The dog let me sleep until 6:30 this morning, my head slightly musty from the Christmas Eve Cheer on the fifth floor of the Big Pink building just north of Route 50t. It is interesting to live in a building that has a variety of distinct personalities. The Fifth Floor is very eclectic, and frankly we don’t care who knows it.

Mardy the dog walker threw an open house last night. Margaret the anorexic manager of the Cartier’s Jeweler did the public relations I is only two doors down, past the elevators, and I was a anatural. The belly dancer was there (she doesn’t drink anymore) and Donna and her 25 year old worldly-wise son (she moved out of her house and moved here to Big Pink) were there, and some older lady with a disapproving frown and a wonderful sense of humor. It was a very Big Pink sort of crowd, people who live in small places and heading in new directions.

It was a nice way to celebrate the holiday and not think about it too much. Overthinking can bring sadness. This was just about right. Not a great deal of thought at all.

Thre were good snacks, and for whatever reason I really enjoy destroying those port-wine processed cheese balls, the ones studded with crushed nuts. I only do it once a year, and I had one in my refrigerator for a year. It don’t know where it went. It might have rolled away on its own, sensing the onset of the season.

There had been a box waiting down at the desk for me when I got back from work. It was a white box with green bold print shouting “Rush, Rush!” on the sides.

It was from my brother. He had it sent from the Ducktrap Fish Farm, of Belfast, Maine. When I got it upstairs I began to open the layers of the box. First there was the cardboard, then thin strips of foam and a wad of brown paper to keep the silver foil bubble-wrap tightly positioned. Under the bubble wrap was one of those pouches of a gel that freezes. It was still mostly in its frozen state, and under that was a wooden box with the Ducktrap Logo burned into the top.

Inside the box were two smoked salmon filets and three little tubs of other delicacies, mussels, shrimp and scallops. Just in time delivery!

I enjoyed the salmon he sent last year, and the shrimp and scallops were tasty. The mussels I was going to put into a sauce for some spaghetti dan le fruit de la mer, but I never got around to it and I think the mussels had something going with the cheese ball. I didn’t see them apart until after the next Thanksgiving when they disappeared. I assume they went together.

The wrappings from Duck trap took up most of my little postage stamp kitchen, and there was a gift to me from me, via Amazon, a duplicate of one I sent my ailing pal in Pensacola. I knew the gift had arrived down there and was under the tree, but it appears that I mashed the button twice. Internet shopping has its perils, and we will see what other boxes show up in the next few days.

The seafood came from Belfast in Maine. That is where my high school pal George and his folks have their summer homes. It was once a blue-collar fishing town, on the glittering Penobscot Bay and we had some wild adventures in the pines and on the waters in our blustering days. I returned last summer when I had a long weekend from Harvard. I rented a car and drove from Boston on Route 1. The part on the coast was spectacular once I got out of New Hapshire. When I got past the lobster shacks and the little fishing villages I was quite surprised by what I found at Belfast.

They have torn down the chicken processing plant in the middle of town and replaced it with a new high-tech financial services campus.

I was intrigued to discover that the two credit cards that I had used to finance my divorce and half a college education for my older boy were headquartered right across from where the chickens used to escape and race panicked through the streets.

I owed the campus so much money last summer that they called me frequently, politely offering me a shovel to dig myself in deeper at favorable terms. I thought for a while I would wind up a wholly owned subsidiary, since the favorable terms had finite lifespans. Lurking beyond the 4.1% introductory rate was a ballon rate that jumped to something like 21%. It rates used to be known as usury, when that was a crime, and it is apparently not in Maine.

But I didn’t have much choice. I always paid more than the minimum payment, but the legal bills were stiff and even at in-state rates, college cost close to $20 grand a year.

The company sent me congratulatory notes periodically, cheerfully informing me that I had just qualified for additional ruin. I gradually floated up to have a $32,000 limit on the one card and $7,500 on the other, and at one point I had just about maxed them both out. But I am happy to report that when the rates jumped up I paid them off and walked away clean. Never enjoyed writing a check so much!

All that comes to me now from Belfast is seafood.

I took the smoked shrimp and salmon down the hall and joined the crowd from Big Pink. We all have our tales of how we arrived here in the Big Pink Building, and the shared marvel of it is always entertaining. The creatures were definitely stirring on the Fifth Floor and there was talk of taking the singing on the road, maybe all the way down to the lobby. We wound up caroling in the hallway and looking at trees. There was general agreement that my handmade green plywood version was a model of efficiency. It was a pleasant interlude. The dog waited patiently and took me for a nice walk before he put me down to sleep. Then he spent the night edging me over to the other side of the bed.

It turned cold overnight, so the eiderdown and the warmth of his little furry body was welcome.

The contribution of the salmon got me an invite to the ham dinner this afternoon with the same cast of characters. I had intended to go out to the County and clean up some stuff in the former marital basement, but by the time things are done there it will be dark again, and the cocktail hour. I may just move some stuff down to the unit I bought by the pool. That will be an interesting cultural change here as I continue my residence at Big Pink. Or maybe I will just kick back and do nothing at all.

The problem is, I think I agreed to provide scalloped potatoes and I have just two. And they are a little soft and look like they might have known the cheese-ball and last year’s mussels from Belfast.

Copyright 2003 Vic Socotra