What in the name of Driftwood Charlie? That string of words came tumbling out of my brain in the form of question when I woke up—very late—this morning. Accompanying those words was a lilting melody I vaguely recognize…but not in connection with those words. The attempts to dredge up a more precise recollection have failed, but not spectacularly. I think the melody might belong to a fading memory involving an old sea shanty, Drunken Sailor. According to Wikipedia, that shanty and another recent one, Wellerman, are two of the most famous sea shanties. Except, according to the all-knowing internet, Wellerman really is not a sea shanty but, instead, a whaling sea song or ballad,
not a rhythmic work song (shanty). The branding of the respective songs is of very little concern to me, but in a deeply meaningful way—buried beneath layer after layer of mystical irrelevance. As the whimsical query continues to settle into my brain, I think I can feel ancestral connections with a word (forebitters) that is said to describe the type of song that was sung by sailors on sailing ships in their leisure time. But I have no defensible assertion to feel such an ancestral connection. To my knowledge, my heritage does not include any evidence-based links to sailors who faced the unending ferocity of angry waves and hungry sharks and whales bent on revenge. Admiration and respect for people who confronted such existential challenges does not translate into proof of lineage. Even if those attitudes did prove such ancestral ties, I would question the validity of truth. Inasmuch as truth is experience seen through the blind eyes of the inexperienced, perspective is at least as important as fact.
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Experiential Infusion (EI) was the name I gave to an imaginary process and to the fictional company that should have done a better job of protecting its intellectual property from theft. Had I been more attentive, I would have challenged the trademark registration filed by Chance Encounters (CE). By the time I finally realized what was happening, it was too late. CE had stolen the process I had spent two lifetimes creating. Those two lifetimes—assigned to Contrition Beasley (CB) and Emphatico Strutch (ES)—had little but sentimental value, but any value is better than none. I spent their value like it flowed from an endless supply. As we know now, though, endless value is a fantasy sculpted from cold rust and chilled paraffin. CB was the first life contributed to EI; ES surrendered his just days later. Neither of them had signed the contracts. But that did not matter. CB and ES were expendable; the only thing that mattered was the explosive success of EI…without infringement by CE . That’s as much as I am at liberty to tell at the moment.
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One month and eight days ago, I was scheduled to get a haircut. My response to an earlier chemotherapy session persuaded me to postpone that appointment. One month before that postponed event, I had been given a haircut; two months and eight days ago. Today, if all goes according to plan, I will get that long-delayed haircut. Getting a haircut has not been a big deal for most of my life, but it has grown to seem unnecessarily intrusive. Haircuts and shaves muscle their ways into my routine, interrupting matters of greater importance and thereby boosting inconsequential stuff (like haircuts and shaves) to higher-than-justified levels.
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We assign value to time by using clocks and calendars. If we were to assign value to clocks or calendars, what would we use to illustrate their value? We should realize, of course, that time has no value in the absence of water or oxygen. Without water, time could not exist because those of us for whom time matters must have water to survive. And oxygen.
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Until yesterday, I had not eaten canned sardines in many, many months. Nor had I consumed canned smoked oysters in at least as long a period of time. Yesterday, though, I opened a can of spicy sardines that had been laced with piri piri peppers (a spicy pepper often used in South African and Portuguese foods). Tasty! I recommend sardines. And piri piri (also called peri peri) peppers. I can vouch for the suitability of peri peri sauce on chicken that has been prepared in various ways…like fried, baked, grilled, but NEVER raw. And peri peri sauce is good with grilled vegetables and drizzled over rice.
Meat loaf. My SIL brought us some delightfully tasty meatloaf. After our kitchen has been remodeled, we either will have to acknowledge that we are capable of cooking or we will have to admit that we love to eat food prepared by others. Or both.
