Moose in the Kitchen

Details tend to elude me. I forget things. Not just after they’ve happened but often while they’re happening. This is a glamorous and otherwordly skill, one that tends to annoy postal clerks. So I want to be better about recording Awesome Things before they pass into the dusty annals of memory, memory I can’t access because I’m too busy trying to deconstruct Lieutenant Thrace’s character and admiring her deadpan use of expletives and…see why nothing sticks?

Highlights of the Past Seven Days – I Would Call It a Week But Weeks Start on Sunday and This Isn’t Sunday

1. Being inexplicably surrounded by French people. Inexplicable because I suspect there wasn’t actually a rip in the time space continuum on the stoop of the coffee shop so I wasn’t caught unawares and whisked off to Nantes with my laptop bag. So the five tables of rapidly chatting French folk was baffling. Especially when I had to pause and consider whether or not it would be rude to address them in English when I needed someone to scootch away from the outlet so I could plug in my laptop. Then I remembered that I’m in America, so it’s perfectly acceptable to be an obnoxious American. “SCOOTCH! YES, I SAID SCOOTCH! AND YES, I WILL KEEP FLAPPING MY HANDS AT YOU UNTIL YOU SCOOTCH ADEQUATELY!” (I didn’t really. But there might have been some hand flapping. Just a little.)

2. Meeting someone I need to interview for a magazine assignment and not so much meeting him as sitting in a bar by myself for 20 minutes wondering if I got the day wrong. He finally shows up, so flustered that he forgets my name. He offers to make it up to me. He gets up and returns a few minutes later with a beer (I already have a beer) and a shot of Jameson. Forty minutes later, we’re both drunk and god only knows what’s on the interview recording because I can’t bring myself to listen to it. DEAR GOD, THE POSSIBILITIES.

3. Driving up to Point Reyes on a sunny Wednesday to eat barbequed oysters and drink beer while watching the sun glint on the water.

4. Walking into a car parts shop and sounding like I know what I’m talking about, thanks to approximately 14 advisory emails from Adam who will be spending his Saturday morning fixing Suzi because Suzi (my beloved 10-year-old Suzuki) is wheezing and it breaks my heart. I can barely fill the tank with gas without making a mess or breaking something, so appearing knowledgeable in the realm of gaskets and Japanese engines fills me with undeserved glee.

5. Driving back into the city after a day of sun and oysters and getting a text message imploring me to go to a party. I wasn’t planning to go because I was completely unprepared (being prepared for a party means mentally gearing up for said party all day and preferably all week), but decide to throw neurosis to the wind. So I get dropped off downtown and walk in to find more beer, a cute dog who will be friendly if you extend peace offerings of cheese, three old friends, and two new ones. Conclusion: Mental preparation is unnecessary. Especially when there’s beer.

6. Declaring to all and sundry (meaning: Twitter) that I will soon be the recipient of $1000 and a monkey. I completely forget about it until this morning when I get…$1000 dollars and a monkey. Well, $990 and a picture of a monkey stealing a sandwich, but I SAY THAT COUNTS. What should I use my wish-fulfilling sorcery to conjure up next? A red Kitchen-Aid mixer? A tropical island where I can sleep in the sun while Paco mixes me a daiquiri? A subscription to Life?

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