Bloody Marys, Michael Jackson, rocks in the tub, and a random object from the cellar

During my second week on Block Island, the ferry brought me some visitors: Mitchell, Luisa and Meghan. Mitchell was in Rhode Island for 5 days and so they took the ferry out and spent the day with me. They arrived in the morning and left at sunset. It was one of those days that catapulted us out of normal time. Normal time didn’t seem to exist. The day lasted forever. We barely ate, although we kept talking about eating. There were pastries brought from Providence (a big joke – “who’s got the pastries?” “are you in charge of the pastry box?”), and I basically had a box of Triscuits. The thought that we could “grab some lunch”, as though there were a sandwich shop open, was foolhardy, since NOTHING is open out there. I had stuff to make sandwiches, I had salad stuff, I even had some chicken – but we just never got around to eating. We were too busy drinking highly complicated Bloody Marys, cavorting all over the house, sitting out on the porch and talking, blasting music and dancing around, and bickering constantly. “SHEILA. SHEILA. SHEILA. SHEILA.” shouted Luisa at me, to get my attention when I was talking to Mitchell. Finally I was like (on the verge of hysterics) – “Luisa … what? That is not socially acceptable behavior …” We all lost it. We decided to make Bloody Marys, so we stopped off at the grocery store after I picked them up at the ferry. Luisa decided to just have whiskey, so the image of Luisa, walking out of the grocery store, with a bottle of whiskey in a bag, and it wasn’t even noon yet, was just awesome. Mitchell, thinking about Bloody Marys, said, “Oh, you know what would be good? Pickle spears.” I replied, “Please don’t get sexual with me. It makes me really uncomfortable.”

Once back at my little abode, Mitchell, Meghan and I set about making Bloody Marys, which involved celery salt on plates, pickle juice, horseradish, tobasco … it took a half an hour to make the drinks. Luisa who had poured herself a whiskey and sat down in the den called out to us, “I don’t know what YOU guys are doing, but I’M having my drink.”

We sat around in my front room (with the rolltop desk) – a place I hadn’t really spent any time in, but it was nice: my visitors warmed it up for me. There was so much laughter that I am surprised the house did not actually elevate up into the air with it. Luisa was describing her girlfriend’s tub and how it “has rocks in it” – which freaked me out and I couldn’t let it go. What Luisa actually meant was that it is a stone tub, with laid-out rocks beneath the surface, almost like a patio floor, but beneath the tile. But perhaps due to my Bloody Mary, I kept picturing pebbles in the tub, and I kept interrupting Luisa’s story, like a halfwit. “She has ROCKS in her tub??” “Well, no, not like – it’s like inlaid rocks beneath the –” “ROCKS? DO THEY HURT YOUR FEET?” Luisa kept trying, “No, it’s more like it’s underneath the –” I screamed at her, nervous and insecure, “Should I have rocks in my tub???” Like: is that a thing now? Is it a trend I need to be aware of?? The conversation, needless to say, had to stop, because I couldn’t seem to understand what was happening, and Luisa was laughing too hard to go on.

The following morning, I woke up, getting used to the quiet and solitude once again, and I went into the upstairs bathroom to wash my face. I hadn’t been in there the night before. As I walked in, something caught my eye, and I looked into the tub and there, lined up in a very scary Blair Witch kind of way, were three beach rocks. Placed there at some point during the day before by Luisa. The image of her doing this secretly, and then not telling anyone, leaving it there to be discovered by me, is so so funny to me.

Luisa loves cellars and wanted to go check out my cellar. I was afraid of the cellar. It looked like a place where you would be hacked to pieces by an intruder and never seen again. I was also afraid of the spiders. Luisa found a mop and stomped down into the cellar, whiskey in hand, to check out the cellar, and clear away cobwebs. Meanwhile, Mitchell, Meghan and I were dancing around to Michael Jackson in the kitchen. Luisa eventually returned, announcing, “Cobwebs are gone.” She was holding something behind her back. “Guess what I found,” she said. I stepped back, fearfully. And when she brought out what she had found … it took us all a minute to even understand what it was that we were seeing. We were stunned.

I will not describe it, because the visual is best. The object appears in the montage below, and it will be immediately obvious what it is. The object became our mascot. We placed it everywhere, taking pictures of it, laughing so hard tears streamed down our cheeks. We placed it on the bulkhead in the backyard so that it could stare at the psychedelic sunset. We were giddy. No doubt. Giddy with laughter and happiness.

We didn’t even care that we didn’t eat. Their ferry home was at 5:30, and at around 4:45, exhausted from all the housebound fun we were having (I had all these plans to take them to the Southeast Lighthouse, which never came to fruition because we were having too much fun taking pictures of each other and wearing goofy sunglasses) – someone said, “Did we even eat?”

No, we did not.

But it didn’t matter at all. The whole day was a feast for the soul.

Meghan and Luisa coming off the ferry.

Mitchell with his Bloody Mary.

Meghan and Luisa, in my front room – the awesome chairs.

Luisa with her drinks. It is 12:15 p.m.

Meghan

The sunglasses portion of our day has begun.

The sunglasses portion of the day continues. Meghan said, when she saw this picture, “I think I can see my pancreas!”

Luisa getting ready to go conquer the cellar

Dancing around in my kitchen

“Man in the Mirror” blasting at full volume

Mitchell and Luisa. They have been friends since high school.

The psychedelic sunset that night. Meghan looked up at it and said, “Really?? I mean … really?”

Carnage on the counter.

And now. Here is what Luisa found in the cellar.

You can see why we could not get enough of him. We put him EVERYWHERE. Here are Luisa and Meghan, struggling to not fall over from laughing, placing him on the bulkhead in back, facing the sunset.

Hippie Man enjoys the view.

So stupid. So so funny.

The next morning, I walked into my bathroom to see Luisa’s handiwork, left for me to discover.

Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.