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Into the Jaws of WeirdnessJuly 05, 2007 We had a much-needed soaking rain last night, and today's been unsettled: blowy, overcast, a little more rain. It being summer on Martha's Vineyard, the good news and the bad news come so inextricably snarled that there's no point trying to sort them out. The good news is that it rained. The bad news is that rainy days are lousy beach days, and on lousy beach days everyone goes to town. The really bad news is that the island population generally hits its annual peak on Fourth of July weekend. Since the Fourth fell on a Wednesday, this year we're looking at Fourth of July week. I'd been needing a few things from Vineyard Haven -- Rhodry was out of glucosamine (he couldn't give a woo-woo about the pills, but he likes the cheese I wrap them in), I wanted a mop (the places I've lived in for the last 15 years had so little uncarpeted floor space that I could sit at the edge of it and mop it with a sponge), and two of the trough plugs at the barn were overdue for replacement -- they still hold the water in OK, but the little rings you grab to pull them out are long gone and one of them has to be poked out from the bottom with a screwdriver. Tuesday I needed a few groceries so I thought, hey, I'll stop by the post office and up-island Cronig's and then make the run to Vineyard Haven. Hah. An errand that should have taken about 25 minutes took nearly an hour. Couldn't blame the traffic either: it was the lines at the supermarket. The two people ahead of me in line both had tabs of well over $200. Mine was $38 and change. The good news is that it was a great beach day so maybe the road into Vineyard Haven wouldn't be jammed to a crawl. The bad news is that it was also a great riding day, it was past three o'clock, and my sense of duty sucks big-time. The good news is that I had a great ride; the bad news is that I didn't get the errands done. So this afternoon I was making pretty good headway with the Tasks at Hand, which is to say a grueling copyedit that richly deserves to be shot at dawn and then making a big bowl of salad before the cooked garbanzos had sat around long enough to be contemplating fermentation. (Other ingredients: broccoli and purple onion, chopped; pound of carrots, peeled and grated; 2/3 pound of feta cheese, crumbled; two generous handfuls of raisins. Mix in large bowl. Keeps well in fridge for nearly two weeks. Serve with Chatham Village garlic & butter croutons and Paul Newman's parmesan & roasted garlic dressing.) Around four o'clock I was thinking of getting ready to head off to the barn (Allie gets a second day off in a row) when my barnmate called to ask if I'd pick up a bag of Strategy (that's a kind of horse feed) at Campbell & Douglas, which is a helluva lot closer to where I live than to where Allie lives. OK fine, I did that and it put me in an errand-running dutiful mood, plus the weather looked too dicey for riding. It was past 4:30 at this point, but what the hell, Leslie's doesn't close till 5:30 and maybe I could find a parking place before then. On the outskirts of town, I pulled into the very small parking area at the front of Shirley's Hardware. A small sedan in front of me either didn't realize that there's parking in back of the store or intended to wait till someone pulled out in front. I was the one whose tailgate was practically sticking into State Road, so I honked. I honked again. I knew I was on the verge of an acute attack of Seasonal Adjustment Disorder when I honked for a third time. Fortunately the car moved. I bought a mop and two plugs, then headed into the Valley of Death, the Jaws of Weirdness -- Vineyard Haven on the Fifth of July. I went in the back way, of course, around by the cemetery and the school and the town hall, hanging a left on William Street and avoiding Main. Didn't find a parking place the first time around and was thinking of bagging the project for another day, but maybe my old puppy's joints would start deteriorating if he went without glucosamine for a third straight day and besides I'd got this far. On the second circuit I found a place on Center Street, just a block up from the backside of the town hall. Crossing Franklin on foot I had to step lively -- SUVs were barreling down this narrow two-lane road only two blocks from Main Street, and the drivers were all staring straight ahead. Summer . . . On Main Street people I'd never seen before were meandering up the sidewalk, gazing blankly at the shop windows, having heated discussions about "Where did you put the keys?" and "Does your mother know where we are?" Other people were sitting on benches, standing on street corners, crossing the street, all the while talking into their cell phones. They looked like electrons zinging off each other in slow motion, or like extras from King of Hearts, but with far less color and animation. A plaque marks the building that long housed Vineyard Dry Goods. I wonder what Ida Levine, longtime proprietor of the shop, would make of the "aromatherapie" boutique that now occupies part of the building. At the old Vineyard Dry Goods you'd be browsing through, say, the bras and Ida would swoop out of nowhere to tell you that the ones you'd picked out were too small for you. She was nearly always wrong. I scored Rhodry his glucosamine and some Benadryl knockoffs for his allergies, which have improved but he's still dry-coughing some. We headed off to the barn. The damn plugs didn't fit, but the horses got fed.
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