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Hot Fudge Sundae 8.31.98
Started the day with an hour of bumper to bumper on the return trip from dropping M at a Regional Medical Center where she acts as a grant writer/journal editor. Vacations are not always free of trafffic. I take many deep breaths until I finally turn onto Dumaine and find myself behind the garbage collectors. Amazing work. Guys should be given medals. "Hey, watch how you throw my can around you effin bum." Rolling towards the curb I grab the handle of the trash can formerly owned by Yolanda, which is standing in the street in the middle of my parking space, and fling it onto the sidewalk while continuing to roll up to the curb. I am not without talents.
I want to take myself out to eat breakfast but I'm afraid my social skills are ebbing low so I throw half a pack of bacon in a pan on slow fry and chop up some already baked potatoes and throw them in another pan with butter and olive oil and then the phone rings and I tell the credit card solicitor that Jim Louis is not home. But if they call back later he will be sure to ignore them entirely.
And then I take a quick bath while the doorbell rings urgently, which I almost always ignore as well, but the kids should all be in school by now and a part of me is believing it could be Ed McMahon and I just cannot afford to lose out
on the chance for that miserable fortune. I hurry the bath along, I can shave later, and go to the door, but no one is there. I show myself on the porch in case anyone wants to yell out to me, but no one does.
I crank up the heat on the bacon and potatoes. When the bacon is done I scrape the pan pretty clean, add some butter, and two eggs, and then get some bread to toasting.
It turns out to be a bacon and egg sandwich with hashbrowns. And I crave ice cold cranberry juice but craving is as close as I'm going to get, so I pour me some Dr. Pepper.
The doorbell rings again and it's Mama D and she knows she's never done this before but can she borrow twenty until tomorrow, this man selling a case of silverware.
"Of course."
I call Buddy and he says if I come over and tighten his neckbrace for him he'll smoke a joint with me. Deal.
We smoke in Audubon Park underneath the biggest live oak tree either one of us has ever seen but before that we have a beer at one of those places that serve 500 different kinds of beer. The Budweiser cost $2.50 a bottle. But it is the closest place to Buddy's new crib and he is known there, and they seem to tolerate his sometimes intolerable bullshit, and the barmaid it turns out is one of the dog walkers down at the bayou. I don't always like it when the world gets smaller. Buddy shows me these (relief?) carvings they have hangingall over the bar and says how you have to be dead and famous to be up there and how the one of Sister Teresa is holding a bottle of Bishop's Finger beer. I guess that's cute, or something, but I'm not really getting a feel for it, and, as I point out to Buddy, we left our beers at the bar.
After the beer and weed we hit one of the pricey uptown ice cream shops and have hot fudge sundaes.
"Where should we eat now Buddy?" and he suggests Ye Olde College Inn, and as we enter, all the oldtimers who are occupying every seat at the bar, turn and stare at us, and I say to Buddy that it looks like we are the only ones not at home here today, so we mosey on. Back to Cooter Brown's, with all those beer choices, and I have two more Bud's and a truly mediocre ribeye sandwich, and Buddy has a rootbeer and cheese fries.
There are a few college girls at the bar, smoking cigarettes, and drinking beer. The Barmaid is yucking it up with them and says--"and Mother Teresa is holding a Bishop's Finger," which gets a pretty big educated laugh