The start of a new month such as today on Tuesday, August 1st is in this instance notably more distinguishable not for its date at the beginning of the month (and all that that entails for those of you inclined to rejuvenation and purgatory) but rather for the uncommonly cool weather we’re having. Naturally I hesitate to utter the word autumnal. But admittedly the thought had raced across my mind.
By serendipitous misfortune Petro-Canada gas stations (where I have for decades purchased automobile fuel and car washes) have lately suffered seemingly insurmountable technical obstacles related to the management and performance of their gas pumps and drive-through car washes. Though I have only tried my Petro-Canada gas card and car wash card at three separate stations (all with complimentary failure), the alleged Internet scam appears to be universal for Petro-Canada.
My patience with my historic provider ended this morning when confronting yet another impediment which the franchisees were unable to perfect except by handing me a free car wash code each time I trouble myself to get out of the car and stand in line at the interior counter to inquire about the on-going status.
It was an effort to get out of bed this morning. I kept tossing from side to side anticipating the impending duty of performance. It is His Lordship’s 70th birthday today. Accordingly I felt a degree of revelry were not inappropriate. I had been awake for what felt like hours already. I kept mulling over in my mind the commission I had to put my feet on the floorboards before nine o’clock (by which time I figured I’d be able fully to address the celebratory exigencies of the day). As it turned out, following my impenetrable dosing, it was closer to ten o’clock before I threw back the duvet and thus effectively declared myself among the living. Now, hours later, after having accomplished morning ablutions, enjoyed a BBQ sausage luncheon on the picnic table beside Almonte Butcher (with Ivy, Jericho and their dad), having reeled in my erstwhile physician from his personal medical remedy to join us momentarly at the trough, and finally having routinely gone to Stittsville to have the car washed (and afterwards while there to investigate the new Halo Car Wash including getting a free introductory car wash), I have as usual resorted to my mahogany desk in the ‘drawing room to seek the predictable stimulus of the upriver view beneath the stormy and ever-changing atmosphere.
Heading out to sea while understandably not for the faint of heart, is otherwise and (by what I imagine to be reasonable standards) considered a glamorous and fetching celebration charged with magnetic potential and intrigue. What after all could be more wholesome than bouncing about on a cork on open water miles from land’s end or familiar territory with nothing but the horizon to indicate whence you came or wither you go! And from what little I recall of my erstwhile sailing days, the character of the sea is highly mutable though seemingly inconspicuous.
The rain has formed shiny blobs of water each the size of a beetle on the black balcony railing. Beyond the balcony perimeter in the field 100 yards away the corn stalks arise from their nutritional palette with golden crowns in parallel lines throughout the 25-acre parcel. A hawk sails low over the weeds and flowers in the meadow. The river churns endlessly on. A squall flattens and polishes a portion of the river surface surrounding a large shoreline tree. The sky is a uniform murky grey with the occasional blur of azure. The humidity is palpable. The blobs of water on the balcony railing are not drying. They persist like clear plastic buttons or ornaments suitable for a cake. The dilapidated barn in the distance is now almost completely consumed by the surrounding verdancy in the field.
It is only within the past 4 months (since we precipitously learned of the inhibiting sale aspirations of our landlord on Key Largo) that we have succumbed to the perishing dread of having to contemplate our own renewed ambitions in the subtropics. As is normal the conflicts are nothing which cannot be cured by a little time and a lot of money. Indeed it is one of the central obscurities of this unraveling that the rental vacation market has suddenly rocketed skyward.
Pardon my ignorance but I haven’t a clue about the precise content of Mediterranean food. I only know that it tastes good and that it is good for you; sort of like cheeseburger and onion rings. And the other thing about which I am yet more ignorant is cooking. Combining the good I know (taste) with the bad I don’t know (culinary) it seemed an eminently sound recovery to spread the good news about this new recipe. I call it Denis Doodle (though I’m open to improvement).
It’s 10:00 o’clock in the morning. A balmy midsummer weekday that promises to be sultry. Meanwhile it is peaceful and calm. My ablutions and preliminary necessities are complete. I am fully prepared to welcome the day with nothing planned. Only the habitual accommodations and elaborations. A shameless repetition of my dearest preoccupations, the tarnished but trustworthy episodes which have come to distinguish my indisptuable monotony and shallowness. The reward of unflappability. The blurry morning sunshine spreads over the burgeoning distant corn fields. At my desk in the withdrawing room on the 2nd floor of our apartment building, listening to CBC classical recordings, overlooking the balcony and across the meadow towards the river, I imagine myself being on the bow of a ship at the helm headed out to sea.
It is indisputable. Lately we’ve endured our share of angst. And while for my part I’d like to lay the blame smartly on something complicated, I have nothing other than a left knee replacement to solemnize the complaint. In any event it matters not whence one’s perturbation derives. Nor equally may it matter by what means the malady dissipates.
We’ve found ourselves in a travel turmoil. Our formerly scheduled 5-month winter sojourn on Key Largo has been overtaken by fortune; in our case, misfortune. The landlord of the place we had rented has decided to sell and, presumably as a result, not to extend our contract for another year. This stunning (though admittedly not entirely unanticipated) reversal of plans has caused more than one precipitous action on our part. In our haste to reconfigure this once palatable hibernation we may have moved more quickly than judicious. Whatever the appropriate dance steps attending this particular waltz, we’ve somehow landed back upon what for us has always been reliable territory; viz., Hilton Head Island. I don’t however think we were prepared for what evolved. Unimaginably the upcoming season there appears to be largely (if indeed not exclusively) already booked. We therefore chose to proceed with accommodation (if I may characterize our abrupt consolation as such). I congratulate Mrs. Gail Edmonds, Estate Agent of Destination Vacation for her unsurpassable assistance.