Breaking b(re)ad, going treyf, saving grace

Guess what's coming for dinner. What's a guest to do? Grin, gobble, or groan?

How Cú Chulainn, the ancient Irish hero; “treyf;’ hospitality; and etiquette collude or collide on a sad yahrz/year's «noche triste» high in the Andes. My neighbor doesn’t stop by much. Last I saw her and her husband? New Year’s Eve. I’d been edging about gardens next door, watching as a celebration full swang. I wished the hacienda’d invited me, if not my dog in tow, for while I’m no life of any «pachanga» loneliness howled, hounded. (I later learned the couple and their daughter had called me to come along, but the hotel reception gave them my already canceled phone number. I'd opted for keeping my wife's rather than mine, even if I had a newer smartphone, rarer used.)

She then ran into me in that same garden, as we walked our «perros runa» street mutts, Opie for me, Muyu (“seed” in Kichwa) for her, the day before my wife’s “yahrzeit.” About which I have provided a soundtrack a dozen full moons after her passing, as related here. Even if you lack Spotify, you can link to each artist and perhaps then via YT et al. We chatted before the afternoon rain came down too heavy.

Somehow she’d heard I didn’t eat meat. A real rarity in the “Global South” still, I affirm; you’ll survive off cheese, you queasy vegans. I reconfirmed, but assured her fish and dairy (and wine) a-ok. So Tuesday evening (being afternoon by custom even after dusk in never-changing equatorial…it’s 45 minutes south…Ecuador), when I’d slipped out the last of the frozen fish burritos out to defrost (which Son #2 made when he was here six weeks ago), having given up any social call, she rang the bell and I followed all of 20-odd yards to the adjacent casa. Just far enough we can't hear each other's music?.

Lost in translation or assimilation, bicontinental, bilingual American divide?

It wasn’t a repast really, a modest plate of cheese, shredded fatty red rawish meat I couldn't identify, olives, and crackers. First two jumbled; no utensils were provided. Nor napkins, whose absence in Ecuador grated on my fastidious wife, raised a bit better as to social graces than was L.A. tale of two valleys, hers aiming respectable, mine despicable. So rather than stick my fingers into «el mezclado» I opted for First World neatness and heaped both onto first cracker, second mouth. I surmised Serrano ham. Which I don’t consume for doubled reasons. First, no four-foots. Second, kosher.

Why I, and my determinedly (increasingly as she “matured”) secular helpmeet but born that way so nonetheless Membress of the Tribe decided, about twenty-odd years earlier, to not gobble «treyf» came down to not any fear of G-d or Torah-true observance. We’d separately arrived at epiphanies, if about ten years apart, me first, going against type as a Mick’s two spuds on every plate in different styles (an Irish quirk; once I had pizza in Dublin with baked potatoes and chips) and seared succulent flesh, or to support the death of animals, and to ease suffering in our own, insufferably self-righteous, pet-loving Global North fashion. Anyhow, short version, that’s my SOP.

Our family and friends knew this and resign themselves to fish in our presence. Yet now she’s gone, in a different country indeed where this is only the second meal to which I have found myself with locals (the first was early lunch, morning after my wife died, and I dutifully ate the chicken leg set before me at the ubiquitous dive of La Republica’s standard non-puerco go-to) nobody knows my culinary quirks. Although of course I’d told my hostess twenty-five hours ago (isn’t that a Ramones lyric) of my precise preferences, what can a poor gringo do except nod, munch, and chat nicely?

Well, the next day, that being the D-Day of sorts I dreaded being alone, she kindly had me over for brunch before she vowed to go (I’d watch Muyu in the truck as backup) as she would seek to bargain for fabric with the oddly intransigent indigenous «taller» workshop in a turista trap formerly known for natural wool fabric; old looms have all closed down and only rarely will one consent for a commission for a mere Latin-blooded individual however artistic, enterprising, or earnest. She, a tall mestiza, had been turned down point blank. Said co-op’s owner (one played up among FB expats and in every guidebook) refused her custom. Only non-Ecuadorians, she proclaimed, could be admitted to watch weaving put on for visitors. I averred when I heard this (the hostess had been born in California to Ecuadorian parents who then returned), that she should have put on her best ‘Murican accent, pretended «no habla español»

We were joined by her lively, sisterly artista, boho, tastefully tatted, sidekick. Although the intended wooly destination never panned out--the only remaining loom able to spin out truly trad craft was booked—and we failed to find the center plaza of Peguche, as opposed to the grim stretch of desultory commercial zones, abuzz with locust sewing machines, tellingly, we detoured to Cotacachi. Fuller of gringos than usual, so must have been a German bus invasion. The bakery, La Gringa, which our hostess recommended for a $17 fudge cake (high price in this favorite stop on the guidebook circuit, true), replaced by a clothes boutique, meant we adjourned at my suggestion to Muyus for cocoa. Neither great nor cheap but my treat. I couldn't face the expat hangout Red Rabbit, one of the last meals we had out (I hadn't returned to the town for well over a year), where we had a dull brunch with a particularly off-putting colleague of my late wife, who I found markedly unlikable. And giant bucktoothed rodents repelled me as they did my febrile spouse. But Muyus (no canine relation, nor a doggie panaderia) lacked the chocolate cookie my wife and I had nibbled, and the standard M+M studded stand-in proved blah. But I learned the one who takes last bite of a comestible looks up to heaven, with «se casó», “I marry it” Reminds me of kissing money on first sale or tip, by a day-vendor, a Latin custom.

This is Calle Bolivar, Artepiel, artisans walk, known for fine leather goods

Anyhow, as they merrily sang along in the truck back (not badly) to the Doors (despite UCLA kinship, my affection for the quartet stops with the Weimar-esque “Crystal Ship” and if hard pressed, the bottleneck guitar of “Moonlight Drive” as evoking my kindergarten sense of the L.A. balmy twilight, cobalt blue magic hour, palms down Sunset as I peered from our Rambler sedan as the shaggy Love Summer passed during Strange Days. I agreed with the troubadour pair, in two languages, about 1991’s brave attempt by Oliver Stone to channel the Sixties spirits, Apollo and Dionysus—though I kept my professorial allusions tacit. A quick establishing shot was taken on our street, where it crests into the site of a 1967 Be-In, at Elysian Park…) whatever hip-greyed elder statesman from Stateside cool evaporated as I revealed my bent for punk/ post punk as I'd turned 16 the summer of Two Sevens Clash. Replied friend of driver: that's the year I was born! She looked a decade younger, I averred, truly. We reconvened for more of the same as the previous evening, with additional salad. I managed ingestion, but betrayed my inability to stomach cucumbers, to my chagrin. They passed a joint at least, I stuck solo to Argentine vino tinto, a strong, bold «Postales Roble» “oaky.” Tia sells it, I note for future reference if anybody wants to grace my Andes table. Those hours did not coalesce but blurred, and happily for me. My only dinner out, outside of two visits from my son(s), for twelve months in La Republica, and I wished I'd been invited out in Imbabura more. But as I gently had joshed my wife, that her purported friendships with natives tallied transactional. Nice as people around might let on, we all meshed within the standard routines of services negotiated, not organically. So, this might have been a belated breakthrough however late in my two-year residency.

Same name, dog and cafe, seed of a fertile bean, on San Francisco Square, Cotacachi

Seeing it was the year to the night since my wife had passed away, I was glad to not be alone with pets as I'd resigned myself. We saw a firefly inside the kitchen. Not any big news. Yet I did recount a solo sighting of the same, two weeks precisely after sudden loss, hovering in my bedroom. So I rationalized, or fantasized, a sign from on high. Even if two ladies rather than this grass widower were the twin beneficiaries of weed.

A very steep road takes you into town, graced by this Hollywood ambiance

This by the by, isn’t the first time I’ve run into weird cultural clashes, echoing my neighbors. Click below for one that I commented on that got me kicked off the EC FB expat group for my temerity if honesty as I countered hippie-New Age prattle peddled by trade here. (But mestizos may often get treated no better than us grinning gringos.)

Print the legend. The Hound of Ulster, child of Lug: god of oaths, truths, and law.

Medb gathered the sons of the many men who fell to the hero, and they conspired to kill Cú Chulainn by making him break his geasa or taboo. Because Cú Chulainn acted as a guard dog for so long, his geasa was that he could never eat dog meat. However, in early Ireland, it was also considered taboo to refuse hospitality, so as a result, Cú Chulainn found himself in an impossible situation. Out of the blue, an old crone offered him the meat of a dog, and because of the no-refusing-hospitality geis, he was left with no choice but to break his own no-dog-meat geis. This resulted in his spirit being weakened, and Medb with her conspirators were able to ambush Cú Chulainn and deal him a fatal blow. However, he simply tied himself to a rock (which is said to be the Clochafarmore near Dundalk) because he wanted to die on his feet facing his enemies, and he continued fighting them. It was only when a raven landed on his shoulder that they realized he was truly dead, but even then, the man who beheaded him lost both arms. {Said to have happened in 1 C.E; my middle name embeds “Lugh” although no coincidence perhaps, it as a twist anglicises a Sephardic Jewish surname}