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masala in a strange season December 30, 2002 |
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Yes, it's the strange season here off the edge of the known universe. Not the silly season, just the strange season. The Christmas festivities began in earnest shortly after breakfast on the 22nd, Nancy's birthday, or maybe the night before that when we went to Tuba Christmas in Wickford right after I showered Nancy with birthday gifts (a Happy Eyes lamp, Heimskringla by Snorri Sturlusson, and a CD by the g*d of tuba players, John Griffiths) so she could sit home on her birthday reading and listening to music and waiting for the beeper to go off again. She's got it all of Xmas week and it doesn't work in Groton, though as we later found out, it does work at my house and, amazingly, on that stretch of Rt. 125 I always call valley of the static. So: tubas, gifts, sleep, get up too early, take her out to a birthday breakfast at Our Daily Bread at 8:00 AM or was it 7:45?
Off to open house at Mary's place in Groton. Who told me to turn right at Cumberland Farms? I'm late, I'm late... The mint brownies are very very good and as I'm leaving I request Mary to bring any leftovers to La Madre's on Wednesday. Andrea begs me not to leave. She hasn't had enough dosage of AJ yet today. I promise an expedition on the morrow as Starship Startup is shutdown (without pay I might hasten to point out) for the holiday period. Being a grownup, though an "unmature" one, I don't beg No Prob Bob not to go to Kuwait but the thought does cross my mind. Monday I deliver on the promised expedition and take Andrea to Marblehead where she gets to pet the quaint used cat formerly known as Domino currently known as DustJacket, browse the toy store whose dollhouse furniture is prohibitively expensive, and eat lunch at Foodies Feast. To my surprise, she likes the vegetable brown rice soup. I ran out of witty banter long before I returned her to Groton, but I think she got the appropriate dose of AJ time to hold her until at least Wednesday. Tuesday it's back to Providence for Christmas Eve with Nancy. Wait wasn't I just here? Wednesday morning comes around too soon and we have not laid in groceries (there are plenty at my place but none here) and no place is open to serve us coffee. I suggest we try Nancy's old neighborhood along Hope Street. When you need food on Xmas look for the Orthodox Jews and Muslims. Sure enough we get blueberry muffins at Kaplan's Bakery, and Not Just Snacks has just opened. We're the first customers in the place and the masala chai is still brewing. He tells us it takes about a half hour to make it and it's 10 minutes away from being ready. They don't do coffee. We are sitting there eating vegetable samosas and alu tikki when three young men come in and greet the owner with "Salaam Alaikem" and he responds "Merry Christmas, Salaam Alaikem!" I can't help exclaiming "I love America" They are all smiles. We have a good laugh. Our chai arrives. The owner comes around to find out if we want sugar and he notices the three young guys drinking coffee and eating something and teases them for bringing in "outside food". I glance over at their table. "Twinkies!" I laugh. We all laugh. Peace on earth. Goodwill to men. I love America. The big storm the TV weather dudes had been predicting for Wednesday starts as rain in Providence. It's still rain when we get to La Madre's but the forecast is ominous. Dinner and gift opening seem compressed. Lizzy notices we're opening the presents really fast. We want to be on the road before the big storm turns to snow and the wind picks up. Despite our hurry, the storm is well underway by the time we leave. There's a tree limb down in the street about 2 feet from my car. Not that I would have noticed another dent or anything... By the time we get from 128 onto I93 the driving is abysmal. The visibility deteriorates with every half mile further north and east we get. By the time I get off I93 at Rt. 125 toward North Andover the visibility is close to zero. I can see the road directly in front of me and I can feel the trees leaning down. It's blizzard conditions. Nancy's beeper goes off. I say we'll be at my house in 15 minutes and there's no place for me to pull off the road to dial my new cell phone for her. Supposedly she has 15 minutes to respond. She's given the answering service my new cell phone number just in case and within 10 minutes it starts ringing. When she tells them we're driving in a blizzard the answering service disbelieves. Apparently it's only rain in Newport. She assures the answering service she'll deal with the call as soon as we get to my house. Home at last, I want nothing more than to curl up with Wilbur and a hot cup of tea and start reading the pile of books I got for Christmas or the Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn I picked up at Much Ado on Monday. Nancy deals with the emergency call while I put on warmer socks. The power flickers. It flickers again. The power goes out. Family members check in with tales of long and tricky rides home. The power stays off. I find the flashlight and some candles. Nancy's beeper goes off again. She tells the answering service we're without power. They are disbelieving. I hold the flashlight over the emergency services logbook while she deals with yet another emergency. The power came back on around 11:00 PM only to go out again in the morning, thus forcing me to shovel out the car from under a foot of snow without coffee. At least the crazy lady didn't go all wacky in the snow. She actually let a neighbor help shovel her out without yelling at him. My car was the second to last one liberated because the plow had cleverly placed the lion's share of the snow in the northeast corner of the parking lot - right behind my car. Once I got the car out, with help from one of the Russian Parking Space Blockers, I figured it was best to find some coffee and bagels at someplace with power and then keep the heck out of the parking lot until the plow cleared the whole thing. Luckily, the Andover incarnation of Perfecto's had power and hence coffee.
By the time we left the beach, ate at Angelina's, and drove back to my house, the power was back on. I was way too tired to drive back to Providence and so persuaded Nancy to stay another night. The power stayed on. We went back to the beach again the next morning and got a good view of the barge that ran aground last week while attempting to transport a crane to the Chain Bridge. The waves weren't nearly so big and tons of people were out and about, mostly gawking at the stranded barge and its improbable crane. Finally, I couldn't put off returning Nancy to Providence any longer so headed south. There was barely any snow there! No wonder the folks in Newport were so disbelieving. We wound up the holiday festivities with breakfast at Downcity and a very long (over two hours) browse among the used books at Cellar Stories. I went home and fell asleep with The Birds of Swan Point in my hand. I slept through until Sunday afternoon at 3:00 PM. And so that was Christmas. I don't think we're going to do New Years. |
Today's Reading This Year's Reading
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Copyright © 2002, Janet I. Egan |
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When
my phone bill arrived today I immediately noticed the $5.61
credit for the five days I had no phone service at the end
of November. I don't know how they calculate it - by the
day, by the hour, by the annoyance to the customer - but it
seems oddly odd. Shouldn't it be an even number? Not that I
can explain why I think that... It took forever, well not
forever, only 5 days, for them to find the electrical fault
in the underground wire. The best part of the whole
experience was when the second or third phone guy came to
the door to ask how to get into the courtyard between
buildings where the phone service comes into the building.
The condo association has installed locks on the gates of
all these courtyards for some reason. I think originally to
prevent kids from disconnecting people's electrical service,
which happened so often that the electric company put
individual locks on all the connections. Of course that was
long after I'd had a lock put on mine because some kid
disconnected my electric service: a story the crazy lady
didn't believe when I told her (she asked about the locks on
the electric service - this was before the locks on the
gates). Anyway, the phone guy wanted to know how to get in
to the courtyard. So I went outside with him, took one look
at the lock, and asked him "Have you got a Phillips
screwdriver?" I could see light dawn on his face as he
looked at what I was looking at. The latch is fastened to
the gate with two Phillips screws! You don't need to mess
with the lock, just take the thing the bolt slides into off
the gate and presto, you are in like Flynn.
Priceless!
Then
it's on to La Madre's house for breakfast with BiB, whom we
will have to rename now that he is not in Bosnia or the
Balkans but BiK doesn't quite have that nice euphonious ring
to it and Bob the Builder is already taken. "Can we fix it?
Yes we can!" "No prob, Bob." Funny how I never noticed
Mother Teresa growing out of his left shoulder before. Nor
had I ever noticed until Nancy mentioned it that Mother
Teresa bears a strong resemblance to the portrait of Dorothy
Day that hangs over the couch in La Madre's living room. Not
that Dorothy Day will ever be beatified - those leftist
Catholics don't get no respect... back to our brother Bob of
the Desert... or let's just stick with No Prob Bob. That's
the ticket. Anyway, it's breakfast Version 2.0 followed by
opening of Xmas gifts to and from No Prob Bob. The rest of
us (that is, those of us not kids or his Secret Santa) will
have to wait until Christmas Day. 
Once
fed and caffeinated, we decided to go to Plum Island. We
took the boardwalk at parking lot 2 or is it 3, wending our
way through the dunes on the ice-coated planks to a stunning
view of huge waves crashing against the dunes. A small flock
of sanderlings scrambled along the water line dwarfed by the
waves. It must be amazing to be a sanderling. 