Afterparty

A tree spear came down from the stormy sky and skewered the roof of our little guest cabin, pierced right through and through, driven by force all the way down to the floor inside.



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Hurricane Irene Party

The day ended with a swim in the lake and a picnic. The air was supernatural: completely still, a wild and lovely pink sunset, then darkness: close, hot, and humid. 24 New Way Lunch hot dogs with The Works: diced onions, mustard, a bit of cuminy meat sauce. Onion rings, ginger ale, beer, saki, candles, lanterns.



Now for the rain, the wind!



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But I Can't Fly Without Caffeine, Road Trip Part 6

Now that I've come down from that angel dust high of the South Texas beach, whose mad bright sexy come-on line made me think I might just launch myself airborne...well, sobered up, I can bitch about the other side of a road trip: the devastating lack of decent coffee. It is a sad state of affairs indeed when the Starbucks logo appears to me as a luminous emerald herald of all that is Good and Right...


Oh South, what is it with you and your weak-ass coffee? Why are you playing me like this? Even Cafe Du Monde--shame on you, former chicory haven--presented me with a pale drink as milky as an opal. Hot shops, truck stops, cafes, homes, hotels, motels, dives and fancy restaurants: uniformly pallid brew.

One lone beacon of hope was Tootie's, where finally I procured a deep dark cold murk of delight...as well as coconut custard pie...but we weren't speaking of pie, so I won't elegize, or rather fetishize, the smooth pale yellow creamy spoonsful, the toasty tender flakes, the thick crumbling crust...for while the South can't make a cup of coffee to save its Confederate life, it can certainly win the war with its pie!...

Anyway, bless you bitter expensive Starbucks, because three espresso shots and a few headlines later, I am for the nonce as right as rain.




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South Texas Lullaby, Road Trip Part 5

I went to sleep last night in a huge soft white boat of a bed, toes tucked in cool cotton sheets, air conditioner humming me free of the murderous, humid heat, and as my eyes closed, the last thing I saw outside our bedroom window was the dark water moving and the last thing I heard was the singing of ocean wind, the lullaby of South Texas...





I woke again to water, a bright heat, and a lone crane visiting the neighbors across the way.




How funny it seems to me that a
Brooklyn girl, a lifetime back East spent on concrete and under immense dusty old-growth trees, or in the rumination of pine-dark, cold mountainscapes, could feel so right, here: the strange heat, the scrubby thirsty land remind me of my own bones, my foundation; and the vast sky, alive with clouds, releases the bonds of gravity. Looking up I am convinced I could fly!





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