2019-07-10 - Shabbos Picnic

Itzhak showed up at the appointed time, exactly at the appointed time. Not a minute later or sooner! The day is warm and clear, one of those Pacific Northwest summer days that used to be rare and now are more and more common. (Not that he'd know.) He's got a carbon-fiber instrument case over one shoulder, sharing that shoulder with a canvas drawbag. The drawbag is clinky, must have bottles in it. He comes walking up the sidewalk to get Minerva, tall guy with long strides.

Minerva's been waiting just inside the door to her place and there's a big smile when she sees Itzhak come walking down the street and up the walk. The woman opens the door and grabs the basket that was waiting there. Then her canvas tote. She waves, "Hey there, Itzhak." she can't help but smile. She's dressed in a a pale lavendar skirt, a black top that's probably a bathing suit. Her eyes are covered by a pair of large sunglasses and there's a black sunhat that shades them from the sun further. "Thanks for meeting me." she smiles to that as she heads down the walk to meet him.

Itzhak's not wearing anything beachy whatsoever unless you count the mirrored sunglasses. White tank top, jeans, steel-toe boots. "Hi," he says, his returning smile juuuust on the edge of shy. "Hey, no problem. Why let you walk alone, right?"

"I hope you're hungry." Minerva chuckles to that. Then she gives him a look over and there's a smile as she looks to his face, "It's not that long of a walk." she admits as she reaches out to give his arm a squeeze. Not sure how she should greet him at the moment. "Shall we?" she asks as she heads down the walk. "I think we picked a good day to go out." she tells him with a nod of her head.

Itzhak follows along. "Always hungry." His arm is all tendon and the elaborate sleeve of pomegranates, with their branches, leaves, and vibrantly orange flowers. "Great day," he agrees, glancing up at the sky. "...They bother you?" he adds. "The tattoos."

Minerva gives a look to him, not walking farther ahead of him as she drops back to walk beside him. "Why would the tattoos bother me?" she asks him. "I like them. Do you mind girls that have tattoos?" she gives a look to him as they walk. They can already start smelling the air from the coast as they get closer.

"Eh, well, it's a lot less common these days for anybody to care, just, yannow." Itzhak flips a hand over in a little tossing-away gesture. "New York, I still sometimes get some babushka coming up to me scolding me. A lotta really serious Orthodox types there." He flashes half a crooked grin at her. "Mind? The opposite of mind."

Minerva gives him a chuckle, "None of my tattoos are anywhere that they can be seen. I'm sure my father would have a heart attack if he knew, I got them when I was finishing up my Doctorate." she muses. "Like a reward for finishing." she explains. "My parents won't scold you for tattoos, if that's what you're kind of worried about?" she teases him gently. "I was going to ask about the ones on your hands though." she admits. "If you don't mind me asking that is." she states in a quiet tone.

Taken a little aback, Itzhak says, "You're a doctor? Jeez. Now I gotta call you Dr. Irvriya." He's teasing back, there. Spreading one hand palm down, he looks at the faded STAY on his knuckles. His mouth goes twisty. "Lotta really, really bad decisions. ...Shit, was that mysterious? Suddenly I sound like some yutz in a movie."

Minerva gives a shake of her head, the hair going back and forth as she does, "You don't have to call me Doctor, but yes, I have my doctorate in Psychology and I specialize in Child Psychology and Parapsychology mainly." she admits. "I figured with the trouble I had as a child, that I could help others here." she smiles to that. Then she looks to his hand and then back to his eyes, "You don't have to be mysterious." she tells him. "I mean, most of us make bad decisions." she murmurs.

"Some of us make 'em on a bigger scale." Itzhak tucks his hands into his pockets, putting the knuckle tattoos out of sight, for now. "My sister's got a doctorate too. I'm the underachiever." He kind of blatantly changes the subject. Then those eyebrows go up, hearing Minerva had trouble as a child. "Does it help? The, helping."

Minerva gives a look to him, "Hey, no talking like that." she tells him with a soft smile. "Some people don't want to be doctors and astrophysicists and stuff like that." she shrugs. The question makes her smile, "It makes me wish that sometimes someone was around that knew what I was going through." she admits. Then they are closing in on the picnic area that's close to the docks, "Do you want to sit and talk and I can tell you what happened when I was younger?" she asks. "We could skip over it, but, if you have gifts and I do then we're bound to cross each others powers in some way." she states.

Itzhak murmurs, "Know that feeling." As they approach the picnic area, Itzhak shifts his weight uncomfortably. "I mean, that's a good point. We should talk about that. I don't know hardly nothing about ...gifts. But you don't gotta tell me anything so personal. You don't know anything about me. You don't know if I was gonna use it against you or something."

Minerva looks to him and then heads over towards one of the sandy stretches of the picnic area, "Or and hear me out...we could just act like two normal people for the day and enjoy the time together?" she offers. "Now, if we talk on things at another time and you choose to use things against me, we'll deal with that if we come to it." she shrugs her bare shoulders gently.

Oh, awkward. Itzhak winces behind the mirrored sunglasses. "I, yeah. I think that sounds great." Normal. He can do normal. Right? Right. Unslinging the instrument case and the bag, he sets them on the table. The bottles turn out to be cider, probably home-pressed judging by the upcycled beer bottles and handwritten labels reading 'Gravenstein'.

Minerva settles down the bag and the basket. She pulls a blanket out of her bag and spreads it out, "I didn't mean to sound so bitey, I'm sorry." she tells him with a soft frown. "I don't really get a lot of social time. So this is new." she chuckles as she smoothes the blanket out. Then she kicks her sandals off and takes a seat. "So what do you play?" she asks him with a smile as she settles the basket of food on the edge of the blanket.

Itzhak shakes his head. "Nah, nothing to apologize for. I'm not so great on the whole social interaction front." He glances over at Minerva where she's sitting on the blanket in her pretty skirt. "Violin," he says, with a little hitch of a smile, and joins her in a graceful sprawl. "Thought I could play you something."

"Maybe we can work on that between us." Minerva gives him a nod. Though she sobers when he states he plays violin. "I would love to hear you play." she tells him with a warm smile. "Figure we don't have a time limit so can take things slow." she adds.

Itzhak hesitates a long, long moment. The sunglasses hide a lot of his expression. Then, "Yeah," he says, and clears his throat. "Whaddaya wanna hear? I can do classical, Cajun, klezmer, a lotta traditional American stuff." He opens one of the cider bottles and offers it over.

Minerva looks to him when he hesitates and there's a bit of a smile to him. Something a little reassuring. "What's your favorite to play?" she asks him with a look over him. She takes the offered cider, "Thank you." she tells him.

Itzhak opens the other bottle. "L'chaim." He takes a drink, then sits forward, eager to talk about his violin. "I was classically trained, right, but what I really love is all the great folk music. Mountain music, that's what most folks call bluegrass, from the Appalachians. Irish fiddle, jigs, reels...all that stuff!" Then he gets hesitant again. "Eh, let me know if I'm talkin' too much about it."

Minerva gives a soft smile and raises her bottle in a toast. Though she remains quiet as she listens to him talk on his violin and the music. That makes her smile genuinely. She shakes her head, "No, no, you aren't talking to much. It's a passion of yours, I can tell." she admits. "Well, play something folksy then. I like folk music." she states as she turns a to give him her full attention.

"Kinda saved my life, violin." Itzhak's being mysterious again, but he doesn't realize it as he grabs his case. He gets the instrument out, fusses about with the dozen things that need to be done with it. "Okay. Somethin' Cajun." Then he sets the bow to the strings and pulls out a lively, Southern-flavored song, putting his whole body into it, rocking back and forth to the beat.

Minerva gives a thoughtful look to that when he says the violin saved his life, but she doesn't pry at the moment. Things would come with time. She rests her elbows comfortably on her knees and then places her chin in the palm of her hands to watch him as he fusses over things. When he starts to play there's a smile and she straightens back up as he starts to play, swaying a bit as she hears the music.

Itzhak lowers the bow, still holding the fiddle with his chin, eyebrows up as he grins at Minerva. "Pretty great, right?" He runs up and down the strings just for the hell of it. "Nu, tell me about you, huh?"

"I bet it's good to dance to. Do you dance?" Minerva asks him as she smiles at him. "And I like it a lot." she nods to him. Though when he asks her to talk about herself there's a bit of a moment taken to look at him. "Well, I'm going to be thirty one in a few months. I have a love hate relationship with depth perception sometimes." she teases about herself. "I try to make sure people are taken care of, kind of my calling in life. I like to give people a lot of chances. Learned it from my parents. My brother...is kind of a dick and doesn't really subscribe to the whole helping people out." she frowns. "I like collecting occult texts and keeping track of the weirdness here." she explains.

"I dance," Itzhak says as if admitting it, laughing at himself some. "Usually I'm doin' the playing, not the dancing, but I dance." He keeps messing with the fiddle as Minerva talks, not looking at her, but clearly listening. Snorting when she talks about depth perception, he says, "Yeah, it's a bitch, right?" Then tries to correct himself, "Uhh, it's a problem." He tips his head, shifting the fiddle. "So whad ya learned?"

Minerva gives a look to him as she gives a soft smile, "I can take you dancing sometime. If you like." she offers. There's a grin, "I can joke about my handicap, yes." she sticks her tongue out at him. Then she looks to him, "It sucks sometimes. Like when I have night terrors it's hard getting focus when I wake." she shakes her head. "You don't have to correct yourself around me." she tells him. "What I have learned about this place...its layered and if you have the...what we have you're more likely to experience bad things. Otherwise it's a nice little town." she admits with a chuckle.

"The song." Itzhak nods. "I think of it like that. I hear it in people, singing. Got a buddy calls it the glimmer. I hear it more'n see it." He plays very, very high on the E string, a delicate little rill. "Kinda like that, except...not. And it's different in everybody." He goes quiet, the fiddle quiet too. "Already seen somethin' pretty bad."

"I think I like it explained like that. It is a bit like a song. Some sing higher than others." Minerva admits. "Do you know others that have it?" she asks him. "Most of my patients are kids who have it and don't know what it is or how to deal with it." she frowns. Then she looks to him, "The Murray House?" she asks him quietly. "Do you teach? Do you think it would be hard for me to play the violin?" she asks him with a bit of a smile. "And I apologize if I ask too many questions." she adds.

Itzhak grunts. "I can't turn around in this town without hearing it in someone. I went a decade hearing it only in one person, maybe, or a couple at a time. Come here, it's everyfuckinwhere." Well, Minerva said he didn't need to correct himself. He lets the bow droop. "The Murray House. There was a..." Itzhak swallows, looking out over the ocean. "A thing in it. A dead thing, like a cockroach half squashed and still scuttling around." He shudders all over, goosebumps rising visibly on his skin.

As if to chase the chill away he plays a few bars of a bright and chipper song, more Cajun. "Uh, so, I don't teach, I wouldn't know where to start, but it's hard to learn. Really hard, it's probably the hardest instrument there is. Takes a lot of time, a lot of work. People make it look easy, it ain't easy."

Min gives him a look when he talks about the house, "I have to stop by there in the next few days. Take pictures and things." She frowns. "As for violin...i might stick with piano then." She grins. "Want to walk? There's shells sometimes and I found a shark tooth once." She muses.