Trece de Viernes

I made beer battered onion rings and mushrooms for dinner. Cutting the onions was much fiercer a battle than expected. I teared up like a tragic player, and the old eyes stung sharply! At one point I had to close my eyes and had difficulty opening them. They were stung shut! I went on cutting in blindness. I can feel my way around. Kinesthetically, I'm astute. I had to take a break, splash my eyes with cool water, which almost worsened it momentarily. Then I pulled out an old pair of swimming goggles from under the bathroom sink and resumed chopping that fat, organic white onion. I'm a culinary pansy.

These were delicious. I popped open a Labatt's Blue this morning and let it sit out all day to flatten. It served its purpose well.

As a prelude into Friday the 13th I had a wicked dream which combined two of my favorite interests; ghosts and brewing. I dreamt I owned a lot of land in the woods in which I set out to till the soil and grow barley and hops. Soon I learned this land was haunted. I forget the cerebral flicker of details but I learned the history of the accumulation of ghosts through old maps of a failed, small town bus system. An old man, not quite a shaman, or perhaps a shaman well hidden in modern garb, introduced me to a thick mud out in the woods. There was a spread of white fungus, doing its thing within the dark brown, thickened soil. He taught me to eat it. It tasted like a brownie! It had hallucinogenic properties which were supposed to heighten my awareness of these bus inflicted ghosts. Unfortunately it didn't do the trick for me. The old man told me I needed to eat more. So I did. I only felt full. Then I was suddenly on a business trip in the Wisconsin Dells and drove past outdoor hotel pools, shallow ones for the kids. Little babies were swimming around with baby dolphins under fountains. It was more like wiggling and worming than swimming. It looked a bit grotesque.

This morning on my way to work I crossed the path of a penny on the ground, heads side up! I reckoned this should be good luck on this Friday the 13th of May! Yet when I got to work I found both toilets in the men's to not have been flushed the previous evening. I did a good deed and flushed both. But the bowl was stained so I went up to the fifth floor bathroom and there was a gross something floating in the bowl there too. And cocky was I from the weather this week that I wore a short sleeved polo shirt and no coat. When I stepped out for lunch, a cold front had swept in and dropped the air temperature about twenty degrees. I think that penny is laughing at me. Day was redeemed when beer battered onion rings and mushrooms entered my belly. Now I'm going to ring in the "holiday" watching Kubrick's The Shining with my cat. On Halloween after drinking it up with pumpkin ale I wound the night down with The Shining. My cat watched it intently! His eyes were glued! He wants to see it again!