Cabin Fever and Catholic Fish Fries

Yesterday I abandoned the cabin because I could lie on the bed or the couch, but that was all. Not even read or watch Netflix. I could do nothing but loll. They say you can always clean, but the house is too dusty and messy to clean. Unable to do a lick of work I drove over the ridge road to the Little Ireland coffeehouse where I worked all afternoon,  enjoyably. Because it does not have music, you can hear yourself think. It has a couch, but I didn't loll on it. They already know my order: Bottomless cup of black coffee, please. But only half a cup, and when I drink that I will return to the counter for another half cup, please, and perhaps another half cup, because I like it steaming, and the coffee does cool off if work absorbs me.

Then it's past 4:30 p.m. and I want dinner. What to do? Why, St. Bridget's Church is just a block away and it has a fish fry every Friday during Lent, $10 per plate for adults. Liked it; there's retro cool in having dinner in a school gymnasium ("Go, Shamrocks!") among tables full of strangers. Please note at the right of the photo the peach pie in the plastic container.

See, it's a slippery slope into decadence, February style: cabin fever, coffeehouse, a fish fry, pie, then at home I open a bottle of pinot noir and loll myself to sleep.

Find The Typo

Long, long line at the first Lenten fish fry of the year at the local Catholic church, a line extending almost the entire length of the school corridor. While waiting in line, because the fried fish, shell pasta with tomato sauce, green beans, and coleslaw are worth waiting for, there was time to admire the students' artworks tacked to the walls, and the sports trophies in their cases, and -- wait a second -- the all-school photo.

Church Fish Fry

The big social event of the Lenten season is the Sacred Heart Church Friday Fish Fry with its parking staff and long lines and heaping plates of really wonderful fried fish made by a cheerful team of handsome Christian gentlemen in a hellishly steaming little shed out near the parking lot. We, the mobs, who come to dinner from 4 to 7 p.m., eat in the Sacred Heart school gym with 300 other people all enjoying the bounty of $8 or $10 (refillable) plates with pasta, slaw and green beans, plus coffee, iced tea or milk. Find a table with malt vinegar and you are set.  Other mobs buy take-out. The dessert table, 20 feet long, displays individually wrapped servings of all kinds of desserts, and if you look hard you might secure a chocolate pecan pie slice as I did last week. Nobody leaves hungry!