Luck of the Irish

Spring Break, baby, and everybody's by the pool!  

Kinda.  

Do you know what the number one destination for Spring Break is this year?  Yup.  My own hometown.  Well, the airport that serves it.  It makes me wonder why, but my friends seem to understand it perfectly.  We have attractions and parks here, and the kids can hit many beaches from here where the party's started.  

Except they are fighting and even shooting one another.  WTF?  It is true.  Four shootings already at the beach town I went to for Bike Week.  In contrast, there were none during Bike Week.  

All my college professor friends want out.  They say the kids are utterly useless.  They don't come to class, and when they do, they don't take notes.  And school administrators are forcing them to have high pass rates so that they can get funded well by the state.  It is even true at the Country Club College where the tuition is so high everybody must pass.  

Spring Break should be about drinking and trying not to pick up an STD.  That is fun.  But fighting?  What the fuck is that?

It is the Joe Rogan Generation, I guess.  Everything is martial arts.  Stand your ground.  

Etc.  

Well. . . if they enjoy that, good for them.  I'd much rather lie by the pool next to that woman with a margarita at hand.  That is a woman, right?  I don't want to be too binary.  

Or agist.  

But, you know. . . that ain't Spring Break, is it.  Just daily life at The Villages.  I should probably head up there and join the fun. 

O.K.  That's enough of that.  

I hadn't slept very well for the past few nights, maybe five hours a night, and so I got up yesterday morning feeling slow.  But I had things to do and I was determined to get them done.  I burned my mother's and my mail that had too much of our personal info on it.  That is always fun.  I pour 99% alcohol on the pile of papers and hit it with a torch.  That stuff is jet fuel.  

Next, I paid my mother's property taxes.  She can't handle that stuff any longer.  I am the worst at this kind of stuff, so she must be terrified.  When I first started dating my ex-wife, she was a young, fun, upscale girl who was spending all her father's money having fun.  But when she moved in with me, she started managing my money.  That is an illustrative story.  She has become one of the money mavens of my own hometown.  So. . . something is the something of invention, and as she transformed, perhaps I will as well.  I have become much more responsible with my mother's money than I am with my own.  I've spent my own money supporting her this year buying all the groceries, paying her bills.  

I'm a good son, they say. 

My mother has been getting letters from some health company in Spanish.  It has her address on the envelope and sometimes her name, sometimes someone else's, and it always says under the house address, "Apt. #1."  None of it makes sense and I fear what might be going on.  So I called the company.  After hanging on the phone listening to the most irritating jingly music "Ev-er," I got some homie who couldn't understand what I was telling him for a very long time.  I started again in my nursery school tone, but he didn't have my mother in his system, and after twenty minutes, I gave up.  

Went to the gym for my new "Age Appropriate" workout, then headed home to pick up the house and shower before the cleaning crew arrived.  I had just finished dressing when they showed up.  The woman who runs the show is really very sweet and we always chat for quite awhile.  But I had to run.  I was off to the bank to. . . do some banking, then a stop at the cool local hardware store for some surfacants.  

I walked into an empty store.  The workers were all sitting and leaning in clusters.  Two of them surrounded a desk by the garden supplies.  

"Hi.  I'm looking for surfacants."

"??????" like a dog you just asked if it wants a cucumber.  

"It helps weed killer stick to the plants."

"Oh. . . yea. . . I think there is a bottle back down that aisle on the top shelf, but dish soap will do the same thing."

One of the fellows walked me back and found the bottle.  Ten bucks.  I hesitated.  They were helpful, so what should I do?  

"O.K.  You guys helped me so I'll buy this. . . but next time I'm using dish soap.  Oh. . . I need some 90% isopropyl alcohol."

The joyless woman at the counter who never smiles barked, "We only have ninety-nine percent."  A different fellow walked me back.  

I explained, "Have you ever heard of a Lampe Berger?  No?"

I told him what it was and how it worked.

"The fuel for it is very expensive, so I wondered what it was made of.  I found out it was ninety percent isopropyl alcohol with a few drops of essential oil, and I thought I could make that myself."

When the mirthless lady rang me up, though, I was just a little surprised.  A gallon was $29.  Still cheaper than the Lampe Berger oils.  

As the maids worked, I decided to go to see my mother, but I had a wild hair.  I stopped at the grocers first and got a head of cabbage and a big load of sliced corned beef.  Right there, for the day, was a basketful of Irish soda bread.  I picked up a pack of Guinness and was on my way.  

My mother had company, so I put down the things and opened a stout.  I poured a little for my mother.  The friend told me I needed boiled potatoes to make it authentic, so I chopped some up and set them to boil.  In a little bit, though, my mother's niece took the lady home (she's blind and can't drive), and I began chopping cabbage.  Olive oil in the big enamelled cast iron pot.  I just cooked the cabbage down and threw in the corned beef.  I dished it up.  It was a hit!  And the soda bread?  Yea.  Never had it before.  Fantastic.  

By the time I was four Guinness in, T called.  He wanted me to meet him and Black Sheep at the Irish pub.  

"You wouldn't believe what's going on."

"I'm at my mother's and four Guinness in, but I'll try to catch up later."

I got home at five. The house sparkled.  I made a Negroni and sat out on the deck.  It was a beautiful day.  But when I finished the Negroni, I knew I was home for the evening.  I was not ready to go out.  I lamented, though.  Here I was free for a bit, but I wasn't joining the party.  Instead, I sit on my own leather couch and drink and think.  God knows what I was missing.  I could have taken my Leica and had some fun.  

But I didn't really care.  You see, that shot of the old guy was all flattery.  This is closer to reality.  Time marches on.