At Odds

Sun dogs. I take them as a good omen. Lovely drive in this morning. Closer to town, 800 feet lower than my house, the slopes are vested in that soft green peculiar to spring. I'll walk in tomorrow, I think, and look for morels. My largest of the season today, six inches tall, an inch-and-a-half in diameter, plus several other smaller ones. I grill a brined pork chop, then cover it with mushrooms cooked gently in butter. Cooked an artichoke, but could only get through the leaves, save the heart for tomorrow. I'm thinking an artichoke heart and morel omelet. James wants to doctor my computer while I'm gone. I made another batch of crock-pot grits, plain, just grits and water, a serving for four, which I dot with butter, salt and pepper, and microwave of a morning. On weekends I might put a coddled egg on top. Incredibly good. Logan Turnpike Mill, Old-Fashioned Speckled Yellow Grits, 3485 Gainesville Hwy, Blairsville, Ga. 30512, www.loganturnpikemill.com, they ship. You really need to try these. Four to one, cooked overnight in the crock-pot on low. You'll think of things to add, any dried fruit is good, maple syrup is excellent, but I eat them mostly with just butter, salt and pepper. They always stick, scrape the sides down and mix the crust in, it's a delightful change in texture. I could live on this, the occasional pot of beans, some dandelion greens. The Vegetarian Tom. In which regard, the truck ahead of me clipped a squirrel, on the way home up Mackletree, I stopped and threw it in the back of the truck, dressed it out at home and put it on to cook for Little Sister, she was wining at the back door, so I quickly thickened the boiling mass with some generic dried mashed potatoes and ladled out a third for her dinner. She was so excited she went straight up in the air, all four feet off the ground. She's dumber than a stick of wood, but she can actually levitate, for a few micro-seconds, like an NBA star. I had butchered the squirrel into six pieces, two front quarters, two squirrely hams, and split the torso in two pieces; maybe two quarts of water, and four servings of mashed potatoes. Gotta be meals for three nights or I don't want to bother. Cooking for my fucking dog. Me and your Grandmother. I think I can get Bear's daughter, Cara, to feed the dog; I'll want to bribe her just so. Her Dad Or Mom will have to drive her up, but it's only seven miles. If Bear drove her up, I wouldn't worry so much about being robbed. Nobody fucks with Bear. He scares me and I consider him a friend. He once poked me in the chest, to make a point, and I fell over. The strongest human being I've ever actually known. He picked up the back of my truck once, when I was hopelessly mired, and set me on firm ground. I occasionally work small miracles, but I've never lifted a truck. I hang paintings, I'm a simple guy. James doesn't smoke, but I'd asked him down while I did, and we were talking about Antigone, not a neutral subject, when Valerie, the lawyer, walked by. I made a point, she paused, she doesn't even know my name. I really can't have a relationship because it would threaten whatever trip I currently imagined. I'm a loser. A quick look at the track record is enough, he never could run the 440. Nor the 220 or the 110,;I was always was a step off. The best coach I ever had said I started slow, and I never could improve. I'm still as bad as I ever was. I throw a wicked side-arm curve and a change-up that hovers at the plate, but my fast ball is barely eighty miles-an-hour. I fall short of anyone judging anything. Even my dog is suspect. I watch some tadpoles swim around in a glass dish and actually feel that I've done something. I watched. Now, I can't even rub my eyes without remembering.. A bad day at Black Rock. Nothing you could say would make any difference. Having lost the most important race of your life, what do you do? I've done a survey, as you might imagine, of losers. They comprise a huge section of the demographic. I'm not saying, don't quote me, but nonetheless.

Tom

Three crows
keeping time,
everything else
is easy.