El Condor Passa
Aug. 16th, 2003 07:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraThe Pipes of Pan are an instrument of the devil. Particularly in the hands of Bolivians playing El Condor Passa.
Took the dogs to the park yesterday morning and threw the green ball for them for an hour and a half. It’s odd that with so much on my plate right now, I’m totally obsessed with doing right by the dogs. The kid is a barefoot savage in rags whose hair is so badly in need of cutting that it hangs down over his eyes, the husband is a personable ne’er do well who has started another novel in the back room, the house is in shambles, my underwear has holes, but it’s the dogs who need my attention.
Brilliant day in the Veterans Park meadow high on the hill. A caravan of campers rendezvousing for a family reunion. They gather from points south and east. A guy with a Brooklyn accent pumps me for info about the blackout.
"You picked the right time to leave," I tell him. "The power’s still not back entirely. I can’t imagine anybody’s having much fun."
He laughs, then reaches for his cell phone. He’s a lawyer, dickering with insurance policies. "Definitely does not cover spoilage," he tells the phone. "Nothing in the contract says anything about what happens when the juice goes down for a sustained period of time. We’re safe."
The dogs scamper. Legolas chases the green tennis ball every time I throw it but he doesn’t seem to understand that the point of the game is to bring it back. He prefers showing it to me in his mouth and then leading me on a merry chase around the field. Hey! It’s exercise. I haven’t ridden my bike in a month.
Back at sea level, I go back to the store and paint some more. Today is the woodwork on the two display cabinets and the white wall in back of the cash register, plus the sponging on of the pink on the peach. It occurs to me in the midst of lacquering one of the display cabinets a pale sea-foam green, that the wood is really in horrible shape and that previous tenant Mike Montana – the genial owner of a flock of Christmas ornament stores throughout the Monterey Peninsula – would never have bothered to have carted it out of his store. Therefore I am an idiot to have paid him $350 for his fixtures. I will go broke, my child will never be able to afford another haircut and the dogs will starve because I am a Bad Businesswoman. With the new stippling of pink, the walls no longer look anything like a Mexican whorehouse. Now they look like the lair of some demented Tijuana brujo
.
Meanwhile on the plaza outside the Bolivian musicians are setting up to serenade the tourists with yet another afternoon medley of tunes featuring the Pipes of Pan.
What the hell. The $350 also covered mirrors and glass shelving. Buying them new at Home Depot would have set me back six hundred bucks or more.
Took the dogs to the park yesterday morning and threw the green ball for them for an hour and a half. It’s odd that with so much on my plate right now, I’m totally obsessed with doing right by the dogs. The kid is a barefoot savage in rags whose hair is so badly in need of cutting that it hangs down over his eyes, the husband is a personable ne’er do well who has started another novel in the back room, the house is in shambles, my underwear has holes, but it’s the dogs who need my attention.
Brilliant day in the Veterans Park meadow high on the hill. A caravan of campers rendezvousing for a family reunion. They gather from points south and east. A guy with a Brooklyn accent pumps me for info about the blackout.
"You picked the right time to leave," I tell him. "The power’s still not back entirely. I can’t imagine anybody’s having much fun."
He laughs, then reaches for his cell phone. He’s a lawyer, dickering with insurance policies. "Definitely does not cover spoilage," he tells the phone. "Nothing in the contract says anything about what happens when the juice goes down for a sustained period of time. We’re safe."
The dogs scamper. Legolas chases the green tennis ball every time I throw it but he doesn’t seem to understand that the point of the game is to bring it back. He prefers showing it to me in his mouth and then leading me on a merry chase around the field. Hey! It’s exercise. I haven’t ridden my bike in a month.
Back at sea level, I go back to the store and paint some more. Today is the woodwork on the two display cabinets and the white wall in back of the cash register, plus the sponging on of the pink on the peach. It occurs to me in the midst of lacquering one of the display cabinets a pale sea-foam green, that the wood is really in horrible shape and that previous tenant Mike Montana – the genial owner of a flock of Christmas ornament stores throughout the Monterey Peninsula – would never have bothered to have carted it out of his store. Therefore I am an idiot to have paid him $350 for his fixtures. I will go broke, my child will never be able to afford another haircut and the dogs will starve because I am a Bad Businesswoman. With the new stippling of pink, the walls no longer look anything like a Mexican whorehouse. Now they look like the lair of some demented Tijuana brujo
.
Meanwhile on the plaza outside the Bolivian musicians are setting up to serenade the tourists with yet another afternoon medley of tunes featuring the Pipes of Pan.
What the hell. The $350 also covered mirrors and glass shelving. Buying them new at Home Depot would have set me back six hundred bucks or more.
