Appearances

Hard rain and thunder wakes me. Lightning and the stick trees of winter, like a dream, noir, everything is either black or white. I'm not afraid, exactly, because I can see this storm cell is tracking the river, several miles south of me, but I do sit up and take notice. I catch the cook stove perfectly, to rekindle a fire, and the oven is hot, so I make a pone of cornbread with some milk that had gone sour. Which, with a ladle of bean soup, is a lovely repast at whatever time of the morning. Still some raindrops falling, the occasional staccato drift across the roof. Otherwise a deep winter night without any other sound, once I kill the breaker to the fridge. In the curious world of signs and signage, whenever I kill the breaker for the fridge, I lean a coaster I stole from the pub against my espresso maker to remind me to turn the breaker back on. Currently, it's a Stella coaster that I quite like. Pone, by which I just mean a loaf, but I need to look that word up, I don't know where it comes from. By which something comes to stand for something. The coaster leaning against my coffee-maker means turn on the breaker for the fridge, simple enough; the symbol, whatever coaster it might be, is clear. A mop, rampant, with the cross of Saint Steven. A pone, in my case, is a small circular cake of cornmeal, made with an egg and blinky milk. Buttermilk is sour, and that sheen, on the surface, must be transfats. Blinky is a word I've only heard a few places. That sheen. Certain satins, you know what I mean, bounce light. Silk, in certain circumstances, comes alive. That play. Not unlike a double-rainbow, or sun-dogs chasing the last visible glow into tomorrow. Took the day off completely, read mostly, one short walk outside; eating bean soup and toasted squares of cornbread slathered in butter. Very quiet except for the wind, blowing hard from the northwest. I listened to NPR for a while, but I can't concentrate on my reading and listening at the same time.. Because of the clear-cutting, there's a new batch of photos of the geoglyphs in the Amazon. More evidence of Oz (I hate that name) and of how large this previously unknown civilization was. Makes sense, when you think about, and the fact that it was essentially an organic culture in a jungle, means there's not very much left. What we need is a cave, with drawings. Wooden huts with banana leaf roofs don't last long; however effective, in the short term, for keeping off the water. Someone stole the enameled metal signs from the outhouse. I'd had them a long time. I'm sure I'll see them at an antique store in town, they're a hot salable item. Hate to think I'm enabling a meth freak with my outhouse art, but at least he didn't break into the house. The five signs were all he could carry, thank god I'd given B a duplicate of my favorite sign: CRANK CASE SERVICE, white sans-serif on a dark blue background. I'll see it whenever I go over to his place, usually because I'd gotten my truck stuck someplace, and B is the best when it comes to stuck vehicles. He has a knack for doing what is necessary. Case in point, you, and a bunch of your friends come over later, you expect what. Exactly. Everything is squeezed. You, and an imagined companion. Whatever you thought.