Summer Celebration

And when I search a faceless crowd
A swirling mass of gray and
Black and white
They don't look real to me
In fact, they look so strange
The Rolling Stones

The cats got in the house again and pissed on the carpet. I could corner them somewhere and stomp the living shit out of them, but then I'd just feel guilty. No, I don't want that. I want to figure out why the smell of the vinegar I poured all over the carpet makes me think of nothing but Easter eggs.
There's a reason for it somewhere. Someone, somewhere has studied the link between smell and memory. There's probably a whole field, Cognitive Cat Piss and Memory Processing, or something. I could probably find someone who could explain the whole thing to me, maybe even so I could understand. They'd go on and on in some learned way and I'd nod and nod and forget everything they said.
Nevermind. I don't want the details. No, I just want some kind of nebulous grasp of the concept, just enough to think I understand it so I can move on and think about something else. I'm a busy guy and I don't have time to finish anything.
This is just what I've needed lately. I've needed to be thoroughly confused by the smell of cat piss, or vinegar, or whatever, and I've needed to be left feeling helpless. I've needed to be left so confused that I can do nothing but grasp at some long forgotten Stones song and pray it helps me make sense of things.
It's been pretty dull around Let It Grow recently, folks. We're harvesting tomatoes and cute baby squash, actually selling them and paying the bills. I get up in the morning and work. That's about it: Work. I'm not suffering through life in a nicotine induced haze and I gotta say: it's fucking boring. I don't cough and I don't spit and I don't get dizzy in the heat of the noonday sun. I go in the house in the evening and make dinner - that's right: I actually eat the vegetables I grow.
I've read through my last several posts and I must say, dear reader, they're pretty dull. I seem to have lost the twisted edge that usually keeps me so entertained with life its ownself. My existence has been reduced to a monotonous day be day procession of contentment.
That all changed today.
Intern #1 had a nervous breakdown, thus maintaining the perfect record Let It Grow has established in past years of never employing anyone without severe mental problems.
So, I'm harvesting alone. Well, I'm harvesting with the evanescent assistance of Intern #3, of whom I have often wonder if he has corporeal form at all or if he is a figment of my imagination. Nevermind. Someone put the carrots on the box and it wasn't me. So, he must exist, just perhaps not in the same world occupied by the rest of us.
Enough about the interns. I have no time to turn their emotional inadequacies into literature. I only want to establish that I had to jump this morning, and jump fast. Ah, sweet disaster, where have you been?
So I head into market, and get there to find our parking lot full of SUVs with Florida plates. (Thank you, God, it was just what I needed.) B*'s there already, cell-phone in hand, calling tow-trucks. Well-dressed individuals with good credit emerged from an over-priced eatery just as the tow-truck was pulling a Lincoln Navigator across the parking lot sideways, and that's when all hell broke loose. They ran this way and that, heading off the tow-truck at the pass, and then scurrying back to their respective vehicles before another tow-truck arrived.
Oh, great fun.
It was Summer Celebration, you see. Our annual media blitzkrieg, where we hype up the hype and let the dogs and ponies loose. Look at us, dammit, we're sustainable! Somehow or another I volunteered to help, and had to do something like set up a grill for H*, the mad Hispanic chef of Asheville, who was going to dazzle the populace with masterly preparations of local, sustainable, organic, environmental, soul-enriching vegetables.
Only picking was a pain and there were SUVs in the way! Okay, deep breath. Calm down. And don't smoke. Set up the stand and get my veggies out of the sun. Go get the grill. Put the Cinzano umbrella over the grill. Hope H* shows up. Am I supposed to light the grill? Dunno. Fuckit. Customers are showing up. P*B* finally arrives. He takes charge of the grill. He pours briquettes into the thing and hits them with his flame weeder. Rock on! H* shows up and starts speaking some language he made up. Goats are running rampant across the parking lot. Kids run around with their faces painted. White people sing delta blues. People do yoga. People play hackey-sack. I drink too much. I don't smoke. I crave Benzedrine. My hypnotherapist shows up in the nick of time. Mild-mannered "activists" speak on the benefits of local economies. Skin-heads from WLOS news come into the parking lot with a satellite truck. We're ready to make speeches about local sustainable organics but they shut their cameras off and leave. The sun gets low. Market ends. Helpful people volunteer to clean up the grill and put things away. H* buys some squid and rides off into the sunset, speaking his own language. My God! This is what I've been missing! The twisted and the bizarre and the depraved!
I pack up and hit the road. I go to Target for more nicotine patches, then to Ingles for laundry detergent and cat food (ingrateful fuckers!) Coming off 19/23 in Weaverville I lose the clutch, can't stop the truck but manage to cut the ignition and skid onto the shoulder. Damn near launched Intern #3 through the windshield, but he's expendable. Okay, how to fix this thing? What do I have laying around? Aha! Metal stock from the drill press I helped T* get home. I knew there was a reason I was keeping it in the back of the truck lo these past six months. Jam it in the fork and see if the pedal works. Yes. Drive home. And here I am, celebrating summer.