After the ant-staring, Lucy and I were leisurely gaffing in my yard – about anything else besides the party – when Maisie came in and started leisurely gaffing with us as well. I pull out a chair for her and we just sit, sit and talk. Franzea comes over; a picnic is planned for the day in which she and some of my “special invitees” would be gone for the morning and early afternoon. Umm… She wanted a mug of the rice wine we’d set… Sure, why the heck not? Sporting at 9 a.m. – woo hoo! Plus, some of them had been sporting from the night before (school athletics in Quatata the day before, with an extended post-athletics sporting that involved enough music and drinks), I guess they wanted to carry on. Then Inez and some Auntie whose name I don’t know, came, bearing gifts of unstrained cari to donate. Aww. “When are you keeping yours?” Inez asks. She’d decided that she’d hold her own after my own, something I’m assuming happened due to my lack of communication with her. “Umm…. 3 or 4?”
Her husband had come with the ladies, and was still going on fumes from the day before and saw Franzea carrying out the mug of rice wine. When he asked what it was, she replied “Water!” He asked if I had any “water” in the house, and I say the pipes were off for the time. It looked like he was going to turn belligerent and I was debating on what to do when Lucy just muttered out of the corner of her mouth for me to just get the man a drink, so I pour some rice wine into my smallest pot and take out a cup and give him some damn rice wine. I refused to let myself start pondering the issues of drinking and my role in abetting such issues – it was my party day, dammit. And it looked like my social gathering was competing with hangovers, party layovers, picnic plans and a general air of laid-backness. So I just sit back and let it happen… mostly.
Go to Bryan’s shop to buy some rice, just in case… They were also still celebrating the post-athletics stuff and I get thrust a beer into my hands and listen to oldies and tipsy man banter. Eventually get the rice and go to check with the Duncans and Junita about meat and a meal. Junita sweetly asked if she could help cook, but…. Eh. Decide no meal.
As I go home and shut myself in my room for some more eye glazed catatonicity, Jose comes to offer to make a cake, if I can get the ingredients. I was in the “aw crap, there’s another thing to think about, so I’ll avoid thinking about it” mode, but Lucy later called me to go get the ingredients… Ok. Didn’t want to go back to Bryan’s shop, but I did. I had an actually engaging chat with Sir Bryan about growing up and older and learning from mistakes and living. Very engaging. Great man. He asked what all the ingredients were for, I told him it was for my b day cake and he gave them all to me for free.
All the ingredients except coconuts (a coconut cake, baked in a mud oven with special wood for fuel that burns nicely with pastries). I’m pointed in Junita’s direction and she gets Habla to go knock some down from her tree, though Habla “demands” payment of a mug of cari later that night. You bet. Take the ingredients for the cake to Jose’s house, which is the last house on the hill – a slight walk. The coconuts were water coconuts, not the right kind. Jose suggests Lorrie’s house, and sends a daughter, Mabell, to go with me. We trek to Lorrie’s house and call to her mom, who first offers me a cup of sweet rice wine, initiating the obligatory drink and gaff first. I inquire about coconuts and we have to find someone to actually climb the trees, as the poles are too heavy and too short. She finally goes across the way and gets a young boy. He shimmies up the coconut tree, and we help him up with pole footholds and he knocks down two. Mabell carried them home to be grated and made into a cake.
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