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Keegan BRAWL Friday, September 25 2009
I installed the northeast corner pole of the outhouse today, though I hit a large rock at shallow depth and, due to the shallowness of the hole and the normal 80 pound sack of concrete, ended up with a large footing of concrete rising up like a chocolate kiss above the surface, giving my pole a literal, visible, footing. Its only job is to hold its quarter of the structure enough to keep it from toppling over in a strong wind.
Later I drove out to greater Saugerties to discuss a possibly-harebrained web development project with a guy with whom I have worked in the past. That earlier project didn't pan out, though I did get some free dental work (being a dentist is the guy's day job). In the months since I last worked on one of his projects, the daytime-dentist has been working with a group of Indians located somewhere on the subcontinent. They're cheap, but difficulties with language have raised uncertainties about the value of using outsourced developers. I said I was interested in this latest project (about which I am, of course, sworn to secrecy), but it's mostly to stay in the web development game despite today's wintry economic climate.
On the way back home I bought another ten foot long pressure-treated four by four for use as the outhouse's southeast corner pole. I also took 25 gallons of topsoil from the Esopus levee across Wynkoop from the Hurley Mountain Inn. I've been mining soil from closer to the Esopus itself, in a place where the surface richly-textured with worm castings. That is the soil I want to be using to grow plants in the greenhouse this winter.
This evening Gretchen and I would be going to another women's arm wrestling (BRAWL) event (this time to take place at Keegan Ales in Kingston). We'd be going there with Deborah and her new boyfriend David, but first we ate dinner at La Pupuseria.
This was the first time I'd eaten at La Pupuseria in months, and in that time I've adopted a fairly strict vegan diet, usually only eating cheese in the context of pizza, usually in situations when I'm dining alone. But I'd had a cheese-free pupusa once and I knew that they weren't very good. So I compromised in my order, getting three solo fijoles and three de fijoles con queso.
At some point in the meal we were joined by one of Deborah's lady friends who claimed to be in the modern purgatory between joining Match.com and being in the sort of relationship that is hoped to result. (Deborah just came out of a brief stint of that purgatory after meeting David.) Perhaps she'd be meeting up with one of her Match.com prospect later tonight at Keegan Ales.
Somehow conversation turned to tequila, and four of us (including Gretchen) agreed to do shots of Patrón. That's a very La Pupuseria thing to do, though we don't do it very often. As usual, while the others did their shots in a single gulp, I sipped mine over the course of fifteen minutes. I like the flavor of booze (particularly top-shelf tequila) far too much to disrespect it with adolescent chugging.
On the way out to our car, Gretchen pointed out that I normally only get five, not six, pupusas. I thought about it for a moment and realized she was correct. No wonder I felt like shiny-skinned sausage! There must be some sort of inflation at work with pupusas. I used to order five, but then one meal when I was especially hungry I ordered six, and now I order six routinely. Seeing me eat that many pupusas, David (who is younger than me and teaches squash at Bard College) had remarked that I must have the kind of metabolism he had when he was 20.
The BRAWL event at Keegan Ales was sweatier and perhaps more crowded than the one in Rosendale had been. The wrestlers staged their theatrical entrances in the big brewing room in the back, emerging with great fanfair as a DJ played appropriate tunes (for example, the woman affecting a hillbilly persona complete with blacked-out tooth and heart-shaped tattoo reading "Unkle-Daddy" came out to the famous dueling banjos tune from early in the movie Deliverance). The show dragged a bit more than it had in Rosendale (and the contestants seemed a bit plumper), but at least the beer was good. Too bad I couldn't drink much of it, what with the six pupusas in my gut. In the end we had to leave in a hurry because Gretchen didn't remember telling our Tivo to record a couple crucial women's basketball games.
I've been rewatching Being John Malkovich after downloading it from the intermctubes. It might well be a perfect movie. I wouldn't change a thing.
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