Comfort Food (written 9.25.08)

I hear that snakes are a favored dish of some. Although it's not my cousine of choice, it's been in abundance around here lately.

So when I joked about it coming back in my last entry, I didn't think it actually would. But it did. And it was definitely not funny.

The day after the sighting of the beast in my room, a comparatively small snake appeared in the rafters. As I had a friend visiting, news quickly spread, and within 10 minutes it had been machete chopped, with the snake blood on my box-springs (luckily I was able to halt the machete wielding woman long enough to move my mattress) to tell the story. Word quickly spread that Mica lives in a casa de culebras (snake house), and because people now have an actual reason to attach to their claims that I absolutely mustn't live alone, I was all the more determined to continue to do so.

That night, after my early evening visitors left, I walked into my dark kitchen to get some water, not at all expecting (who knows why) to see the serpent. As I opened the fridge door (electricity out, no light…just setting the scene), a movement and slithering, hissing noise to my immediate left called my attention, and low and behold there she was, chillin (ha) on the side of my fridge. Because there's no back cover, she immediately slithered inside the fridge behind, and I immediately went to look for help. By the time I returned, I had 7 Dominicans in tow, 3 machete wielding men, and 4 women who came for the drama that was in it. Campesinos are constantly looking for something out of the ordinary to break the cycle of boredom, and although I don't blame them, these women fluttering about, clinging to me and lighting up the kitchen with their cell phones was almost more difficult for me than the snake itself. After breaking my counter top (old crumbly cement) and making such a ruckus that I was sure the snake was nowhere near, they found it, just as I said, hiding underneath the fridge. I wasn't eyewitness to the hunt (hiding inside the house, separate from the kitchen) but somehow they managed to rile it up enough so it stuck out it's head and then, wham! But wait, another wham! And another and another for several minutes until it was good and dead, snake blood covering the kitchen floor. It truly was a monster.

Completely scarred by the entire incident, there was nothing to do but splurge on comfort foods. Last night I made a big pot of chili, and today I had a Milky Way and Velveeta shells and cheese, both of which were bought in a fit of frivolity while I was in the city trying to print fliers and tickets, another nightmare, for our upcoming talent show. Short of someone I really care about showing up for a surprise visit this evening, the Mac n' Cheese was the best thing I could have possibly hoped for. The chili I shared with a couple Dominican girls that had helped me clean my house, and I was pleasantly surprised at their positive responses. They even put in extra cayenne pepper, and Dominicans are not known for their fondness of spice. Cooking has long been a source of relaxation for me, and it's good to have it as an outlet, even if complicated dishes must be planned around trips to the city, or the arrival of packages from the U.S.