All You Can Eat

Luckily, the power didn’t go out during the most recent snowfall. It was a few flakes over a foot this time. I knew I would be snowed in, so my strategy was preparedness and supply conservation.

Obviously I bought enough beer and bourbon to hold me through a few days of snow induced house arrest, but food would be another issue.

Essentially, food provisions boil down to two types: those you have to heat up, and those you don’t. You can find a box of pasta on sale at the grocery store for about a dollar. But without power, you can’t boil the water to cook it. Same goes for raw meats and frozen food items. Note that for the purposes of this explanation, I’m ignoring the potential of cooking with cast iron in the fireplace.

The second food category consists of items you can eat ‘as is.’ Raw veggies, fruit, nuts, most canned goods, bread, and as was my diet for the last day, deli meats, are all good expamples. During the early part of the storm, while power was on, I ate items from the first category to sustain my stash of those in the second. I was eating food that required power to prepare in case later on, if I had lost power, I still had food to eat that didn’t require electricity to prepare.

Of course, items like deli meats are in category 2 in the winter and category 1 in the summer because they require refrigeration. If power had gone out, I could have kept my ham and swiss from spoiling by placing them inside a large cooler, i.e. my front porch. My only concern then would be whether I had a ham sammy or a ham-and-swiss popsicle.

Luckily, I didn’t have to rely on my preparation this time. The key, though, is that I could have if I needed to.

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Lunch Specials

I slept in this morning. It felt good. I wouldn’t have thought that sitting at a desk all day for a week would make me so tired. Or, perhaps, it could have been the bourbon.

I met Treasa for lunch. We took a small table near the middle of the restaurant. She selected the seat facing the door. This made me a little uncomfortable so I forced myself to conclude that any threats would have to come from the kitchen.

After lunch, we stopped for a Guinness. I’ll spend tonight researching Bulgarian backgrounds, watching the end of the second season of 24, and watching some football.

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Beginning of the Storm

There’s a storm rolling in tonight on the East Coast. People tend to freak out when a few inches of snow are expected. They bull rush the grocery store to stock up on non-perishable items lest they get snowed in for a week’s worth of On-Demand. I avoid this scene like the plague.

Public places demand vigilance and attention to detail. I commit multiple rows of license plates to memory to check for a tail. I memorize what hand people use to lock their car or pick up a can of soup so I know what side is dominant in case they come at me with a weapon. Too many cars, too many people, too many chances to make a mistake. Even awesomeness is cognizant of its limits.

I steer clear of the mega-food-brouhaha and head out to Gary’s Tree and Limb Service. I have a package to pickup.

Gary clears fallen trees, splits the wood and sells someone’s nuisance as another’s treasure. His office is a converted trailer sitting amongst piles of mulch, sand, gravel and mixed hardwood—all for sale.

I enter through the front. To my right is Gary, smoking behind some reclaimed Salvation Army office desk. To my right is an extremely large black man. He’s too clean cut to be working on the machinery; he’s employed for other purposes.

“How much to fill the back of my truck with split oak?”

“Hundred. Go ‘round back, away from the road. The wood there is more seasoned.”

The five twenties I hand him ignore the register completely and instead delve straight into his vest pocket. It’s not like I work for the IRS. Without another word, I leave and make my way back towards a pile of wood. A month ago these logs probably crashed through someone’s shed during a storm.

After filling my truck bed, I walk over to the vending machine near the back maintenance shed. I make my selection, but instead of just grabbing my soda from the bottom tray, I reach up and retrieve an envelope taped to the inside wall.

It’s begun.

I get in my truck and head back. My thoughts are both focused and excited as I know I’m back in the game. Closer to revenge. Excited to the point of...mother fucker! I’m out of bourbon.

If I’m going to be snowed in for a day, I can brave the chaos of a pre-snow storm liquor store to make it tolerable.

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