|
|
|
recovery in New Paltz
Friday, March 9 2018
As I woke up, I couldn't get my mind off the tragedy of little Janet the Cat. There was nothing my brain could find in its vast web of circuitry and memories that was interesting enough to distract it from these thoughts, and so I wallowed in the horribleness of it, occasionally bursting into sobs (or, more frequently, suppressing them for five or ten seconds at a time along with my breathing).
Later, after I'd gotten up and fed the four remaining cats, our friend Falafel Cathy called, and, once Gretchen told her the horrible news, she said that she too had run over one of her cats. It had been somehow even more horrible, with Cathy seeing her beloved cat in its death throes in her rearview mirror. Last night, the vet had said something about this being a common form of demise for household cats, and throughout the day this was borne out by numerous second-hand tales of parents or brothers who had accidentally driven over their pets. None of this was going to revive Janet from her eternal slumber (now happening out on the east deck), but it did make Gretchen feel better to know that she wasn't the only one in history who had done such a thing.
My workplace has a pretty liberal bereavement policy, and I could've just taken the day off. I thought it would be better to do some work, if only to get my mind on other things. What I didn't want to do was attend meetings, where the blackness in my soul might easily rub off on otherwise perfectly-happy colleagues.
At some point a guy from a local florist delivered a live white orchid; it had been phoned in by human resources in an effort to cheer me up. This was the fourth such flower order sent my way: one during Gretchen's fall illness and three for the deaths of various companion animals. So far, they've only missed the death of one: Sylvia the Cat.
Last night, it had been hard to imagine going on with life in the aftermath of such a tragedy. But by this afternoon, both Gretchen and I were on the mend. It certainly helped that there was an outpouring of support from friends. But time itself was working to heal the psychic damage. At some point I suggested going to out tonight just to draw a line through our life so we could start again. For some reason Gretchen had the idea of driving down to New Paltz not for spaghetti at the Plaza Diner but for veggie burgers at P&G, the big, loud youth-filled drinking establishment near the middle of the village. It's true that they have a good veggie burger, and something about recovering from Janet's death more suggested fries, beer, and burgers than spaghetti (no matter how good) in a diner.
So we drove down to New Paltz and went into P&G. The place was crowded and extremely loud, though AC/DC somehow cut through the din. "Am I getting too old for this?" Gretchen asked semi-rhetorically. "Do you want to go somewhere else?" I asked. She did. So we went across the street to an Irish bar called McGillicuddy's. It was considerably less crowded, but they didn't even have a veggie burger on their menu. So next we tried Murphy's, another Irish bar only a couple hundred feet to the east. It was completely dead, but the reason for that was that it didn't have a functioning kitchen. So we returned to P&G to realize Gretchen's original vision. It wasn't so terrible once we'd sat down in a booth. Gretchen ordered some sort of cocktail that was botched and had to be replaced with something else, though they both tasted terrible. I stuck to Ithaca Flower Power IPA, which is always great when it's on tap (as it was). We both ordered burgers with various toppings, though for some reason neither came with lettuce or tomato. Still, they were great, as were the fries.
Most of the people who hang out and drink in P&G look to be in their fresh-faced early 20s, although there are always a number of old-timers who hang out near the bar (some of them might've been coming since the 60s; the restaurant has been called P&Gs since the 1940s, and a saloon/casino existed at this site in 1900). Still, given the general youthfulness of the crowd, it's odd that the only music I heard tonight dated from the 1970s or 1980s. One of the newest songs I heard tonight was Survivor's 1982 song "Eye of the Tiger" and the oldest was Don McClean's 1972 song "American Pie." Most of these kids had been born after 1995, and yet they were listening to music that came out (in some cases) twenty years before their birth. As I pointed out to Gretchen, that would be like me going into a bar and finding music from the late 40s playing on the sound system. It's a testament to both the complete revolution that 1960s rock represented both that 1940s music was never played on the sound system of any bar I've ever frequented and that the music that was played at bars in my early 20s is largely the same as the music still being played at P&Gs.
The drinks and the food and the youthful vibrancy of the P&Gs did much to improve our moods, and at one point Gretchen shouted above the roar, "I think we're going to get through this!" And then "Rock You Like A Hurricane" by Scorpions (1984) came on the sound system, and we pantomimed absurdly along, putting out one curved arm like one of a hurricane's cloud bands and rotating slowly while using the other hand to point at one of our eyes.
The orchids that arrived today as a condolence for the loss of Janet. Ramona and Neville are on the couch behind it, and you can see a purple orchid on the dining room table in the background that is still alive after more than a year (it was given to Gretchen for her 46th birthday back in January of 2017). (Click to enlarge.)
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?180309 feedback
previous | next |
