freshly bagged ends:

You can buy discounted deli meat ends and cheese pieces in the self-serve pre-sliced coolers or bargain display bins right at the Market Basket Deli.

Delicious on homemade sourdough with mustard and home made sauerkraut. 

Reginald lived alone in Blackridge on Montfarm Avenue. His wife and daughter abandoned him last fall. His crazy dog Dagger was still there and his wife's recording on the security cameras still shouted Get the fuck away from my trash, when you walked by. He was the only resident who left his bins out all week as bait, so he could use his wife's voice to shout at passers by. Everybody in Blackridge knew it wasn't just the dog who was psychotic. People suspected Reginald was the Blackridge bomber. 

Whoops!

The other day I was practicing on my saxophone and it was making strange noises. I panicked. The upper notes were fine but the lower notes were not. I examined the horn and was puzzled. And concerned.

The next day I bloodied my reed fighting my horn. I turned the horn upside down to see if there was blood on the reed, and an empty plastic water bottle fell out. I laughed. This bottle was from after the last parade when I had no place to put it on the ride home. So I put it in my horn! What a relief. I would have been even more embarrassed had I driven to the repair shop.

Dream

I was at a big Italian dinner party outdoors. My husband and I were assigned to sit at the kids table. After the meal I gathered up all of the cheese graters and danced around holding them in my hands.

I drove to Blackridge this morning to walk my dogs early in the quiet. A woman pulled over in her huge black Suburban, "Haven't seen ya in a while," she said. I introduced her to my new dog. She said my son had a rescue like that and someone broke in an bashed his dog's head in. After she left I was sorry I came to Blackridge. These pretty small towns are deceiving.

Richard appears to have aged 20 years in two months. He was a tall muscular man in June and now he's a shriveled apple doll on a stick. He's a terrifying sight especially when you realize that it's Richard, that guy who was taking and selling drugs a few months ago. He was going strong until the Feds came and shut down the ring. He lucked out that day and was not caught in the sweep.

Stories lightly disguised. If you see yourself here, you should have behaved better.

 Motto on the town newspaper header.

Blackridge Massachusetts

In this area using a turn signal is a sign of weakness as if one's masculinity could leak out onto the road with each blink, forever depleting the driver. All the men drive trucks.

The women on the other hand always use their turn signals. Many borrow their husbands trucks or drive Dodge Caravans or Subaru wagons. They do not want to crack them up.

The town of Blackridge has no laws except one. You can't park on the dead end of Ridgefalls Road to visit the water. If you do the dozen suburban Ring cameras are triggered and the residents call the one cop, officer George Mink. He immediately drives down on his police issued Harley Davidson motorcycle to ask what you are doing.

The Blackridge residents are all escapees from nearby cities and fight hard for the illusion that they are in the wilderness. God help you if your dog barks or you put up a fence or hang out your laundry. If you break the illusion of wilderness you are scorned. 

Some battles have gone on for generations. The Wilder's turned a paper street beside their house into their driveway, a common practice in a town with no laws. The kids ignored the change but Old Man Wilder would come out in his plaid bathrobe waving his shotgun over his head when he saw them walking up his driveway. They just laughed. The McDougal's claim it's still a real street and the battle is ongoing to this day.

The Siblings

The siblings were in competition. They both thought travel was a virtue but it was merely a display of money spent. One more stamp on the passport, one more sticker on the suitcase. All for bragging rights. They never noticed anything when they arrived except how good the cocktails tasted. Secretly it was a pain in the ass and they couldn't wait to return and tell everyone where they had been. As if it mattered. As if it changed them. It did neither. 

Fence-post's wife, Venus of Willendorf adopted a white teacup Chihuahua. She snuggles him on the patch of grass at the back door of the tenement. Venus lives over where the Tilted Lady and Willard just moved after the Feds tore up their drug ring apartment across the street. 

She had one of those wearable calculating devices only this one tracked her dreams and recited them back to her upon awakening. It also told her what to cook that day, what to wear, and the best route for today's dog walking. It also told her the weather and which windows were left open when she left the house. It was called her brain.

Eva accidentally left her door open yesterday and her big dog Walter wandered into the yard. I figured she was home just being casual. Our dogs ignored him and he ignored our dogs. Later Eva was distraught and breathless jumping outside to tell me her house was wide open all day. 

Luckily Walter stood guard, I said. 

We were at the beach. Thank God Walter didn't bite anyone, she said, visibly anxious over all that could have happened. 

Meanwhile two houses away the contents of the drug house is being emptied and sold out on the sidewalk, I said. They got evicted finally. The local scoundrels have grabbed anything that wasn't nailed down to make a buck, even the fridge and stove!

The landlord had it coming.  According to folks who grew up here that house has been a drug house for over 50 years.

I believe it, I said. And took my opportunity to go inside and resume making potato salad. I was glad that we try to take care of each other as neighbors. 

Then I heard a scream. I ran back outside and saw a man in a blue shirt running across Eva's yard, Walter chasing him. I phoned the police.

Did you see him? Eva shouted, pale as a ghost, There was a man in my kitchen closet.

I called the cops, I said. We stood there hearing sirens in the distance. 

Where's Walter? 

He was chasing the man.

Oh my God, she said, holding her head. 

He may as well have tacked two gigantic ears on opposite sides of his house because the contents were like the inside of his chaotic brain. He'd lived there since he was a child with all of the family ghosts and traumas. Now the vines climbing over the side of the house were trying to cover his balding head.

He had to keep moving to out pace his demons. He wanted a life of perpetual summer camp, the only joy he ever experienced as a child. It wasn't working. He was getting old and gray haired and the plan was rickety. He continued using drugs and drink at the rate of his teenage years, to try to pep up and be happy and then more to sleep. He tried distracting himself with more vacations to mountains, beaches, and foreign countries. He bought more plates of exotic and rich foods. Nothing helped and nothing stopped him from the next boat plane and wheel, until he died.

Shoot up, Shoot Out

Every day we pick up dirty needles and clothes on our granite garden stairs. The addicted homeless folks shoot up and shoot out of their clothes.

The Curse

She deprived her child of food, one meal a day as a toddler. His growth was stunted. All because his father had been a fat boy. The mother soon kicked the father out and took all of her rage out on the boy. He was her experimental guinea pig. She deprived him of the alphabet and colorful books to read because she believed some quack about discouraging preschool literacy. Mother and son did not share meals at the table. She bought a case of canned soup and told him his meals were in the pantry. Help yourself, she scowled. I blame the mother for causing her son to shoot himself. She should be jailed but instead she hangs up his handprints on paper plates from nursery school all sentimental having never done such a gesture while he was alive.

History of Hortense

She insisted on stirring the rice counterclockwise by candle light when she visited. And when we went to see her I couldn't believe the outhouse was attached to her home. It stank up the whole place. I remember that it was August and she served us hot oatmeal. 

The tide has turned and like a lapsed Catholic everything became the opposite. Now she's all about convenience bad take-out Chinese food gloopy galore and a big TV stuffed with Netflix opposite a couch the size of her house. I don't read, she shouts if you tell her about a book.

She adds cream cheese and bacon to everything and gloms it up with shredded cheese. The worst of it is she thinks she knows everything and she will dive right into your conversations and offer her unfiltered opinion to maintain her illusion of superiority.

Last night someone walking down the street got shot in our neighborhood. Luckily a passers by gave him a lift to the hospital. 

This morning I found three hypodermic needles in the shrubs at my garden stairs. I carefully disposed of them by dropping them in an empty plastic water bottle. Then I started trimming the shrubs to make my garden stairs more visible and less like a cave for hiding. 

I went swimming and when I came home I made salmon cakes for the first time and they came out great. 

Salmon Burger Inspiration or Cape Cod in a Can

 I was swimming and thinking of what I had in the cupboard. 1 can of salmon, eggs, panko and Adobo and a few other things. So when I came home I glanced at a recipe and then jumped into improvisation mode. I used  1 can of salmon, panko breadcrumbs, some leftover brown rice, Adobo seasoning, my homemade cilantro sauce, 1 large red onion minced, 4 eggs, a bloop of mayo, dashes of Worcestershire sauce, Dijon mustard, and I put a small sample in the microwave to taste test. Then I formed patties and fried them in olive oil. After I made all nine, I added 3 chopped green bell peppers and 2 large white onions to the leftover olive oil and sauteed them with Adobo, I added Chianti to deglaze the pan. These were delicious. I will make them again.

Lemon and Orange Zest can be made and saved in the Freezer!!