Living Alone

Home an hour early, my winter schedule, to get a fire started before dark. A small package of pulled pork in the freezer, from some event at the museum, so I caramelize an onion and roast a few cloves of garlic, mix everything together and serve it on mashed potatoes. Mom, the last time I visited, turned me on to frozen biscuits; they come in a bag and you can cook just two of them, if that's all you need. They're pretty good, as good as I can make from scratch (I'm not a baker) and they're very convenient. You can cook them in the toaster-oven, but if I have the cookstove going I just put them in there. I used one to clean my plate, and the other I had with the wonderful raspberry/jalapeno jam that Sara gave all of the staff. As close as I come to dessert. At home it was always a last biscuit with molasses. I swoon thinking about them. I do make the occasional Key Lime pie, but that's because we lived in Key West when I was maybe 12 and 13, there were Key Lime bushes in the back yard and they bore year-round, so Mom was always making pies. And it's easy. Use the recipe on the lime juice bottle, but I use whole eggs, instead of just the yolks, because I'm challenged when it comes to separating them, the single task I've failed most often in my life. That and relationships. There was some fish in the remaindered bin. That new generation of flash-frozen, sealed in plastic fish. It's good, it's better than no fish at all, and I bought a package of cod for tomorrow night. Lemon juice and a smear of mayonnaise, some roasted things, a piece of Texas Toast. If things work out correctly, there would be enough fish leftover to mix with the leftover mashed potatoes to make a cod-fish cake for Saturday morning, a perfect fried egg on top, and a piece of toast with some more of the jam. As Napoleon famously said, in a note to that fair Ophelia, "I'll be home in two weeks. Don't bathe." I took advantage of the slightly warmer temps, to stand in my washtub, next to the stove, and scrub off thoroughly; washed my hair in the sink, fresh clothes, my bathrobe (because the fleece cowl warms my neck) and I'm very comfortable in most ways. I'd like to have a warm ass to spoon against and someone to argue with; what I get is an extra pillow and an argument with myself. Not a bad trade, actually, because I don't have to justify myself. One of the perks, maybe the only perk, of living alone, is that you don't have to explain yourself.. Looking at a lovely portrait of Jeanne, that Modigliani did in 1919. He died in 1920. At thirty-four, I think; and today I looked at 400 of his paintings in thumbnail. The work from the last three years is breathtaking. He had made the move into the modern. His "Reclining Nude" from 1917 is one of the most beautiful things I know.