Art-A-Whirl looms, my friends, Northeast Minneapolis's spring event luring artists of all artistic bents and abilities from the shadowy depths and into the light, where they are met by people with fat wallets in one hand and, more often than not, a beer in the other.
This is from 2012. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a layered taco dip to make...
I have wandered into the kitchen in search of food.
Some may insist, some of them in this very room!, that the more apt verb would be “staggered”. These people have all been drinking, of course; and their words should be taken with a grain of salt until they sober up.
In our neck of the woods, wandering into the kitchen is perfectly normal behavior, particularly when the woods you are in are just outside Kathy’s house.
Kathy’s attitude is “mi casa es su casa”, which is Spanish, I believe, for “there's food on the counters”.
As you can imagine, we all firmly support Kathy in this attitude.
I have wandered in from the deck, where brisk political conversations are causing peals of laughter, in search of a paper plate and interesting foods to place upon it. In true Northeast Minneapolis form, even as late in the evening as it is, there is still food left.
And also true to form, many of the platters have but one piece remaining.
That big luscious cake with those obscenely juicy berries clustered on top? A lone piece remains.
The Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps? One left.
The taco dip (my one-trick pony party offering)? Enough, in a corner, for a good chip’s worth.
There is also one sloppy joe, one pickle.
In other words, there is enough left for me. I open another beer as I contemplate food that starts out as elaborately planned platters and ends as abstract art.
“What do you suppose this is all about?”
Diana hiccups gently. “It’s a phemonana —a phenolama – it’s an observable event.” Diana has a way with words. “Do you think it happens in other parts of the world?”
“What,” I say. “Like there is one piece of leftover fried chicken somewhere at a party in Kentucky? One fried grasshopper on a plate at a get-together somewhere in, um, one of the grasshopper-eating states?”
“Look around.” Hic! “Please note there’s never only one beer left.”
We both observe a moment of silence as we look around the kitchen. There is truth in her words, and by grinning, tacit agreement we clink our beer bottles and drink to our powers of observation.
And the question remains. What is it about that last piece? Did someone run their tongue along that last piece of cake in some sort of territorial claim that I wasn’t made privy to? If I eat that last chip full of taco dip, will someone come in from the porch yelling, “Hey! Who ate the last of the dip? I was saving that!” In a bowl that once held at least 100 of those Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps, what was offensive about that last one?
Why can't we finish that last piece?