Genoa had me over for dinner on Sunday. I had been cloistered with several hundred of my fellows in political training over the weekend and had not been home long, just long enough to open a tin of beans to heat up for dinner, when I received the call.
"Want to come over for dinner? We're having pot roast. David's mom's cooking!"
I could not put the beans into the fridge for another day fast enough. It was not the food that had me knocking on Genoa's front door within 15 minutes, even though I had been previously been told what a great cook David's mom was, it was my unspoken desire for company. Good company at that.
See, it is not easy transitioning from hanging with hundreds of likeminded individuals to being by myself. I very much preferred arriving home to spend an evening with my late partner Sonja after being part of any such congress. A hug and a kiss went a long way in those days to getting back what was my real life most of the time. I did not anticipate being without a partner this long after Sonja was gone. Finding another has been good fun but thus far has lacked a satisfactory result.
Genoa met me at the door. David is having a little trouble with stairs since a cage driver brushed him in a parking lot earlier this spring.
"Glad you could make it!" she enthused as I shook the rain from myself and removed my shoes. Upstairs I found the family. David, his mom and Genoa putting the finishing touches on dinner; Genoa's mom folding an enormous pile of laundry; uncle Hank pouring me a beer; daughter Lucy being delighted by her iPad; and son John planning his own successful mission to Mars.
Once sitting around the dining room table, our plates loaded with pot roast, potatoes, broccoli and Yorkshire pudding all smothered with gravy rich and brown as a pint of Guinness, the subject of music came up. Turned out David's mom had seen the Velvet Underground at the Retinal Circus back in '68. "I remember them playing 'Heroin' and 'New Age'. That's about it." Like everybody else there she had taken acid and the quality of acid in '68 is well documented. It had been many years since I spoke to someone who had been at that show. If the Time Machine John was working on in addition to his Mars mission preparations were to come to fruition it would be to that Velvet Underground performance I would ask to be taken to.
After dinner we watched hockey. The fucking Oilers won. It would appear it is my patriotic duty to cheer on Canada's team in the Stanley Cup final. Trouble is, I am not real patriotic.
The storm had gotten worse since I arrived so Genoa asked me to, "Text me when you get home." The ditches are deep between her house and mine and the beer had done what it was supposed to do to me.
It is good having people care for me who are not family.
good old friends are the best!
ReplyDeleteFuck the oilers, indeed!