Hare Warning
Having purchased a can of Thai green curry paste for the first time last week, I spent this afternoon cooking a batch mixed with coconut milk containing garlic, ginger, eggplant, red pepper, shallots, mango, Thai basil, and toasted peanuts. Excited to share it with someone, I stopped to see Sue and asked her to sample the goods, which she hesitantly did with her back turned to my eager eyes.
“This is really good!” she said before ribbing me (for her pleasure). “Did you try it? ‘Oh no, I never try what I cook, Blebbz,’” she responded to herself using the mongoloid accent she invokes to channel my masculine cords, mocking my admittedly peculiar habit of never sampling my recipes while in progress.
“I took a bite, but I’m going to really dig in while watching Red Desert after my walk,” I replied.
Sue inquired about the film, I mentioned how it contained the smoldering Monica Vitti (“She can’t be a natural blonde if she’s Italian…just check her pubes,” Sue offered in response to the photo I showed her on my phone), and we hugged goodbye, but only after I lugged thirty-six bottles of seltzer from Sue’s trunk up two flights of stairs. Sporting a fresh blonde ‘do, Sue could’ve shown me her dark-colored Italian pubes for my efforts to reinforce her point, but alas.
I recently began walking again at my favorite spot in town—Moody Road near the Enfield Annex (aka where I attended high school/see Chapter Due in the LBS)—and during my promenade, I stared into a field of budding Christmas trees to spot a bunny.
“I love this walk because I always see at least one rabbit,” I texted Sue along with the emojis of a rabbit, eyeballs, and the heart-eyed smiler.
After completing the first half of my walk, I began circling the Annex’s track and checked my phone to see if Sue had responded. Oh, she’d responded alright. Profoundly.
“Rabbit”
“Oops!!!!!”
(All three laughter emojis.)
“Was trying to find an image of a rabbit! Here’s a better pic I found yesterday – Diamond Dave in all his open mouth glory!”
We’d discussed David Lee Roth during a trip to the Berkshires on Saturday, mutually concluding that we love how genuine he is. Being able to now associate DLR with Sue’s favorite animal yielded an irresistible joke.
“‘We ain’t talkin’ ‘bout love, dahling,” I texted back using the voice of Sue’s stuffed rabbit Hildegard, giddy for her response.
“I am laughing so loud right now! Tobi [Sue’s cat] is staring at me like I’m crazy! Fucking rabbit.”
Here’s hoping that Hildegard didn’t get a glance over Sue’s shoulder while Sue was predictably eating my curry with her back turned to the furry one.
Once I finally dug into said curry, my feelings for it were stronger than usual about my culinary endeavors. Red Desert proved to be dull like Michelangelo Antonioni movies often are until the film’s standout scene: Ms. Vitti (she of the charcoal mons pubis) tells a story to her son about a young girl who swims at an isolated beach full of crystal-clear water, pink sand, and wild rabbits (showing one briefly soaked by a wave)! On any other day, this scene would’ve been memorable, but now it was an added highlight in a night full of lagomorphic lunacy.
The urge to ironically blast “Jump” passed me by (would’ve inserted “Hop” into the lyrics, natch), although I did text Sue back, “But at least I don’t need to beg or borrow. Yes, I’m living at a pace that kills. Ooh, yeah, I’m runnin’ with the rabbit!”
Carrots are being incorporated into the next Thai curry. It remains to be seen if common sense will be incorporated into Sue’s future photo research projects. Let’s hope not.
Rabbit.