Travels with The Rayman

In the age of the pandemic, it might be true that times, they are a boring.  At this point in it all, the days have a sameness about them like they did when we worked for a living…except different with the masks and all.  Get up.  Have coffee.  Read the news.

Ah, ha.  I must interrupt myself…read the news.  It is more like spend an hour spitting out phrases like, “I can’t believe it.  Can he just do that?” or the old stand-by, “This guy is a moron!”.  And while I am at it I would be remiss if I didn’t also repeat a favorite, “Where are the GOP Senators and why aren’t they stopping this insanity?”.   

After arousing my dander, I then have to calm myself down and go about my business of doing…toilet cleaning.  Or dusting, or marinating the meat, or any of the mundane but necessary rituals of life.  

Rayman, for his part, is fast becoming the fastest, bestest solitaire player on the planet.  This hobby of his has me marveling that his neck has heretofore hasn’t atrophied into a permanent state of “hang down”.  He can still rotate and lift his noggin so there is that but this ain’t over yet, is it?

He excels in honey-dos and is fast becoming good friends with the woman behind the cash register at our local market as I cook and realize I don’t have enough honey for the fig-anise ice cream I’m making or the lack of powdered ginger…”how can I not have powdered ginger?”   It can be said that even with lists, things go awry.   Or as Rayman would put it, “You need what?

More reading ensues with my digital magazines (The Atlantic to name just one) and my book whatever it is at the time.   I review the news, the latest outrage and then it is fixing meals.  I have discovered a newfound admiration for my grandma.  She put on the table three square meals a day.  Rare was the day when we ever went out to eat.  My going out to eat as a kid was eating in the school cafeteria until I was in high school and then I broadened my culinary experience by ordering hamburgers from the Fosters Freeze or Wilson’s which were smartly located across the street from the school.  

But I digress.

Cooking has been a hobby of mine for years and even it has lost its luster in this time of cholera.  I love cooking but every day?  It becomes a drag as I try to find recipes, gather the goods, plan my timing and attack the kitchen with vim and vigor only to find myself half way through wanting to take a seat and be waited on.   Sometime I skip the infernal stirring the recipe requires.  Or sometimes I make mistakes.  Often times parsley is chopped and then left on the chopping block because it is required as an adornment to the finished main star of the meal and I completely forget the last step.  That the parsley is missing sometimes isn’t noticed until clean up and there it is found, sitting in a clump on the tiny chopping block from Ikea.

But where was I?  

Oh, yes.  Boring.  Things get boring.  

Yesterday was a respite from boredom.  Rayman and I drove to the Ace Hardware to buy sand for our new umbrella stand.  We need a second umbrella because our neighbor behind us owed three threes that were growing inches from each other … Last summer we offered to have a tree removed…a split leaf maple that was listing toward our house.  Our neighbor accepted our offer.  The tree was chopped down.  When we returned to the SHIP, the middle tree of the trilogy of trees, a sad skinny affair that seemed out of place but happy to be there, had been abused of many of its lower branches.  The Douglas fir has been trimmed of lower branches.    Damn.  We picked our SHIP based on the trees, privacy and the shade.  What to do?  Buy a second umbrella which completes the circle.  Sand will hold down the umbrella in a way that our other existing umbrella stand will not.  If we tilt the umbrella and a gust of wind comes blowing through, the umbrella tips over.  So…we bought another kind of stand that is too big but it will be heavy, the newest umbrella won’t tip and it has wheels so we can move it easily.  

And we need the shade and the privacy that we no longer have.  If we can manage to eek out a few more years, our Japanese maple will provide a certain amount of privacy as it grows higher.  

Then:

While making my chicken piccata I caused a flame of fire in my cast iron pan that almost reached the vent above the stove.  Oddly, that did not set off an alarm except for me.  It burnt its self out as I screamed and waved my spatula around.  After dinner, we drove over to my cousin’s house to pick up the frozen croissants she picked up for us at a patisserie.  They come frozen in a box of 8.  Great to have on hand because they thaw overnight, triple in size, and this allows the cook to bake them and serve and eat them hot out of the oven.  Yum.  

We stayed for a glass of wine and while doing so this conversation ensued:

Sue:  When are you going to try the new Italian restaurant I just found?

Me:  The next time you order from them we will too.

Sue:  How about next Tuesday.  I take Leyla (granddaugher) to Aikido.  The restaurant is right next door to the building where the Aikido is taught.

Rayman:  Akido is the name of an Italian restaurant?  

Sue:  No.  Aikido is the martial arts that Leyla is learning.

Rayman:  Then why are you getting food from there?

It went on from there until Rayman was finally out of the fog.  It could have been  a routine to replace Who is On First.  

Then this ensued:

Dianna:  Guess we should go so I’ll take the croissants now.

Sue:  Okay, I’ll get them and your change.  (an aside, Rayman had given her $20 for the croissants because he lacked the proper change the day before).

Rayman:  What change?

Sue:  You gave me money to buy the croissants and I owe you your change.

Rayman:  I did?  

At this point, I was almost snorting.  

So, as you can see…yesterday was not as dull as some other days.  It really does help to visit with others so I can discover  how far Rayman’s memory has slipped!!  I think it is slipping our of boredom.  Not paying attention to details.  Person, man, woman, TV,…

So…the tree disappeared.  

And Rayman learned about martial arts that doesn’t involve protesters in downtown Portland (PDX) and Aikido is not a restaurant. 

We now have croissants in the freezer.  We ate two for breakfast this morning.  They took on the look of a Pillsbury doughboy because I left them out too long and they just keep rising!!  But they were yummy and the SHIP smells great.  

And Rayman has change in is pocket!!