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roots of ancient walls
Thursday, April 20 2006
It was day two of Trench Two, 2006. Even before returning the jackhammer to the rental place, I'd repaved more than half of the trench with my usual technique, using rectangular river rocks mortared with a varying mix of mortar, concrete, and Portland cement. At this point the driveway is now divided into four sectors by the accents of repaved-drainage ditches. I like that they look like the roots of ancient stone walls that had to be shaved away to make room for our driveway.
In the evening Gretchen and I went to eat at the nearby Reservoir Inn with our friends Susan and Don (Don being our only friend with an artist page at VH1.com). Don had recently sheared off his dreadlocks, losing that certain something that made him immediately recognizable as a likely jazz musician. While Gretchen and I shared a large vegetarian pizza, Don and Susan each ordered the veal, a dagger in the heart of any animal rights advocate. Don also wanted sweet blush wine, so we ended up drinking two full bottles of it. (It was, as Don pointed out, much like Kool Aid but oddly delicious nonetheless.) Susan is professional translator (going between German and English) and she told me things about her work that I never would have suspected. For example, translating is a much more creative process than I'd thought, particularly when it involves things that cannot be translated (regional vernaculars, for example). Nevertheless, it is possible to translate a paragraph at a time without having ever read the source work to completion.
On the drive home down Dug Hill Road we listened to a pre-release of Don's upcoming CD, which had been burned onto an unlabeled CD-R.
Google search I intended to do at the end of the day: Paraquat.
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