ever-fixed mark

Husband took the boys on a whale watch this weekend, so I planned a solo lunch and kayak trip for myself. I have many friends who would do anything to avoid eating alone in public, but it’s one of my favorite things to do, as long as I have something to read. So I gathered up the Sunday paper and went down to the diner. It was crowded, so I sat at the counter, at the end. I gave my order and settled down with the paper.

The cashier approached me and handed me a business card. “This isn’t mine,” I said.

“The gentleman up by the register told me to give it to you.”

The card had a man’s name and the profession “antiques dealer” in Boston and southern Maine. I didn’t recognize the name. “I think you’ve got the wrong person,” I said. She looked irritated and tossed the card on the counter. I figured it was a lame marketing ploy. I ate my lunch and left, leaving the card on the table.

As I was waiting for the kayak tour to start, my curiosity got the better of me, and I Googled the name to see just what he was peddling. The first hit that came up was on a site called dontdatehimgirl.com. It’s a site where women can go to complain about their ex-boyfriends, ostensibly for the benefit of other women. The post said that “John Doe” had been verbally abusive and had conned the complainant out of cash, and that she didn’t know he was married until he appeared at the hearing where she obtained a restraining order against him. “Ladies of Massachusetts and Maine, beware!”

I would normally not give credence to an anonymous tale like this. Still, the man had sent the waitress over to me with his card, like some randy conventioneer at a Marriott bar. Was it an indication that he was looking for his next meal ticket? And that he thought I, une femme pushing un certain age, looked lonely, desperate, and solvent enough to be a likely candidate? YUCK.

I’m not sure I approve of dontdatehimgirl.com. The whole concept of ratting out your ex seems rife for abuse. And even if the information is accurate, don’t you already have friends who can tell you whether or not your new boyfriend is a jerk?

A lovely little coda to this experience occurred just as I was telling Husband the story over dinner that evening. We were dining at yet another Port City bistro. A young woman was sitting across the room from us, dining solo. I noticed her because, as I said above, I know that many women don’t like to eat out alone, and it’s fairly rare to see someone eating alone at 9:30 at night at what passes for an upscale restaurant in Port City. We passed her on the way out; she looked up from the paper she was writing on and made some remark about being the last to leave.

“What are you writing?” Husband asked. “A letter?”

“To my boyfriend,” she said.

“Is he in the military?” I asked, thinking that was one of the few situations that would require a hand-written letter.

“No, he’s incarcerated,” she said.

“What’s he in for?” burst out Husband. I imagine Emily Post would consider that a rude question but, hey, I say she opened the door to that line of inquiry.

“Assault and battery,” she said.

Here is a woman whose friends were not doing their job. Let me try:

Oh, honey. Unless he is a prisoner of conscience, and Amnesty International is launching a letter-writing campaign on his behalf, an incarcerated beau is probably a really bad bet. There are so many fish in the sea; why tie yourself down to one in an aquarium?

I took Minor to the children’s museum in Dover this weekend, and at lunch I amused myself with this copy of the Rochester, NH Times:

Happy Ramadhan, Seacoast Muslims! Have some bacon.

The editor’s ham-fistedness (get it?) was more than offset, though, by the flair evidenced elsewhere in the paper. Prepare to admire the narrative stylings of the Police Blotter:

Monday, Aug. 10

11:02 a.m. Rite Aid on Wakefield Street reports getting a false Oxycodone presciption.

7:38 p.m. On Chamberlain Street, one neighbor is in another neighbor’s face. A cat is thrown from a second-floor window, and obscenities are also in the air.

7:49 p.m. At Rite Aid, a man tries to pick up his forged prescription. No cruisers are available.

8:25 p.m. On Chestnut, a boy would like to show his mother a cat in the road, but is slapped by a woman. This is followed by half a dozen calls describing people yelling and flipping.

8:36 p.m. Music blasts on Chestnut Street, possibly to drown out the yelling and flipping.

10:12 p.m. Choice words are used after a quartet of drinkers is nudged off Congress Street steps.

Tuesday, Aug. 11

3:56 On Crown Point Road a “rooster problem” is reported.

6:11 p.m. A Copper Lane citizen has had his e-mail account hacked. E-mails have been sent out asking everyone on his address book to send money to England.

7:22 p.m. A dirt biker, “whipping along Autumn Street” is counseled.

10:04 p.m. A Moores Court door is egged and the “N” word is also hurled around.

Wednesday, Dec. [sic] 12

3:54 p.m. Near the Salvation Army, a lady is on the ground appealing for help, while a gentleman punches her in the face.

8:05 p.m. A Washington Street woman has found a very pornographic photo of a juvenile on her lawn.

Thursday, Dec. [sic] 13

3:27 p.m. At the station, a man reports the theft of a jewelry box “within the last year” and knows who did it.

7:22 p.m. With the prospect of a yelling match, a large crowd gathers on Congress Street.

Friday, Dec. [sic] 14

11:50 a.m. The District Court bathroom has been toilet-papered, but officials are flushed with success — they have a handle on the culprits.

7:48 p.m. At McDuffee Brook Place six people are reportedly arguing, including a gentleman with his new girlfriend and an annoyed old girlfriend.

10:00 p.m. Several people are battling at the end of Congress. Police have to guess which end.

Aitch is very impressed with the fact that he is now Six, and he expects you to be impressed, too. He is continually buttonholing (took me a few minutes to light on that, after rejecting pigeon-holing? Punch-holing?Corn-holing?) people with the information: “Did you know, I’m Six now?” Happily for him, they tend to respond with the required shock and awe: “What? No way! You’re Six? That’s wonderful!” etc.

Sometimes, though, there is no one of Aitch’s acquaintance in the vicinity, and he resorts to impressing strangers. His modus operandi is to sidle up to a random person on the street; turn to me, all faux-casual, remarking loudly, “You know, now that I’m SIX…”; and then look for the stranger’s gobsmacked reaction, as if he had said, “My Super Bowl ring is pinching me today,” or “This is the exact shade of blue my helicopter is painted.”

This has only worked once, on a teenage girl who was disposed to look kindly on small children. The rest of the time, sadly, he has been ignored. They say that intermittent reinforcement is the most powerful, though. I expect he’ll continue to try until he’s Seven.

My office was relocated to a different building even closer to the Moroccan cafe where I was getting my morning and afternoon coffee, so now I’m visiting up to three times a day. Ramadhan started recently, and I feel terrible coming in and ordering food and drink when all the staff are starving. Yesterday afternoon when I got my coffee I struck up a conversation with two of the workers, asking if they were fasting. I mentioned that when I lived in Tunisia, restaurant workers weren’t put in the position of serving non-fasting patrons, because most of the cafes were closd during the day.

One of the guys asked how long I had lived in Tunisia, and I told him. The other guy said, “I’m from the country right next door to Tunisia.”

“Are you Algerian or Libyan?” I asked.

“Moroccan,” he answered.

“I don’t think Morocco and Tunisia share a border,” I said.

He insisted, and even drew me a map. I contradicted him, but then one of the other patrons (not a North African) said to me, “You know, he’s right. Morocco is next to Tunisia.”

“I don’t THINK so,” I said, but I was starting to doubt myself. On one hand, I was sure that Morocco wasn’t next to Tunisia, because if it had been, I would have gone there. It was the fact that Tunisia was landlocked between of war-torn Algeria on one side and death-to-America Libya on the other that prevented me from taking any train journeys out of the country for three years. On the other hand, I’d persisted in idées fixes in the past only to have my worldview crumble when proven wrong. There was the time my mother-in-law told me that the word “restaurateur” was properly spelled without an N, and the time that my friend P. proved that Neil Young had never been in the group America. Could I have been laboring under a geographical delusion all these years?

No.

I can’t believe I backed down.

Aitch has always been wary of the kayak, but since we got back from vacation at the Tyler Place (gah! we left the day that Julie and Julia arrived! Am still imagining the Vermont Mommy Blogging summit that might have been) he has been talking about trying to paddle the kayak on his own. His counselors took his group kayaking one day and let some of the kids paddle their own boats. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to do the same with six-year-olds, but I saw this as a great opportunity to get Aitch more interested in kayaking.

So last weekend, I loaded up two kayaks on the car, but I determined I would leave one on top of the car until I was certain Aitch was enjoying himself. I put one boat in the water, put Aitch in his PFD, and handled him the paddle. I had envisioned myself wading alongside him whilst coaching him on the finer points of paddle management. I certainly did not envision him striking out confidently for the middle of the pond, leaving me open-jawed on the shore.

He was in a big, wide kayak, using a big, heavy paddle, and he quickly got tired and sloppy. I held my breath as I wondered if he’d be able to turn the boat around and come back. The other boat, you’ll remember (foreshadowing!) was still on top of the car, and the only way to rescue him would be to swim for it.

Now, before you go calling DSS, I need to make this clear: Aitch was in a perfectly stable boat, he was wearing his life jacket, and he is very confident in the water. At no time was he more than a fifteen-second swim away from me, and I was perfectly capable of swimming out and towing him back. I wasn’t afraid for his safety; I was afraid that he would end up with a tantrum and I would end up with leeches. It was not the cleanest pond.

Meanwhile, he wasn’t panicking, so I told him how to paddle on one side to turn the boat around. Amazingly, he did, and he made it back to shore. Then he went out and back again, out and back again, at which time I decided not to push my luck any further, and I beached him while I put the second boat in the water.

Then I had a brainwave, also stimulated by something I saw at the Tyler Place. I got one of the tie-down straps from the car and hooked the stern of my boat to the bow of Aitch’s. Then I towed him through the water. He practiced paddling when he felt like it, occasionally bumping my boat, and cruised the rest of the time. We followed Dog around the pond, looking for frogs and spying on a big blue heron. It was really fun and surprisingly easy to tow another boat. Aitch got to have his own space, and I didn’t have to worry about him getting too tired. As a bonus, I remained leech-free.

Me (reading e-mail): Hey, it’s Occupation Week at Minor’s pre-school this week.

Husband: Darn, I forgot to pack his little Nazi uniform.

Me: Funny, that’s exactly what I was picturing.

This summer, we’ve benefited from some non-toxic pest control methods taught to us by others. (What can I say? Minor loves fruit, and the universe is his trash receptacle.) Forthwith, the only Hints from Heloise you’re ever likely to get from me:

Ants: My housekeeper kills ants with kosher salt. Works like a charm and seems to deter further infestations.

Fruit flies: My friend K, who has a winery and three children who also love fruit but shun trash cans, showed me this. Put some apple cider vinegar, dish soap, and hot water in a cup, filling it to the brim. The little devils are attracted by the vinegar, but the soap bubbles trap their little feet. Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!

If you use this in your wine tasting room, though, warn the patrons so they don’t dip their bread into it, thinking it’s olive oil.

I survived my 14-hour round-trip with the boys and had a really nice reunion with my Peace Corps friends this weekend. We drank a lot of wine and told a lot of our stories about each other and absent friends, but we spent an inordinate time reminiscing about the food. For the first time, I realized that we actually ate pretty well during our forced stint as locavores. Sure, we occasionally missed peanut butter, but we had constant access to fresh, abundant meat and produce.

Some things I hadn’t thought about in awhile:

Fresh baguettes, purchased every morning at your local bakery at the government-subsidized price of 100 millimes (about 10 cents). I used to eat it every morning with canned quince jam. It was considered sinful to discard bread, so people would leave their stale ends outside on their curb for animals to pick up.

Kaftegis - disgusting sandwiches with hot greasy french fries IN the sandwich.

Pizza with tuna and olives.

Lablebi, a hot chickpea stew, served as breakfast at construction sites.

Vile pudding decorated with little silver balls served for the Prophet’s birthday. It tasted like the iron pills the nurse used to give us.

Pastries dripping with sweet honey served during Aid Kbir. (The Tunisians were not that great with desserts.)

Raw, unpasteurized, spoiled milk (liban), the national health drink.

Peppers (filfil) that were either haloo (sweet) or haar (hot), depending on how you asked the question. (If the vegetable seller thought you wanted haloo, then he would tell you they were haloo.)

Brik, egg fried in phyllo dough with parsley and mashed potato, served with a squirt of lemon. Yum!

Harissa, or red pepper paste, served with a dash of olive oil and garnished with olives. Yumyumyum.

Cous-cous (kusksi in Arabic), the Tunisian national dish, with djej (chicken) or aloosh (lamb). YUMyumyumyumyum.

We talked ourselves into a serious craving and decided to make cous-cous on Saturday night. While we were shopping, we looked for harissa, which you can often find in the ethnic section of supermarkets, but a search of two stores turned up nothing. My friend K. found a recipe on the Internet and whipped up the most awesome batch of homemade harissa in ten minutes. Go ahead, click on that link and try it out. You won’t be sorry.

When I got home I was motivated to replace my Cuisinart (the bowl on the old one had warped, rending it useless), and I made it myself, as well as another Tunisian dish I’d been craving, slata mechouia (grilled salad). I’m not sure how to describe it — a sauce? a dip? a condiment? You eat it with bread, but you can also spread it on a sandwich.

Here, adapted from the Peace Corps cookbook, is the recipe:

1/4 kilo peppers (I use green and red sweet peppers)
1/8 kilo tomatoes
1 head of garlic
Small onion
1/2 t coriander
1/2 t cumin
Oil
Salt

Grill vegetables on a kanoun (a grill; you can also use your broiler).

When the skins are blackened, put all the vegetables in a plastic bag and tie the top shut. Leave them for 15 minutes. (This allegedly loosens the skins so they are easier to peel.)

Peel the blackened skins from the vegetables.

Puree the vegetables together with salt and seasonings.

Add oil to desired consistency.

Eat with bread.

Shahya taiba!

While Husband is planning his big Renaissance weekend, I have also been planning a reunion of sorts. A Peace Corps friend of mine who lives in Cairo, P., is on the east coast for the summer, and we are planning to take the boys on a road trip to the Finger Lakes region to see two other Peace Corps friends, K. and V., who recently bought a winery. (My friends: winery. Husbands’ friends: Renaissance Faire. Need I say more?)

I’m pretty sure that K. and V. first learned to make wine in the Peace Corps. P.’s roommate, T., used to make batches in their kitchen. He didn’t have access to any special wine-making equipment, so he’d use big water bedouns to ferment the fruit and condoms that came with our medical kits as airlocks. When the condom got flaccid, that was the signal that some crucial biochemical process was completed.

One weekend T. held a winemaking seminar/party at his and P.’s apartment in Jendouba, on the western border of Tunisia. Here we are:

Don’t we look hippie? And sweaty? And drunk? The pink stuff in the water bottle was the finished “wine”; the big bedoun on the floor contained the elixir-in-progress. It was high summer in Jendouba, a town generously described as “the armpit of Tunisia.” Does your armpit harbor mosquitoes the size of single-engine planes? No? Well, then, I’d rather vacation in it than Jendouba.

I’m the one with my eyes closed, which is usually how I’m photographed. I’m holding the wine-making manual (pre-internet, we had to learn things out of books — how quaint). I distinctly remember how happy I was to be wearing shorts outside of my apartment without having anyone call me a kahba (whore).

It was so hot that night that, after consuming a considerable quantity of our moonshine, we decided to sleep on the roof of the apartment building. Even on the edge of town there weren’t many artificial lights, and I spent an hour watching shooting stars before I fell asleep. At least, I think they were shooting stars. They may have been auras from the ocular migraine caused by the drink. I awoke some time later with mosquito bites on the palms of my hands and soles of my feet. Those were some tough mosquitoes.

Periodically, Husband gets together with three of his old high school buddies for a boys’ weekend. Husband and two of the three friends enjoy similar modes of relaxation, chiefly urban and Scotch-fueled.

They have a fourth friend who is a musician. For unknown reasons they decided to let him plan their boys’ weekend this year. Where is the Rat Pack headed? You guessed it: the Renaissance Faire!

I have been trying to imagine what a lame version of The Hangover that particular Lost Weekend would inspire.

A: Zounds, but my head doth ache! O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.

B: O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! That we should with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause transform ourselves into beasts!

C: What ho, lads! An infant, mewling and puking? The recollection of its arrival is in my memory locked, but I have not the key.

A: Men! I’ th’ jakes! A ravening Tyger!

B: But where is D? He is rendered lost.

C: Wait. Is D the one who made us come to the Renaissance Faire?

A: Yep.

B: Let’s get the hell out of here before he comes back.

Exeunt, pursued by a Tyger.