Having had a few weeks of exclusively rural life, settling in and making friends, learning where things are, yesterday I decided to make a foray into the city. I like to pot around, window shop, snack on some item that you can’t get in the country, like cappuccino, or quiche.
For so long I worked 18 hour days, worked 7 days a week, worked days and nights, waking and sleeping, that the thought of a matinee on a weekday was as remote as petting an Antarctic penguin. Now that I have time, I decided to be decadent and go. I downloaded Mapquest directions to the movie theater and armed with purpose and directions, I struck off.
It doesn’t take long to get from my apartment to the city, only half an hour. I parked on a street very much like any street in the Old Port in Portland, lined with small bars, restaurants, funky jewelry stores and art shops. Walking slowly up and down is a pleasure when it’s 55 degrees with a light breeze and strong sun. I ordered a green herbal tea and a quiche at a locally owned café, and sat down to read the latest edition of the alternative newspaper.
The gal who served me the quiche was absolutely stunning, a dead ringer for a cross between a nineteen year old Jacqueline Bouvier and National Velvet’s Elizabeth Taylor. The place was filled with a mixture of college kids and professors. Twenty-somethings at the next table discussed whether the girl should break up. A Chinese student hunched over his laptop. A bespeckled tweedy professor read over student papers. It was a nice atmosphere.
The movie theater had stadium seats and being the aforementioned decadent weekday matinee, only had about a dozen people in the audience. The movie was “Borat” and the dozen people, including me, laughed, gasped, and generally acted just like you see in the movie previews. It's a wild ride of a movie.
I know the decadence won’t last. My time is inexorably filling in. I’ll either pick up more part time jobs, like the one I have now as writer’s assistant, or I’ll find something full time. Soon enough, the idea of a weekday matinee will again become a far-flung exotic idea, remote as Tibet. But I’ll always have Borat.
7 comments:
Enjoy the lively amount of nothing and Happy Thanksgiving.
-Chuck
Aw, Chuck, thanks!! I miss you! Happy Thanksgiving to you as well.
Sounds like you experienced a wonderfully 'memorable day', Elizabeth! May Joy and Happiness follow You wherever life takes you! "Happy Thanksgiving"..Enjoy!
You know, I expect that since you are so rural that you would have a story about hunting turkeys by now. They are pretty prevalent up here. Ah were I a hunter, I would likely be out there now in my orange looking for a turkey (except I would be in the wrong hunting season and would be pulled in by the Game Wardens)
-Chuck -save me some stuffing!
You know, come to think of it, I have not see one turkey! Turkey buzzards, yes. But no gobblers. Maybe they've all been goblbed up!
Deer hunting season is in full swing. I found that out last weekend. It was Veteran's Day and I was at the Huddle House with a gang of friends. I saw a table of four men in camo. I thought, this would make a good photo for the paper. I started to get up, but my friends told me they were not in the Reserves, they were hunters! Oops.
They don't follow the orange blaze rule as we do here in Maine? How many accidents do they have down there each hunting season?
-Chuck
During the 2000-2001 hunting season, Georgia had approximately 300,000 hunters. On a state and national level, deer hunters make up the highest proportion of hunters. The top five violations in 2001 were hunting deer without fluorescent orange, hunting big game over bait, hunting without permission, possession of illegally taken wildlife and hunting without a license.
So I guess they do have the orange rule, but the guys must have taken off their vests before coming in.
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