put them out anyway—especially when I don’t have my talented help with me, have only someone who is good at selling and other tasks more closely associated with organization and re-stocking. It’s at these times that I have to be the default artist, the scrawler of self-conscious and incomprehensible works. I look at a piece of bread, the depiction in one of my signs. It could easily be a torpedo or a bomb. No one would mistake it for what it is actually supposed to be. This weighs heavily on me.

December 25, 2007

Christmas day, and finally time to think about eating. I put out some of the meat I bought at the butcher’s last week, wanted to put it to use before the fresh products started to spoil. Three sausages were there—three different kinds. In addition, some good stewing beef, cut into cubes, still wrapped in its paper in the fridge. It would have to wait.
At the last market I bought some enormous carrots for the stew, some onions and potatoes as well. The carrots, freakishly large, looked dangerous. I tried cutting them into little carrot sticks for a Christmas Eve get-together. They were still too large. The remaining bent and orange roots are still too many for me to use, but I’ll do my best to stuff them into the stew. Maybe tomorrow, that’s what I think.

I started a fire for the sausages, put some wood together out back and piled the reluctant kindling into the little Weber grill I occasionally use. The fire didn’t want to catch, having just finished up a prolonged and soaking wet spell. For a little while it looked promising, as if the blaze might get going. Then it would sputter out, smoking in a desultory kind of way, just a few embers glowing at the bottom. They soon would go out, too. I went next door, picked out a scrap piece of pine lumber, turned on the table saw, and cut at the board again and again. I shaved off wafers of kindling—good, dry pieces of untreated pine. I cut up most of the small board, leaving a chunk for future use. Then I gathered up the pieces and started over. This time the blaze was instant, the work of a match and a small splinter of dry pine. The rest of the wood caught fire and I went inside to tend to other cooking matters. I’d already boiled the fresh sausage, as the specialists who know these things had instructed long ago. Seven minutes, they all agreed, then onto the fire for some color—but not too long. I remembered the German lady’s words:
“There is nothing worse than a dry sausage.”

So the embers glowed down to just a bed of simmering fire, no real flames now—the substantial pieces of wood all gone, leaving just this. I finished up my project in the kitchen, making a batch of macaroni and cheese, moving things about and out of the way for the small meal. In between the sausage and the macaroni, I would run upstairs to see what was unfolding on the television. My favorite show, featuring a fat man and his attractive wife, was playing. They were trying to have a baby, and his parents were coming to stay for a few days. I wanted to see how they would work around this. As usual, this is a show I discovered about five years after it made its debut. As a result, the episodes I watch are all reruns, as they are not currently making new shows. It has ended for good, from what I understand.

Earlier in the day I’d arisen while it was still morning—but just barely. With mild temperatures, I decided to paint the floor of my new shed. The large sheets of wood I’d just installed would quickly deteriorate if left unfinished. I backed the riding mower out of the space and onto the lawn, hooking it up to the battery charger to give it a little boost to help weather the winter. It had actually started under its own power, had sounded strong and hardy as the little motor turned over before firing up.

I took out a can of Bob Vila paint that I found in the basement, an ultra high-quality finish that I’d bought for about two bucks at Sears. It was discontinued, no longer offered, and they wanted to be rid of the paint. For that matter, they may want to be rid of Bob Vila as well; I don’t believe he and Sears still enjoy a relationship. This was the paint that I remember the young salesman telling me would be suitable for a “tank.” I hadn’t really known what he meant, but saw that—when I spread the paint around with my roller—it did if fact look like the stuff they painted military equipment with. I used an unorthodox approach to my painting: To keep my equipment clean, I simply poured directly onto the floor the paint that I would then spread with my roller. It worked just fine, and I didn’t have to clean up the paint-roller pan that I would have normally used. I should say that the Bob Vila paint did a fantastic job, covering the space easily and thoroughly. If it is warm again tomorrow, I may put on another coat.

I did nothing in the way of work on the other house. The shed doesn’t count, as this is really something I use for my own house. I did, however, put an online ad—with photo—for the lock I just removed from the front door. Someone already responded to the ad, said she would pick it up this Friday. I listed it for five bucks, would probably give it away if it came down to it. But still: Five bucks—nothing to sneeze at.