reading: dancing naked in the mind field kary mullis
listening: mirrorball sarah mclachlan
surfing: brand x

1999 july 26

grape soda

obviously, frank was wrong and the world was not due to end friday at 11:56am.

of course, he didn't exactly say it was last friday, so i suppose i should show a little concern every friday, at least until the power of the dream fades enough that i can laugh at myself and my doomsday predictions.

so last friday morning, when i woke up i was craving grape soda.

i haven't had grape soda in years and i have no idea where this craving came from but it was incredibly strong. i didn't mention it, however, because it seemed pretty trivial to worry about purple liquids on the day the world was to end. of course, if i were a more optimistic and positive person, i would have run out and bought a crate of the stuff and died fully sated, craving fulfilled.

instead, i let my dad drive me to the office without stopping at the grocery and i suffered all morning for lack of grape soda. soda, soda, my kingdom for a nehi! a crush! a generic!

grape soda reminds of nothing so much as red river, new mexico. we spent a month there one year when i was a child, horseback riding, splashing in rivers and lakes, catching little fishes and drying them on rocks. i don't know exactly what we wanted with dried fish but i definitely remember doing it.

i rode a horse named sally everyday for a week. i never got the hang of it and to this day i don't really care for horses. jubilee, philip and gaheris, however, loved the big beasts and rode pretty much everyday we were there. my mother thought pretty much as i did, and we spent the rest of our days walking through the woods and meadows, picking little wildflower bouquets and sitting still for what seemed like hours in the hopes of seeing a deer or two.

my dad rode with the other children until the day he was saddled with maude, the black horse from hell. one day she took off like a bolt of lightening, trying to buck him off. he held on for quite a while but unfortunately was finally shaken just as maude charged into the river. one wet dad + one haughty horse = one extra traisper through the forest tagging along with me and my mother. some days he went fishing--a manly man can only take so many wildflower bouquets.

what does this all have to do with grape soda?

there was a vending machine on the ground floor of the motel we were staying in. each and everyday, when i returned from the days vacation activity, i would put in the coins, hot and sweaty from being clutched in my hot and sweaty palms for the last five hundred yards of my walk, and get myself a grape nehi.

never before, and never after did i drink so much grape soda. but the memories of it have stayed with me all these years.

anyhow, back to last friday�

after watching the clock tick successfully to 11:57 without incident, i skipped down to the other end of the office, where we have a little snack bar set up; we get all the soda we can quaff for free, and we can buy various snacks and crunchies for a nominal fee. i wanted to celebrate with cheetos, but what did I find? a brand new shipment had arrived and in that shipment was a case of mixed sodas and in that case? grape soda!

somedays i think there may be a god after all.

the great grape ape, claire

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