I am really wired, beyond a helpful amount, at the moment. I’m sure that I can pin the condition, at least in part, to the additional cups of coffee we bought at the Marvelous Market on Nebraska Avenue, which--truth be told--was less than marvelous. I’m mainly gauging this quality ranking by hotness of the coffee. In this case it was tepid, reminding me of why I prefer Gary’s Grill to The Breakfast Shoppe for breakfast. Coffee should be served at a not-quite-drinkable hotness. This is not a rule that is bendable, except in cases of medical-based mouth-sensitivity conditions.
Still, this particular trip--to and from Georgetown for dose #2 of the hypodermic substance of unknown composition and efficacy--was, for the most part, pleasant and unfraught with peril. I made up the word unfraught. I hope you like it.
No, the only dicey aspect of the medical visit was that Jeff kept lying down perpendicular and abdomen-up on the bed in the room, with his head hanging backward over the edge, which made the nurses fret that he’d be dizzy when he stood up. I was not worried, as I have known Jeff to recline in odd positions for what seems like forever.
Upon being sprung for the afternoon, we headed up Wisconsin Avenue in search of food. I slowed down in the neighborhood of a parking meter, but ultimately bypassed Heritage India, because I knew that although Jeff would not push his preference, it leaned in the direction of the Tex-Mex place I mentioned having seen many times in passing. Instead, we continued north, parking 3 blocks west of the Cactus Cantina where I feared I’d have to ferret carefully between menu lines to avoid meat and cheese. I ordered a salad--a “Sunshine Salad,” expecting to be gustatorially bored. I was not. Heaped with orange slices, avocado, walnuts, corn, pepper strips, dried tomatoes, and field greens, deftly bathed in a peanut dressing, it was a most satisfactory concoction, and I scarfed the whole pile, which was unlike me. Then I snarfed the rest of the tortilla chips so as not to be carb-deprived. Jeff seemed equally pleased with his chicken-accented Monterey salad.
Here was the only event of concern at lunch. We entered the lively dining-joint which was festooned with cowboy boots and placards of Mexican cinema...(example: El Caballo del Diablo. Well, if you aren’t interested in a film about Beelzebub as a horse in need of a good exorcism, I’m not sure where your priorities lie)...and we sit down. No, wait...
Before we sit down we have to follow the hostess to our table. Which I do. Then, I turn around and realize I have lost Jeff. I backtrack around a column and espy him standing 15 or so feet down the corridor, looking dazedly this way and that. I wave. He spots me. Then we sit down.
There is, just across the street, a derelict corner being retrofitted into a wine bar, and the predominant architectural feature--at the moment--is tarpaper. Jeff says That’s a familiar sight.
What?, I say.
The tarpaper, Jeff says.
Where have we had tarpaper outside the window before? I ask.
Here. he says certainly.
We’ve never been here before, I say...but just as I say it, I am ready to kick myself. He looks at me like a kid who’s just been told there’s no Santa Claus, and, by the way, that he’s really adopted. He does not pursue it, but I can see that this is a troubling thing, and that we’re beginning to touch the edges of that time I know is coming when my kindest response will be to accept whatever he says as his reality. Not until we’re leaving does he bring it up.
Come here, he says, pulling me toward a 2-sided glass case full of southwest paraphernalia, through which you can see the dining room we just left. We sat right there. He points slightly south of the table we just vacated.
No, I say, It must just look a lot like somewhere else we’ve eaten.
The rest of the drive home is better, but there have been those moments throughout the day, and I wonder, not entirely seriously, if that’s what happens when you hang your head off a bed for too long.
