Don't Let Your Ice Melt
I am on a compound in the Saunderstown, RI area, within a herculean stones throw of the Jamestown Bridge, amongst friends, a surprising lack of bugs, cases of wine, and some beer and liquor under clear skies on a hot day in July. Today will be a hot one. Other days of this week maybe somewhat less so. That was the weather report. I nuked yesterday's coffee for Bernadette and myself this morning, listened to a bit of Prayer for Owen Meany the audiobook, played a round of drawsomething, and now am contemplating my first Dark and Stormy, a drink made with your choice of proportions of rum, lime juice and ginger beer. I am not daunted by the fact of 10 a.m.
We have this engineer flown in, at his expense, from the Bay Area each year to assist in the preparation and consumption of the large slabs of meat and gallons of alcohol and for example yesterday to co-pilot for me on a supply run into the neighboring areas for more liquor, propane, and if he had his way, propane accessories.
This isn't right I said 15 seconds after leaving the driveway in front of our second house. We claimed two houses this year. I had not even left the compound. No, the engineer said, you are going exactly opposite of our desired direction. I have a phone with a talking mapping program turned on, an iPad connected via bluetooth to a gps receiver marking our way on a pre-downloaded map, the engineer has his phone also with mapping program, and we have the experience of having been here one year previous. I turn around not actually chuckling but with the slightest hint of a spirit of mirth.
In the town of Wickford we park cautiously in a spot which we are fully aware is not that close to our liquor store destination and head off, soon taking a ninety degree turn in the wrong direction and after several blocks are staring stupidly at our individual smartphones. I can honestly say I am staring stupidly, not really seeing anything, or in truth even making the slightest effort at comprehension. The Engineer? I don't know, I've known him for over 30 years and I realize this is unfair but I tend to cling to this higher expectation regarding his skills of comprehension on all subjects. On this day however I was starting to think, could he be as big a dumbass as I am? But true to my expectations he does get us righted after a bit and we head off on foot, correcting our earlier mistake but soon pause, and I say, we should probably walk back to the car and drive to this liquor store. So we do that, only parking in some adjunct lot that faces the back of the store and causes me to suffer a brief panic regarding the operating hours of this unfamiliar liquor store.
But I get some more rum and beer and again we are off, this time in the opposite direction past our compound, the engineer on the phone after our first fail and me starting to realize this could be hell, I mean you know, being this long gone from the compound and the point of it by my reckoning, a place to relax with an always full cool beverage at hand.
After his first call I realized The Engineer's earlier seeming enthusiasm for this supply trip was not even in part based on an eagerness to be an assisting co-pilot, but rather what he saw as an adventure pretty surely to have some early failures so that he would have his chance to get on the phone and in all seriousness and with believable sincerity say to some local--uh yes, can you tell me, do you sell propane and uh, propane accessories. If you are thinking, I guess you had to be there, no, not really. Don't get off the boat and don't let your ice melt between drinks.
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