The Bag Stands By

Things have been a little weird around here lately.

It started last month when this big truck pulled up and a girl and a guy loaded a whole bunch of boxes and furniture in the garage. He was tall and lanky (is anyone ever short and lanky?) and she kind of looked like the lady only if the dough came out of the oven a lot sooner if you know what I mean?

Seems me and the other cases will be sharing our place with a load of this Chicago crew’s stuff for a while – it’s a little crowded in here but hey the more the merrier, I was getting tired of hearing the same old stories from the Gibson case, about this time in Germany with Yo La Tengo and that run in with the Swiss police and something about a mountain pass and the Sound of Music, yeah yeah I know you’re all continental and shit and I didn’t come aboard until those jet set days were on hold but hey my time will come, just you wait you piece of –

Oh , sorry. I’m not myself! I’ve been trying to keep an eye on things around here with him away and let me tell you, it hasn’t exactly been a cakewalk. A lot of coming and going with the van, she’s working a lot at the bookstore and bar these days, and every time the lady screeches up into the driveway, she’s playing this record by Amy Allison & David Scott. I’d say she must be going a little screwy on her own, but hey I like the sound of that music.

Then she’s in the house and I hear the same other records over and over, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings – outlaw stuff. Either that or NPR. Then it’s quiet a lot in there and I think “What is she doing? He, he plays guitar a lot but she, she’s pacing around and talking to herself.” Or she’s going on hikes – once or twice she’s even taken her bike out in the cold and when she flings open that garage door I get startled but then act very casual – hey, I don’t judge.

But the other day seems she ran out of heating oil and she comes groping around in the garage for these two big canisters to fill with kerosene. Then she comes back for a chair, to try to hoist the kerosene into the oil tank which is about five feet off the ground. Then she’s looking on YouTube trying to figure out how to get an oil fired heating system to restart – sheesh, I wish I could have helped! Then she’s on the phone with a plumber who’s talking her through, but she’s trying to bleed the line and there’s kerosene in containers everywhere and – boy I hope he’s coming back soon.

A buddy of theirs comes over and helps get the furnace going again and I breathe a big sigh of relief out here in the garage (not that we get the benefit of any of that heat by the way).

Then there’s a snowstorm and I hear her out shoveling and she comes in here to find some salt to put down but she has to move a load of the fresh dough’s stuff out of the way. Then a little while later she’s dragging a propane canister through the snow to the other side of the house, seems the cooking gas has gone down now. She must have got it going again because she’s back in with an empty propane tank, two empty kerosene containers, a snow shovel and a ladder. She curses that the g.d. bike’s in the way, and then back into the van with the Amy Allison playing.

Anyway, it’s a lot more fun when it’s us in the van going to play a show all together but he’ll be back soon. I even heard her practicing the other day so could be there’s something in the works. Until then I’ll be hanging out here trying to pretend I’m interested in the Bulls.

Eric & Amy’s Homemade Aeroplane Sat Jan 11