Text 39855, 111 rader
Skriven 2010-07-08 11:13:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: idiot musings 381
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Conanicut, Rhode Island, Thursday

I'm housesitting for my buddy Rosemary, who went to Florida
to be with her brother whose brain cancer is acting up.

The boredom level approaches the humidity level.

It would have been an ideal situation - I have a week with
nothing to do and a couple hundred extra in my pocket. So
I could take off and visit someone (a Dave or a Dale or a
Hap, for example) or go use up some hotel points in an exotic
location, but I'm stuck on an island that has no public
transportation to the airport dozens of miles away. I will
have to call a few markers in to get to Green when I need to
vacate in a week. This means wining and dining the local digs
at least once.

Despite the northerly location and the waterlocked nature
of the place, it got into the mid-90s the other day and is
forecast in the 80s for the rest of my stay, which isn't so
horrible but for the wetness. I came here for R&R right after
my concerts, and my clothes are already becoming mildewy.

In the front hall is a copy of an old Jamestown Press with a
picture of Horsehead on the front: it is said that one of the
few-pixel-people dotting the landscape is myself, but I can't
tell. At least the WSJ square millimeter was identifiably moi.

There are a liquor store, a beach, and a fair grocery within
walking distance, but the weather makes me too lazy to go the
quarter to half a mile, and I'm making do with what's here.

Cottrell's IPA from Pawcatuck, CT, which is outside Rhode
Island in name only. The IPAs from Rhode Island are very
moderately hopped, halfway between a modern English IPA and
a traditional one. This one was pretty brown. Pleasant,
easy drinking. Good for the situation here, which is way too
hot and way too humid.

Cottrell's Old Yankee Ale - a well-balanced brew, given a rare
A+ by Beer Advocate, but I found it oddly starchy tasting, and
I'm not sure what that's about. Not unpleasant, but I prefer
the IPA, which is less well thought of.

Warsteiner Dunkel - very malty, your standard dark cereally
brew but less hoppy than usual. Not that fond of it, but it
was a buck less per six than real beers.

Coca-Cola - this actually tastes pretty good. I detect various
bitterish botanical type tastes, a good dose of citrus, nutmeg,
and I didn't notice the vanilla that some recipes claim. Good
acid to sweet balance, and I'd actually like it better if it
were a little salty. My state of lassitude is such that the
major caffeine kick, which I feel, isn't kicking me; nor is
it preventing me from falling asleep (though I sleep for only
3 hours at a time, but 3 times a night). Back when I was a tiny
child, my father used to get me a 6-oz bottle as a treat, and
I just loved it, and I can see why. By the time I was 10, I was
aware that it wasn't good for me, and I started exploring the
delights of root beer, Nehi grape and orange soda, cream soda,
and the like, and I didn't really come back to Coca-Cola until
just now.

Canada Dry ginger ale and Gosling's Black Seal rum - I'd prefer
real ginger beer and real rum, but this is fine. Not gingery enough,
but not too sweet either. Gosling's is an okay rum, with a nice
molassesy taste, fairly smooth but not wimpy. Some chemically
aftertaste which downrates it. I prefer the darker Cruzan rums,
but they're not available on the island, much less here, where
one of the regular guests demands this brand and this brand alone.

Mionetto Pinot Grigio del Piave 05. This is in the midst of
over-the-hillity. The guy down the street was selling it 3 for 10
(down from 11 each) - he said that he got what, 30 cases of it,
and 3 bottles were sent back by the customer, so he figured to
sell the rest at cost, no returns. Since we started getting it
at this price, about 6 months ago, we have hit 1 bad bottle out
of 6 (there are several more waiting to be drunk), and that one
was gently maderized, so fine for cooking or for that matter
drinking with ice. The rest have had diminished fruitiness, the
dominant fruits being grape jelly and now almond (was peach).

For lunch I'm making a lukewarm pasta salad with onions, leftover
frozen roast pork from a party a month ago, leftover pasta, and
leftover sun-dried tomatoes, bound with leftover mayo made by me a
long time ago with olive oil. Which reminds me of the term "various
and sun-dried tomatoes," which I used here on the echo a decade or
more ago, and which yields a oner or whatever you call it on
Google ("various and sundried tomatoes" yields a two).

There's a pound of Australian Cheddar here. It is hideous, tasting
of salty milk, rather Velveetoid, i.e., not cheesy.

And essentially no FIDO the last couple days.

I found an old trip report that I'll carve up and serve up in
chunks today to get my post count.

I just read a couple essays by Robert P. Tristram Coffin, including
"Night of Lobster," in which the word qwok appears:

  Qwoks went over duskily like ghosts and cried at the sight of
  our fire, and at being kept from their feeding grounds and the
  small fish crowding the edge of the rising tide where we were
  sitting. ...

So what kind of creature (avian I presume) is a qwok? Or is all
Robert Coffin's writing a qwok?
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