* * *
Accordingto the letter of the law, I keep my word and stop working mid-afternoon. That is, I stop working on Camp Bliss-related jobs. That doesn’t mean I’m not busy.
After mowing the cultivated grounds—most of Camp Bliss is woods, so no mowing there—and edging along the walkways and around the lodge’s landscaping, I shower because mowing and edging aren’t bad jobs, but they leave me feeling dusty, itchy, and gross.
If we catch anything at the pond, I’ll need another shower because cleaning fish is also gross, but that’s a problem for future me.
My to-do list isn’t that long, but I want to get it done before Zach realizes what I’m doing and tries to help. This little fishing adventure is supposed to be for him, and I want it to feel that way.
I don’t fish that often, but I do enjoy it. Both for the hypnotizing peace of the lapping water, the slow drip of a sunset on its surface, and for the heart-jolting thrill the moment a fish bites the line, and you have to put your back into reeling him in.
I’m a science teacher. I’ve done my fair share of frog dissections and even the occasional fetal pig. Cleaning a fish isn’t much worse. In fact, it smells a whole lot better. Especially if they’ve spent a little time in a cooler of ice water and they’re not too floppy.
But the one thing I hate about fishing is bait. I absolutely refuse to use live bait. One attempt at hooking a cricket with Aunt Tilde at seven years old, and I nearly jumped into Lake Henderson.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
BerkleyGulp! Alive!works great, but we don’t have any, and I don’t have time to make the trip to Field & Stream, so it looks like it’s going to be hot dogs.
We have exactly two turkey hotdogs left over from our Sunday lunch. I make quick work of cutting them into pieces that are the right size to attract bream. We might catch the odd catfish as well, but bream is what I want to catch.
The only problem with fishing with hot dogs is the meat staying on the hook. The solution for that is to dry it out a little. So after I cut up the links, I pop them in the air fryer. Eight minutes does the trick. Now I have hot dog jerky.
I prep two ice chests, one with snacks—apples, cheese, water, and beer—and the other with just ice. I’ll add water to it when I get it out to the dock. No need to haul all that weight. I load these up into the Polaris and make my way over to the big shed.
The old guy who used to live here left a tackle box the size of an ottoman in the shed along with an assortment of top-of-the-line fishing rods. Replacement fishing poles will likely be a regular expense once we have kids on the premises, so maybe we’ll save these for the older campers or the cabin guests.
Or maybe just for us.
Once I’ve checked the hooks, floats, and sinkers and tuck a sleeve of spare hooks into the bed of the Polaris, I drive out to the dock.
It’s only been a couple of days since I swept it off in advance of our weekend guests’ arrival, but I pass the broom over the wooden planks anyway, wanting Zach to feel like he’s the guest today.
And a little bell chimes in my memory. Something I read once. I stop sweeping and frown in concentration. Was it Buddhist?
Treat your partner as an honored guest in your home.
Yes. That’s it.
It was from a book on Buddhist lessons on love and marriage. Thesomethinggarden? I downloaded it from the Lafayette Public Library app onto my Kindle. Right when Covid shut down the whole world. One of my many self-help quarantine reads.
The notion had struck me then as both beautiful and lofty. And maybe even exhausting.
Treat your partner as an honored guest in your home.
If you both did it, life would be awesome, wouldn’t it? But how often does that happen?
Shaking my head, I grip the broom and keep sweeping. No need to puzzle over Buddhist maxims. Zach is not my partner.
Well, not likethatanyway.
He’s my business partner. And, I guess, my roommate.
And now my friend.
