Weekend Report: Rain And Bad Martinis

SORRY IF YOU’RE getting this twice. I had some tech issues.

THIS IS A FREE POST FROM THE REAL SARAH MILLER. If you read this newsletter a lot and want to/can pay for it, please do.

Our basement is flooding. I think it’s going to be fine, it might not be. I keep saying to T. “Should we look at the basement” and he keeps responding, “Why, what would we do about it if it were really bad?”

It’s Sunday night, it’s been raining hard for at least 12 hours. It’s flooding in areas around us, so far, we are lucky with just the basement. We haven’t left the house all day.

Thursday afternoon, I got shot number three because I’m going to England for work and it’s not so great Covid-wise.

Thursday night, I worked at the wine store and felt fine. I felt so-so on Friday, but at about five o’clock I started to feel terrible. I shivered in bed and then took Alka Seltzer Plus. I love that stuff.

I woke up at 6 a.m and still felt a little weird. I took more Alka Seltzer Plus. At eleven I woke up with that reborn, post-sick feeling. I drank black coffee and talked on the phone to a new friend, so intent on the conversation I decided not to shower. I just scrubbed my armpits with a washcloth, washed my face and put on some bullshit herbal deoderant. I wore a scarf, because I am also going to France and wanted to do a little pre-gaming.

The wine store was fun. The owner’s mother was there, visiting from New York. She said, “Being in this store makes me wish I drank.” A weird coincidence: Paul Newman was the first famous person either of us ever saw in real life. She gave me some good writing advice because I am writing a novel and it’s not good. The advice was this: write like you’re writing for just one person. I think I have my person all picked out.

T. was in Sacramento doing errands and I was on my own and decided to take advantage of being extremely vaccinated by eating at a bar. It was a nice bar, with beautiful lighting, polished wood and marble. Minutes passed and no one noticed me. I don’t know if it was because I was behind a giant column or because I was a middle-aged woman on my own. Finally a bartender with a fresh manicure asked me if I’d been served and I said I had not. I ordered a Martini and watched her shake it and shake it and shake it and I thought, hmmm, I don’t think that’s a good idea.

It was bitter and watery all at once. I have heard the expression bruised gin before but I never knew what it meant until then. It was followed by totally average chicken, a tiny portion, a drumstick and three cubes of potato, but not elegant or so tasty that the smallness was earned. It was rich in nothing but indifference. I didn’t finish my Martini, but I ate all the chicken because I was starving. When I got home I realized I’d left my phone at the bar. The Badger was over, playing video games. He called the restaurant while I stood there insisting no one would answer. But the hostess did, and she had it.

“Describe the phone,” she said.

“Chipped in the back,” I said.

“Pink with a picture of a dog?”

My phone isn’t pink but that place has such flattering lighting I can see why she thought it was. I asked the Badger to drive me to the restaurant so I wouldn’t have to park just to run in and grab my phone and it was an annoying request but he obliged me. On the way home I complained about the chicken. “I made better chicken the other day emptying a package of thighs into a crockpot with an onion two carrots and half a can of beer,” I said.

The Badger nodded and said, “I believe it.”

T. came home and we all watched the last episode of a show called Hit & Run. The ending sucked. After going through a lot of shit, like his wife getting murdered, then his best friend, then going to prison, the protagonist found out his daughter, who wasn’t even a character, really, had been kidnapped. I guess it was supposed to be like “Oh this guy has suffered so much, and now, the ultimate terrible thing.” But it was just silly.

“That was so emotionally unsatisfying,” said T.

I said, “Why did we waste 10 hours of our lives watching that?”

No one had an answer. I’m making it sound like it was a bad weekend. But it wasn’t. I give it a solid B, but if the water in the basement gets over two inches high, I reserve the right to lower that to a D.

Last weekend was about hot springs. The weekend before was about coming up with a good animal name for my friend.