Mallory's Camera

Will you look at that?

There actually is a waterfall in Wappingers Falls!

###


I’d met up with BB at the little coffee house in Wappingers we both like. We hadn’t seen each other since I got back from Scotland, and he got back from the Alps, though we’ve been texting a lot.

BB is one of those friends whom I adore unqualifiedly and unreservedly, so good time was had.

On the way back to my car, I spied a grey roof with—how would you describe it? A kind of variegated roof pattern, shingles (so, new) but the pattern looks Victorian.

I wanted to get a closer look, so I strolled on over.

And there was the Falls!

How could I not have noticed them before?



Spent the afternoon sowing grass seed.

L had made some noises a few days back about borrowing my trowel and garden rake.

“Of course, you can borrow them,” I said. “But why do you need them?”

Turns out L wanted to use them so she could open the 50-lb bag of topsoil that’s been sitting next to the abandoned well for at least a year, spread it on the patchy parts of the lawn, and scatter seed.

She’d had a new front footpath put in a month or so ago. The workmen had to dig up large swathes along either side of the path. Plus her lawn has never been what you’d call lush. Numerous bald spots.

Of course, I wasn’t gonna let her do that herself.

She’s 83 years old and owns a legitimate “Handicapped” sticker!

But, of course, no amount of seeding is gonna get her the lawn of her dreams: The soil is simply too rocky. She’d need sod to achieve the American Dream lawn.

I thought of telling her that.

But then I thought, Hope springs eternal! And anyway, she must know that already. She’s not stupid.

L can be really impractical in her own grounded way.

Exhibit 1: The large circular driveway that she had installed at great expense when she first acquired the house 30-odd years ago.

A large circular driveway in the Northeast where it snows a lot in the winter is most impractical.

Plus this is not a cotton plantation! There is no need for Tara-like flourishes.

But, hey! Her house, right? Her suburban dream.

And anyway, playing with top soil and seed is not an entirely unpleasant way to pass an afternoon.

Even if utterly futile.

###

Did a desultory amount of Remunerative Work—I’m gonna have to play catch up today—and then settled down to rewatch old episodes of Cracker. My Robbie Coltrane tribute, doncha know. (Memory eternal.)

Cracker is kind of the anti-Prime Suspect.

Robbie Coltrane plays a brilliant but deeply dysfunctional psychologist named Fitz who consults with the Manchester police force.

The show was made sometime in the early 90s; the video is old and discolored.

But the brilliance of the dialogue and the acting is ageless.

One scene in particular…

After she’s finally apprehended by some agile cat-and-mousing by the ever-brilliant Fitz, a young murderess who fancies herself Bonnie to her sociopath boyfriend's Clyde asks to see her parents.

When they lead her into the room, she begins to growl at the parents, bark like a dog.

All grounded in previously established plot points!

And yes, I know, it looks ridiculous written out.

But, man. That scene.

The hackles stood up on the back of my neck.

Its perfection is hard to describe.

###

Yesterday also marked the beginning of My Two Months of Utter Zonedness.

Last year, I noted I hardly had any Seasonal Affective Disorder at all if I just stayed stoned all the time.

So this year, I’m gonna stay stoned proactively.

Except not if I have to drive somewhere ‘cause you know: Don’t gummy and drive, kids!

Turns out I can Remunerate just fine if I’m stoned.

So, really, there’s no reason not to stay stoned.

November and December are always dark months for me. And likely to be even darker this year since I have no interesting holiday plans, and so, will feel even more like an abandoned orphan than usual.