Lose Them

I'm actually plus three-and-a-half days at work, have used no vacation or sick days, then discover it's use them or lose them. If snow accumulates tonight maybe I'll take tomorrow off. Should have picked up a Cornish Game hen today, my usual Turkey Day meal, but I've got various things in the freezer that need to be eaten. Dated nailed down for the Florida trip, meet the girls, see my folks, do all the cooking (Mom told me, she's making a list), zip over to Tallahassee and visit Kim. Remind D to take pictures and print out, so he can see the finished installation. Go below the floodwall and get a set of pavers for Kurt, he coveted Kim's, and trade him for a cubic foot of Live Oak, actually get him to rough out a piece 13 inches by 13 inches by 13 inches, to allow for drying/shrinkage, take it down to finish size later. I want to start a collection of cubic foot samples of all available woods. Live Oak is especially interesting, specific gravity of .95, 59 lbs.per cubic foot. Barely floats. Ebony is just a fraction denser, .96, 60 lbs. but I'll never see a cubic foot of that. A cubic foot of cast iron, 7.21, 450 lbs. seems out of the question. Might be able to get a cubic foot of coal, certainly sandstone and limestone. This could be an interesting installation. Doesn't matter, really, because I want them for myself. Be nice to soak the wood in anti-freeze so it wouldn't check. The river pedestals in the wrack show are checking major league, opening huge heart-checks, but it is in the nature of heart-checks to only go half-way through, radiating out from the heart in irregular patterns, so the stumps won't blow apart. A cautionary lesson, don't do an expensive wood show in winter, when we struggle so to keep the humidity barely high enough. The expansion of all the sticks, as they check, has served to tighten the lashings: we'll have to take this show apart with a hatchet. If I go to town tomorrow I think I'll get everything to make a batch of pate, chicken livers, chicken thighs, several different mushrooms, those three equal by weight, butter, wine, basil, nutmeg, scallions, garlic, lots of fresh ground pepper. A rustic country pate. Should make about four pounds and I want to take Jim, at the Pub, a pound, he's been good to us, a pound for me and a pound for B, a pound for Hound Dog and Cindy. Probably only cost about $12, but will take most of a day, all of my pans, five gallons of water and several hours to clean up after. The only reason to do it is that the product is so fine, completely unavailable, and if I don't make it I'll never get any. 2 or 3 times a year I'm motivated and trash the kitchen. Geese going over, a huge skein, they're loud, bragging of southern climes, where they'll be tomorrow when I'm freezing my sorry ass on a ridge top in Ohio. But, you know, the cookstove is clicking, as the metal heats, and I only control my life alone, on this ridge, everything else is compromise. Living in the world can be quite different things, the lines we walk, to whom we are answerable, what we observe. Full circle. We must lose attachment, emotional baggage, stand clear in the moment. Walk up was lovely this afternoon, left early to start a fire against expected snow, and the banded clouds were lovely against the banded orange, the wind and slanted light, dead leaves blowing everywhere, like a movie without a plot; I watched it for a long time, before I got cold and remembered I needed to build a fire. I like letting events distract me, watching how I respond. I hadn't meant to cook but I think I will make a creamy butternut squash soup and the pate and roast a Cornish Game hen, maybe with some stuffing on the side, a wild boar, cornbread, spinach thing, with drippings. I am not going to make a key-lime pie, no way I could eat a whole pie, I only want a couple of pieces, one late at night and the other for breakfast, but I could probably give the rest away, the local food bank or maybe B and Sarah, maybe I'll make a pie. Don't want to rule anything out. Which this life allows, not ruling, too busy surviving, a straight line from A to B, when even a straight line is a curve, considering direction and speed. The faster route is often a curve, considering the vagaries. I know what they mean, but I can't do the math, I hate taking anyone's word, yet, they are convincing. Something Mac said, Aristotle is useful but after that criticism is a dry dung heap, words to that effect. Wow, I thought so too. Like minds. Leave well-enough alone.

Tom

Three crows congregate,
they seem to communicate,
fly in three different directions.