The Wolf Gift--chapter24

WARNING: CW IS DRUNK WELL BEYOND NORMAL CW DRUNKNESS. CW WAS GIVEN SEVERAL BOTTLES OF WINE IN ADDITION TO OWNING  A BOTTLE OF VERMOOTH THAT WENT BAD SEVERAL DAYS AGO. SHE DISPOSED OF IT IN THE BEST WAY POSSIBLE. PLEASE KEEP YOUR VERMOOTH IN YOUR FRIDGE, OTHERWISE YOUR BARTENDER/FEMALE FRIEND WILL DISPOSE OF VERMOOTH IN THE MOST HUMAN FRIENDLY WAY POSSIBLE.

WHICH MEANS THEY DRINK IT.

 BECAUSE VERMOOTH ONLY STORES FOR A MONTH WITHOUT REFRIDGERATION. BECAUSE IT IS WINE.

ALCOHOLICS: THE FRIDGE IS YOUR FRIEND. PUT BOOZE IN IT. THANK YOU.

So. How is Ruben today?

  
Right. He put lamb shanks in the crock pot. This is our first paragraph. We needed to know this.

Lamb as of right now is seven bucks a pound.

THAT IS INSANE.

After Laura made a particularly luscious salad, of lettuce, tomato, and avocado tossed in the most delicate olive oil with herbs, they sat down to dinner in the breakfast room and Reuben, as usual, devoured everything in sight while Jim touched a little of this and a little of that.

Dear readers: Stuff blender with parsley. Add canola oil to one half inch below level of parsley. Add Five-twelve garlic cloves. Two tablespoons of lime juice. One-two tablespoon of salt. Place in blender. Blend on "Liquify" until blender feels more than vaguely warm (PRO TIP: LISTEN TO "FAIRY QUEEN" BY HEATHER ALEXANDER UNTIL END). Pour into glass container because you are not a restaurant and you want to keep this dressing as long as possible. Slice red onions as thin as possible (PRO TIP: USE THIS THING) . Marinate onions in sherry vinegar and one shitload of salt until rubbery and a vibrant pink color. Twenty four hours is optimal. Shred romano cheese. Procure spring mix from nearest grocery. Dress in parsely-oil-garlic mixture. Annoint with ramano and marinated onions. Serve with blu cheese crumbles and large water cracker.

Fuck Laura. You now have the best salad in universe.

ALSO: Laura dresses in Gingham. This was the fabric that made up most my Easter Dress Age Ten Costume. I remember having an apron with paisley print flowers and a shitload of lace.

If Anne Rice wants to out-preform Babtist fundamintalists she needs to look WELL BEYOND McCall brand patterns.

There is discussion of a St. Fransis Thanksgiving.

St Francis is known for charity. As in serving people in utter fucking poverty. As in whatever you imagined right now, donate twice that and then google the Poor Clares, and then donate whatever the guilt trip says you need to.

If I were Catholic, I'd be praying to St. Francis.

St. Francis has no place in this fucking "I'm so rich" werewolf novel.

Then we get a LONG fucking tristice on what Thanksgiving is:

\Thanksgiving had always been a sparkling, convivial event in the house on Russian Hill. Frequently Celeste’s mother joined the family, and Grace thought nothing of asking any intern or resident working with her, especially if he or she was far from home. Phil wrote a new poem each year for the occasion, and one of his old students, an eccentric genius who lived in a Haight-Ashbury flophouse, frequently wandered in and stayed until someone inevitably challenged him on his intense conspiratorial views of society being destroyed by a clandestine organization of the rich and powerful, after which he would storm out.

My family traditionaly went to Loaves and Fishes on Thanksgiving. Loaves and Fishes is Corpus Christi, TX's charity house. If you have nowhere else to go on Thanksgiving or Christmas you eat there. I remember singing "Away in a Manger" for Thanksgiving dinner at the age of ten, aware in only the vaguest way possible of what caroling at such a poverty-stricken venue actually meant. I now wish my memory was better.

Everybody reading this neads to locate the nearest charity venue, and plan for BOTH serving food and  caroling during the Christmas season. If you are an atheist, please realize that a large porion of the empoverised are believers in desperate need of encouragement and do memorize the words to "Away in a Manger". Sing it acapellla on Christmas day. You will have done more for encouraging the survival of individual humans than you can imagine. Keeping people alive is more important than confirming your religious biases. (Seriously. If you don't believe, take whatever steps it needs to keep people alive and happy during a hard winter. You can convert us during a less emotionally loaded time. Give us christmas presents now and we'll survive to conversion time next summer.)

Debating charity at a rich-person venue? Ruben, please go die now. Thank you.

 Leroy the Handiman shows up. He lets Father Jim know that the mountain lion that killed his dog is dead:

“Oh, they found her out there this afternoon. She’d been tagged by the university four years ago, tagged on her left ear. It was her, all right, and whatever got her gave her what for! There’s a bear out there in those woods, now you be careful, you and that pretty girl.”

That "pretty girl" Is Laura. Who, if this were an actively good book, would not need any extra protection.




Ruben asks about the mountain lion's cubs, because humanity loves kittens and Rice knows this:

“Oh, those cubs will scatter now and find new territory. Maybe one of them will hang around here, who knows? There are likely five thousand of those big cats in California. One come into town and took a walk in north Berkeley, right past the shops and restaurants, not so very long ago.”

Having just researched cougars to call shit on Anne Rice, I have to assume that a cougar shit on Rice's lawn.

Oh hey, what's it like being charity minded in this family?

“And you drive the Porsche, huh, son, and he drives the old family car.”

 “Well, it’s not as if we don’t try to get him a decent set of wheels,” said Reuben. “My mom bought him a Mercedes, and he lasted with that about two days. He just took so many wisecracks from the homeless in his parish, and then he brought it right back.”

Fuck you Ruben. Seriously. I hope you sit on a toilet plunger.

So then Ruben asks Leroy about shoes Felix Nideck and the general consensus from Leroy is "Perfect:.". Becaues donating to charity is for liberal saps. We also find out that Felix is sixty and he looks forty.

I want you all to know, I have a paranoid adoptee cat named Felix, and imagining Felix Nideck as that Felix is very amusing. That is all.


Then we get an info dump re: Marrock that would have worked better if Ruben hadn't beheaded him.

There is a lot of emphasis on how he isnt really bad. This would be worth more if Rubes hadn't killed him.

 Then Leroy invites Ruben down to Nideck:

“Son, you can’t miss it. Come on down to Nideck. Nideck’s got one main street. It’s right there.”

Rice, this is my fucking life. you are severly underestimating life in the american small town,


Ruben the shit head goes to Nideck, and finds out that he killed a world traveler, but not much else.

He takest this note back to the house to examine and discovers that Felix Nicdeck;s diary is gone.

I don't care.

Ruben and Laura then discuss both poetry and immortality.

I have yet to give a fuck.

This happens in reguard to poetry:

Make not your rosary of yew-berries,       Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be           Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
I'm too drunk to argue this. Hunt down a copy of Lewis's Till We have Faces and you'll have my arguement in a nutshell.

 Laura tells Ruben that Marrock tried to kill him out of envy, and not because Ruben murdered lots of people.

Right.

They debate the address of the house for a minute, and then check out google earth.

Those of you who have been with me long term know how I feel about Google Earth.

Somehow, Ruben discovers a random secret rooml an this means they have to go driving for a while.

I HAVE NO IDEA WHY DO NOT ASK ME.
'

The chapter ends with them driving and debating how valuable getting into Marrock's secret space is.