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deer family déjà vu
Tuesday, August 6 2019
In earlier months when driving to work in the Prius, I'd mostly listened to the local pop radio station. Though modern lyrics are as shallow and embarrassing as they've ever been, in terms of production and melody, I prefer the æsthetic of modern pop to the kind of pop that existed when I should've been into pop (the 1980s). But even I have my limits. The tiny selection of songs circulating in any pop radio playlist becomes tiresome even with the most occasional of listens. So recently when listening to radio, I've switched to WDST. Their programming isn't great, particularly during the daytime, when they tend to showcase a lot of cheerful (and slightly gross) white men performing slow to mid-tempo songs about love. In any case, today while listening to WDST, I happened to hear a surprising advertisement from Stewarts, the ubiquitous Upstate dairy/convenience-store/gas-station chain. It was promoting their new vegan icecream. This was as much of a culture shock as anything I'd just experienced in Europe; Stewarts entire brand is wrapped-up in cows and dairy products, often through the prism of the folksy farmer (a common fiction to conceal the many horrors of the dairy industry). It's been so traditionally pro-dairy that Gretchen is upset when I buy gas or beer from their stores. There's also more than a whiff of racism about the stores; nearly every other gas station in the area is owned and operated by Indians (dot not feather), while essentially all the people who work at Stewarts are white. Recently I jokingly asked Gretchen when she thought Stewarts would be coming out with a vegan icecream and she'd said "never." But here we were. I was sure to send Gretchen a message later today, and she quickly posted something about it on Facebook. (So did I, but my friends aren't as into the vegan thing as Gretchen's.)
Early this afternoon, I went into the forest behind the office complex to drink some tea and take some OTC stimulants that would help me through some tedious work an hour or two later. While I was back there, I scared that little speckled fawn I'd scared some weeks before. Moments later the fawns mother bounded out of the bushes from the lowlands below, exactly as she'd done in that same earlier incident, which had also happened on a Tuesday. It was like a déjà vu, only more obviously a real-world recycling of events. The main difference was that today the smell of skunk was strong back there. (I almost never smell skunk except near roads; evidently they don't deploy much of their scent until their moment of death.)
On the drive home this afternoon, I cracked open a road beer and made a detour to the Tibetan Center thrift store. I found a great 2.7 amp nine volt power supply, and when the woman acting as cashier tried to charge me $4 for it, I hesitated and she immediately dropped the price to $3.
Back at the house, Carrie & Aaron were packing up to leave. For some reason I'd thought they'd be staying for another night, but no, they had to get to Guilford, Connecticut tonight. The only thing I know about Guilford is that my college nemesis Dan Reitman comes from there.
After a meal of rice noodles with red sauce and vegan sausage (sauteed with mushrooms and onions), I took 100 milligrams of diphenhydramine and climbed into bed before it was even fully dark.
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