Thursday, May 12, 2011

Day 109 Through the Coricidin Haze or Daze

I had sneezed all day yesterday, amusing the young people who use the square across the narrow street from us as a gathering (drinking) place.  They had a wonderful time imitating my sneezes as they heard them through the open windows.  I don't get a bad feeling from the people at all, maybe because if they live in flats as small as ours, they need a place to gather.  Our place is probably the size of our guest bedroom.  They leave by midnight on weeknights but stay later on weekends.  They are quite careful to leave the place clean when they leave, most of the time.  Either because it's the right thing to do or because you can turn in bottles for money.  I pretend that only drinking is going on out there, but I can't swear to it.

Anyhow, I woke up this morning with my eyes streaming and one sneeze after another.  I didn't have any responsibilities that couldn't be put off, so I took a coricidin, knowing that as a consequence, I would spend the day examining the inside of my eyelids.  And that's pretty much what I did.  I would wake up briefly, like when I smelled the toast Del made for p&j for lunch or when he said goodbye when he left for class but not again until he called out from under the window asking me to come let him in at the green door because he forgot his key.

It would have been a very productive day if I could have harnessed my dreams.  I spent my dream day shopping for and cooking a full Thanksgiving meal. I would rouse up and say to my self that this is stupid and go right back to dreaming where I left off.  If you are wondering, we had turkey, roasted after a long debate with myself over the possibility of looking for a fryer, Mother's dressing balls, a gallon of gravy ( it should be a beverage), homemade cranberry sauce, string beans, beets, sweet potatoes sort of like Del's mother made them but not so much butter, Eunie's pecan pie, lemon chess pie and a pumpkin pie I was just taking out of the oven when Del called up to be let in.  Everything was being made in Lithuania, so gathering the ingredients was a bit of a problem, and baking in an oven that turns off every 20 minutes or so was a pain.  For some reason there was no Virginia ham.  Too bad, now I can't have a turkey and ham sandwich with Dukes mayonaise on one side and cranberry sauce on the other with pepper and a big glass of milk for my dream breakfast.

 I have a very detailed dream life.  Want me to describe Quincy Jone's beach house kitchen?   I can do that, down to the colors on the dishes. Del stopped being willing to hear about my dreams after that one.

Thanks to departing neighbor Susie, our dinner tonight will be one of the most delicious meals we have had since we got here - hot dogs burned in a dry skillet with OLD FASHIONED CHEAP YELLOW AMERICAN MUSTARD, like Frenches, only a store brand.  She brought down some more goodies last night, and when I saw the yellow mustard I was beyond delighted.  Seems when she went home at Christmas, she wrapped some up and brought it back with her, tucked in with her clothes.  She said life is too short to do without yellow mustard. 

Our hot dogs will be served in an individual baguettes, because they don't have hot dogs buns  here,  with mustard and onions.  I would have loved to add chili and cole slaw, but you have to make those from scratch, and my coricidin stupor  is not condusive to scratch cooking.  We are fortunate to have as our nutritious side dish, Lays salted potato chips with  no unpleasant  additions such as chili, cheese, vegetables, sour cream, bacon, tomato, lime and several other flavors.  These salted chips are a rare find, and only at Hyper Maxima.  They've only had them twice when I went there, so I have been saving this bag for a special occasion.  It beats me how people who barely use pepper love those potato chip flavors.


After dinner note:  I just have to tell you, our hot dog dinner was wonderful.  I may have put a little too much mustard on mine, but I'm pretty sure the hot dog was still in there.  When we get home, I feel a trip to the Varsity in my future.  It's an amazing hot dog place in Atlanta and in Athens that has people lined up out the door.  There are 4 other locations around somewhere.  The counter people stand at the registers calling out "What'll ya have?  What'll ya have?"  It was started in 1928 and is supposedy the world's largest car hop place.  800 people can eat inside and they have parking for 600 cars, right in downtown Atlanta.  Nipsey Russell was a car hop there.  When Tech plays at home 30,000 people come to the varsity.  PBS did a special several years ago.

Coricidin seems to be wearing off, only 2 naps since dinner.

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