what the chili taught me

Last week my friend Suz suggested that it was possible I would write a blog post titled "what the chili taught me," and I sort of thought that would be neat, except that for the past week, the average temp in Smichigan had been 91 degrees. Which I could nearly handle except ... I mean, I don't want to keep reiterating this point, and I know it's really annoying to be that person who only writes about this small incident over and over again--but seriously, the cast. The cast. Lately I have taken to sitting in the bedroom, which thankfully is easy to cool down--to a rocking 79 degrees--with a window AC unit we stole from our scary basement, but I still feel the cast, the cast, the cast. And the cast sweat.

So there was no way, I thought, that I would be making chili anytime soon. But then the B and I headed out for a few cocktails this weekend, and we ended up inviting one of our friends over for dinner Monday night. This is part of our grand plan to feel like we are real people, living real lives in GRR--you know, when we are not sitting around the house talking to the dog and his rock. So liquor made us bold, and we decided to invite our friend over even though--this is where we got brave! so brave!--his significant other, our other GRR friend, would be out of town at the time. No matter! we thought. We will have company. We will make dinner.

But then we woke up yesterday and realized that the weather was not going to participate in our plans. I had been entertaining thoughts of pork burgers with tomatillos, mainly because they would be easy. Also mainly because we had them last week, and they were tasty. But the sky kept sort of growling at us, raining in weird little splatters--just enough to add even more humidity to the air. The raindrops would hit the pavement and immediately turn to steam, which would then come through our windows in big, thick clouds. I changed shirts three times yesterday--each time into a new white t-shirt, because when you can't shower regularly, a clean white t-shirt is the next best thing. Which is to say, it is not at all like a shower.

Anyway. Grilling out seemed like tempting fate, so I went with white bean-chicken chili. It seems a little strange to serve someone what is basically soup in this weather, but I knew that I could prep nearly all of it ahead of time and have it ready when he arrived, versus hanging out in the kitchen, which is not the point of inviting someone over for dinner. So we went to Meijer, where I declined their offer of a motorized wheelchair--which was dumb, because seriously, who knows when I will get to ride one again, and besides that, the only other people using them were old, so I would have totally won every race--but instead I just hopped around and bought a bunch of cilantro and avocado and serranos and jalapenos and lots of corn and a chicken.

The afternoon ground on, and it actually got hotter. I was chopping up peppers, and inhaling capsaicin, and shucking corn, and then I went to grab something from the fridge and felt something wet, and that was because the CEILING in the kitchen was FALLING OFF IN BIG CHUNKS.

We have had this problem every time it rains--we inherited it from my former neighbors--but apparently this time the rainwater sort of hung out under the roof for a while and then began to seep through our ceiling. And then big, squishy plops of plaster just started dropping. Even though it was not raining. Almost as if to taunt me because it was not raining. Or because I can't shower. The universe is such a penis.

In the middle of this, the doorbell rang--did I mention that the B at this exact point was, literally, stepping out of the shower and not dressed?--and I had to drop the plaster and cover up the chicken and run on crutches to answer it, thinking it was our [early] dinner guest. But instead it was a man I've never seen before.

I opened the door and looked at him for a minute, and he smiled at me. He made some little hand gestures, and pantomimed what I figured out was bus, and then he just looked at me and said, "I'm Mexican." And then he held out his hand for, I think, money.

COME ON, BUDDY. YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO TRY A LITTLE HARDER THAN THAT.

My white liberal heart bleeds eight times a day, but citing your heritage isn't going to cut it. Not when I am picking chunks of plaster out of my chili.

We sort of stared at each other for a minute, and then I pantomimed back I have no money on me, because I use plastic, via an awkward swiping hand motion, and then he smiled again and walked up the block, and I just kind of lost it. I got back to the kitchen and totally cracked up laughing and told the ceiling to go fuck off, and then I threw everything except the plaster into a 8-quart pot and let it simmer down for a while, and our guest arrived, and we drank Molson Golden until I decided it was time to eat chili. And then we drank some more Molson, and talked about Pittsburgh and bar fights, and the night was lovely. Humid, yes, but lovely.

So that, Suz, is what the chili taught me. Howzat?