Peeled garlic, burned rice

This morning Rachel left at 6:30 as usual to get to Chapel Hill in time for her 8am sculpture class. I got up somewhat later. I checked the chicks and cleared the shavings and shit out of their water dispenser. Then I took Mo the porch dog for a long walk by the pond and around the big field.

Then I let the the goats, Zilla and Toots, and their herd dog Bumbles out of their stall and led them over to their pasture for the day. Everyone got pets, and Zilla tried to eat my jacket.

Next I dug and cleaned some cat’s ear for the adult chickens and collected the egg they laid overnight. Fed Mo. And chores done, time to feed me too. I decided on potato pancakes with fresh eggs and veggies. Which brings me to the peeled garlic.

Peeling garlic almost always reminds me of my friend Minu. She was a fellow adjunct in the Sociology Department at Cal State Hayward (now East Bay). We used to go out together for snacks and chat. She was smart and interesting, and we would usually share the nachos, and she would order a big side of jalapenos and eat them like candy.

Eventually she invited me to her house for a meal and to meet her husband Ashok. Incidentally, Minu and Ashok were my first (as far as I know) acquaintances whose marriage had been arranged. She taught me a lot by contrasting that system favorably with self-selected, romantic marriage, which she pointed out was a recipe for disaster compared to letting older, wiser people who knew you well make a considered choice of life partner. I certainly didn’t get my own love life in order until I was older and, erm, wiser. And for what it’s worth, I observed a warmly affectionate couple with some of the usual mutual tics and irritations. Yup, lots of ways can work, and not work.

I asked if I could do anything to help with the cooking, and Minu gave me the garlic to peel. I proudly remember her being impressed that I had half of it peeled while she was still deciding whether she needed to tell me how to peel garlic. So having established my bona fides, when she stepped out for a couple more ingredients she asked me to watch the rice.

At this point Ashok suggested we play some chess (I have since detected a little pattern with Indian men and chess). Whereupon, absorbed in the complications of holding up my end at chess against a much more skilled opponent, and sorting out a relationship on the fly with Ashok as both a person and the husband of a colleague, I completely forgot the rice. And it burned.

When she returned, Minu was disappointed but hospitable about it. I’ll admit that I don’t remember the meal at all, although I’m sure it was delightful. I was already well on my way to being overwhelmed by permutations of awkward and failed sociability in at least two cultures, so once the rice burned I suspect I clicked into some kind of minimally functional autopilot.

In my usual intellectualizing way, it’s always seemed to me there was much to learn here about social interaction, ritual, and gender. Various norms were enacted, complicated, and violated. But mostly, I remain deeply sad and embarrassed and sorry that I burned the rice.