Today I had "chores" for the first time.
About once a month each person on the farm has to come in on the weekend and do chores like making sure the chickens are fed and the plants have water cause unfortunately they don't know what the weekend is. For them it's just another day the sun came up and they have to figure out how to survive.
Despite having to be up at the normal time, chores are actually pretty "chill" as my partner for the day described them. Maybe an hour or two, if that, and soon enough I found myself sitting at the front desk of our ranch store waiting for the afternoon chore shift to begin.
I'm enjoying myself. Got my boots off, warmed up my lunch, talking to my lady. And of course, out of nowhere, I hear the door creak open and here comes Max. All three feet of him.
Max is the resident menace of the farm. His father is the farm manager and the child's energy knows no bounds
Hi _____!
What's up Max, how you doing today...
So what Max doesn't understand is that he's interrupting a very important conversation.
This conversation I'm in the process of having with my lady is a getting myself out the hole conversation. The first conversation after THE conversation. I fucked up. Plain and simple. I'm tryna work a little magic to fix it. So at the moment, I've made it out of deeper waters and am now treading on thin ice. Moving very tactically, but also trying to get back into my rhythm. If you've been there, you know what I mean.
So anyway the little shit just blew that conversation up. He comes in spinning around in the chair, opening up umbrellas, trying to knock down the replica Heron hanging from the ceiling. He even found his way into the facetime camera and got himself a little bit of love. By the time he was done it was time to start on afternoon chores and of course he decided he wanted to help me with those too...
I'll call you later baby
Mhmm
I spent the next three hours babysitting and happened to do some chores in the process.
Im in the chicken coop tryna refill their feeders and he's in there picking up chickens by the wings and throwing them on top of the coop, taunting them
Jump down chicken! Are you scared?! Are you stressed?! Chicken taste much better when they're STRESSED
I made the mistake of telling him that picking up and throwing the chickens around was gonna stress them out and make them taste worse. That seemed to amuse him and lit a fuse under his tiny ass cause he only got worse from there.
When I got home I was telling my roommate about having to do chores with him around and she told me the last time she had to do chores, they were trying to move the sheep and he decided to be in the paddock with them. The two alpacas, that live with the sheep to protect them at night, were chasing him around the paddock trying to spit on him the entire time.
Imagine that, two alpacas, one brown, one white, chasing after a six year old child in a green and white striped shirt and jeans, trying to spit on him
Eventually I asked him
What would you rather be a hero or a villain?
I was thinking maybe his inclination towards acting like Sid from Toy Story was cause he just didn't really like the do good and serve the people trope. Respectable. But guess what he said
Ehhhhhh, you know I'm just a regular person. I'm nothing special, I don't really think I'd be either
How could I argue with that.
Speaking of chickens, I don't know if any of yall have ever been around a bunch of them at the same time, but it's like stepping into a warzone once you get inside their electric fence. We have something like two-three hundred laying hens and those mamas are vicious. Pecking at your shoes, flaring their feathers, just causing pure havoc while you're trying to collect eggs. I mean like literal cannibals. I opened up one of the coops to find two hens pecking incessantly at one of the eggs they had laid.
Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Crack. Boom. They bust the egg open and just went ham on the yolk in there. Two more chickens jumped in and tried to get some action. I made the executive decision to just let them have that egg after I saw the look in that hen's eyes and went about sneaking behind them to grab the other eggs in the little cubby.
I mean these chickens will literally do anything to send a message. They have a habit of jumping into the air and pecking at the eggs in the bottom of your basket if you're not holding it high enough. So I'm in there grabbing eggs
78. 80. 82. Peck. 83. Peck. 85. Peck.
I look down and here is a Mama hen airborne with her eyes set on this one brown egg that has perfectly nestled itself into the hole in the bottom of the basket just asking for somebody to bust it open like little Essie up against the pinata at her bestfriend's kindergarten birthday party.
It's a saturday afternoon in the middle of May. The sun is shining but the big tree in the front yard is filtering the light setting the tone for the moment.
Essie's starting to get a little embarassed. She's already had a couple attempts and made contact, but hasn't cracked that puffy pink unicorn open yet.
She jumps up one last time.
Feels her body lift up into the air.
WHHHHOOOOOOOOSH.
She closed her eyes on impact.
Let her feet hit the floor.
Silence.
...
YEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
She just walks away.
Y'all enjoy that
That's how that mama hen pecked that egg.
BOOM.
Pandemonium.
She didn't even eat any of it. Yolk landed on the back of her little head. That was okay. She just had to let the big ole bad human know what happens when you mess with a mama's babies.
On mother's day at that.
After all that, I had a steak defrosting in the fridge I needed some ingredients for to tend to properly.
On the way to the local supermarket I realized I had my backpack with me and was devising ways to make myself look less suspicious as I shopped.
You know being one of two black people within a thirty miles radius, you learn real quick when to shake hands and kiss babies and when to keep it pushing.
At first I was thinking I could grab one of the carts with two levels and put my backpack in the lower one so that it looked inconspicious, but then I remembered we have a little bike room on the first floor of our apartment that I could lock my stuff in. I put my bag in there and was hands free. Hopped on my bike and headed to the store.
Then, when I get to the store I'm looking for a bike rack to lock up my bike and of course there's this little white girl with a teddy bear waiting for her family to get out the car standing right next to the bike rack.
Shit.
I try and loop around the parking lot hoping by the time I look back they'll have started walking towards the store.
Nope.
Thankfully, I look to the far end of the store and find another open rack.
Whew.
I get my bike locked up and head into the store.
Brocolli. $3.99 a pound. Yellow Potato. $1.99 a pound. Thyme. $2.99. San Pellegrino Peach Ciao 6 Pack. $6.99. Unsalted Butter. $4.69. 2% Milk. On Sale. $5.57. OXO Cooling Rack. $16.99. Carrot Cake Muffins. $6.69. Van Leeuwen Ice Cream Cake Ice Cream. On Sale. $6.56.
I head to the self-checkout line and I’m getting myself together. I put my basket on the thing and this middle age white woman that looks just sweet as sugar is the employee on duty making sure people don't steal on the way out. I mean she has the grey curls, the puffed up face. Kinda like the complexion of Flapjack from the Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack mixed with Chowder from Cartoon Network, but in a good way. Like Paula Deen.
She kind of reminds me of my grandmother when she used to say
Come give grandma some suga
and she’d smack her lips just like when she’d be eating an apple. Oh my good that shit used to drive me crazy. I think have a video of her on my phone eating an apple cause she pissed me off so bad one time. I just had to document it because one day I knew I would need it for evidence. That goddamn day has finally come.
That's what she reminded me of.
So I get set up. I pull out my little Van Leeuwen Ice Cream that I got cause it reminds me of my home girl. And she's like
What flavor is that?
Uhh umm, uhhh I forgot already, um ice cream cake. Yeah ... ice cream cake.
Ohh! I’ve never tried that one. I always thought it was mint chocolate chip.
Yeah me too, it has the same blue color... Yeah ... French Ice Cream
I had got it cause I got the Carrot Cake Muffins and I was trying to choose between Vanilla Raspberry Cornbread I think, whose container was like this deep red. I was like the red, the orange, that's deep. Sexy. Appealing. Ice Cream Cake. Which was this blue that we mentioned and then Cookies and Cream. Classic. That’s what it really means to be a classic. People coming out with all these new flavors. Raspberry this, Butter Cake that, Lemon Swirl, Gentle Mist. And here go Cookies and Cream. Standing the test of time. Classic.
So I was thinking about it from a visual perspective. How it would look in my bowl. The orangish brown of the muffin with the polka dot (Cookies and Cream). Had some intrigue. The deep red of the raspbery and orange. Is there too little contrast? Ice Cream Cake. Blue, orange, complementary colors. Balance each other out. Yeah that’s it.
Let me get your basket sweetie
Huh oh, thank you
Pointing at my at the cooling rack in my bag
What you gonna do with that? Fry some shrimp on there?
Nah ... nah ... I’m actually gonna do a steak, little kosher salt, butter, put it in the cast iron
Okay, okay…
After I finish checking out I give her a smile and nod.
Enjoy that ice cream!
Haha, I will. You have a good night
You do the same
On Mother's Day at that.
Then I'm in the parking lot tryna get myself situated on my bike and thinking about how I don't really have a general archetype of what a grandfather is like. One passed away before I was born. The other two only speak spanish so we never got the chance to form a relationship where we really understood one another.
I wonder what I would be like if I had that experience.
I get myself together and start heading back to our apartment and lock eyes with some guys in a pine green pick up truck. This was a keep it pushing moment. Of course as I'm crossing the street I see them making a U-turn as I drop my bike lock onto the pavement. I bend to pick up the pieces and hear tires screeching. Silently, I accept a possible fate. Look up and see they're headed the other way. I think to myself. Racism. What a crazy way to die.
Eventually, I put on the new Billy Woods album1 (highly recommend if you want to learn how to make art that reflects the mood of the moment) and get to working on this steak.
I hear Kenji's voice in my head saying it be should like a snow flurry on an empty parking lot in New England. 2 As I'm waiting for the salt to pull out the moisture from the steak so that when I place it in the pan it doesn't have to spend time evaporating that liquid and can start searing just like Kenji said 3, I decide to take some notes so I remember all of the stuff you just read. I send my lady a text about the woman in the supermarket cause she likes when she gets little sneak peeks of my essays before the public.
And now I’m thinking about my mother.
On the phone earlier she said you’re the reason I’m a mother
And I’m getting a little emotional. So I just want to say. I’m sorry it’s a little bit late, but Happy Mother’s Day to my mother, to all the mothers and to all the women who play the role of a mother from a young age.
Thank you, thank you for taking care of us.
gb.
2. POV How to Cook a Steak, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt
3. ibid.