A new year

January 1, 2008

Last night I went out, spent a good deal of time celebrating the arrival of another year with music, an outdoor fire, friends—and maybe a coke or two. There were many talented musicians there, persons who had diligently studied their instruments, had put in the grinding hours to perfect technique and precision. Nevertheless, I was also allowed to play, invited to take a spot at the drumset—my often-random jabbings at the percussive things resulting in an interesting mix of sound. Having some familiarity with the material, it was not a terrible hardship to suffer my playing for a little while. Those present seemed to enjoy all of the musical offerings—no matter who was actually playing the songs.

Almost precisely at twelve midnight, with couples moving together to get their New Year’s embrace, the electricity went dark. No light anywhere, except for some candles. This continuedß for the next two hours, until around two in the morning. Someone had turned on the big television, watched for a few seconds the incomprehensible ball falling to mark the transition of time. I’d stood by, making wisecracks to mask the obvious state of being alone on this holiday. If I had to be solitary, I may as well be entertaining. I struck up a conversation with a likely woman from the Midwest, felt things out there in the dark. She was attending the party with her husband of nine years.

Januuary 2, 2008

Now it is that after-holiday time, when everyone has to get back to it. It is almost surprising for me to walk into a government office and see the workers there doing what they do, getting paperwork filed, filling in forms, and so on. You’d expect the new year to be celebrated for a bit longer—maybe until August or September, when it’s really gotten underway and you can look back on things to actually celebrate. Plus, there’s always the new year looming just a few months away.

So I awoke with a headache and a very sore throat, thinking that this was maybe a sign to stay in bed for a little while. The cats—one in a laundry basket and the other on a pillow—seemed in no particular hurry to face the day, so I got up, took some aspirin, and went back to bed. I thought that I should accomplish at least a little something, so I started my day just before noon, got shaved and left to have my Ohio truck’s inspection finished up. Then off to the motor vehicle agency to wrap up the whole business.

As I mentioned before, I had two new tires installed to meet the safety requirements laid out by the state’s motor vehicle code. This cost me around $250. When I casually mentioned this to my mechanic friend, he told me that he had the identical tires, hardly worn at all, waiting to find a new home. I’d stopped by his shop on New Year’s day to say hi and found them there—the tires he’d spoken of. They were, in fact, identical.

At the department of motor vehicles things went smoothly. I transferred the license plates from the old van (which I’d been using anyway) to the new Ohio truck. The woman there put the registration in place so that the old tags now went with the new van, and I was finally legal. My headache wasn’t much abated, so I looked at my Washington Post, which just got a price hike to fifty cents, and waited. It seems that the state legislature had just raised the fee for getting a new vehicle title to more than double the old fee—which was twenty-three bucks. Had I gotten this paperwork done before 2008, I would have enjoyed the lower fee. One of the women there groused that O’Malley was not her governor, that she had not voted for him, didn’t like all these new fees and taxes. For my part I have no great feelings about him one way or the other, regard him as mostly a harmless leprechaun.

Later I ate the rest of my beef stew and headed over to the cold house to make some more progress on the bathroom. I thought it would be pleasant to get at least a little work done. I cut at the old pine floor with the circular saw that cuts at an odd angle. I only use this saw for demolition work, since it really doesn’t require precise cuts. For these jobs it works just fine. I cut up and removed over half the floor, finding the skeletal remains of a mouse in the process. It looked to have been a healthy mouse in its day, well-developed with a large frame. I hope it was able to enjoy its time in the house—before it finished its run there under the bathroom floor, just above the basement ceiling.

I boxed up the floor and the mouse skeleton and set the trash out for tomorrow’s pickup. I try not to load down the trashmen every week with these leavings, but it seems like it’s about time that I put something out there for them. There are four boxes plus one trashcan—a medium offering. This night is cold and clear, a typical winter evening. The wind has subsided somewhat, but has been blowing and gusting all day long—making the chilly temperatures feel even colder. If this continues into Saturday, it will be a cold market.

Earlier I’d gone to the local mega-grocery to pick up some sandwich meat. I was in the mood for ham. A woman there was ordering micro-quantities of just about every goddamned meat there was. Plus cheeses—she wanted those, too. Everything was light banter with this odious woman, who fancied herself quite clever.
“I’ll have a heavy quarter of the Mortadella,” she would say, ordering something that sounded like a macabre offering from the underworld. The meat-clerk, who had already bagged about fifteen different selections for her, was not in the mood for lighthearted banter.
“Is that too much?” she would ask—indicating the meat lying on the scale.
“No—I said a HEAVY quarter,” replied the clever woman.
And on and on like this. Her husband stood by with the cart, used to his wife’s displays of “personality.” At parties he would say things like, “Oh—you know my Doris, she’s a real character! A real live wire! A FIRECRACKER I tell ‘ya!”
“I’ll have a heavy half of the domestic Swiss.”