Planets Align

Making plans for my older daughter and her significant other to visit at that holiday at the end of summer. My house is a wreck and everything smells like piss because I've been burning black oak, but they're willing to forgive me certain transgressions. I'll be over this whole daylight saving's deal by then. The adopted kid, or the foster kid, came up for the third time, and I told him he couldn't do that, that I couldn't be interrupted that many times. Ten thousand bull sharks swimming up the coast of Florida. I think the kid is Daleana's (Bear's wife) brother's foster child. In the boonies, raising a couple of foster children is a source of revenue. It doesn't matter what you think of this, it's a fact of nature. Somebody has to raise the orphans. They, the 'parents', don't have a phone, so they sent the kid up here three times to call the father's mother to get them some pot. I try not to be critical of other parenting styles. I did ask him, Travis, if he was getting enough to eat, and he said he was, but he asked for a glass of water every time he came to use the phone, and the last time I gave him a glass of juice instead; my current juice mix, which is equal parts orange, cranberry, and pomegranate, and his face lit up. He said he'd never tasted anything like that before. I assured him the world held unexpected surprises. I'll cook, for instance, with my daughter's beau, Scott, when they're here at the end of summer; should be fun; mostly I cook alone because there's no one else around, I'm not opposed to sharing a meal, there are people with whom I'd break bread; it's a short list, but a list none-the-less. It's all about terminal mass..Kori's ass. Persephone, Demeter's daughter, Queen of the underworld; wait, yes, she was walking away, I was befuddled and amused. I don't do well at flirting. I'd love to cook a meal for the union organizer, she has great ankles, and she's bright, but the actual state of things is confusing. Nothing might well be better than something. When I got to the museum there were already 11 guys there. I don't understand how Pegi believes it's somehow acceptable that there not be a staff member there. Phillip had called, met me fort lunch and we got caught up on each other's lives. Rained all day, then, when I finally got shed of the last crew, it started raining hard for my drive home and walk up the hill. A mess which I, of course, tracked right into the house. No fire tonight, must be nearly fifty degrees outside, I've got the little EdenPure heater on it's lowest setting, and my plans for dinner required no cooking. I made a salsa from grape tomatoes, watercress, and jalapenos to have on a roast beef sandwich; looked forward to it all day, and it was as good as I had anticipated. I was making some notes from the book I have to get back to B, which lead me to a Latin text I remembered I owned, and actually found, "Latin Writings Of The Italian Humanists", which contained a quote that was in the Greenblatt. Quotes are about as far as I go, in the translation department, but it's amusing to spend an hour trying to tease out meaning from something you know damned good and well is a colloquialism. Phone is out. The ground is so soft, with the thaw and the rain, that the fire damaged trees from a few years ago are toppling like jack-straws. These trees, if they're oak, are almost completely heartwood, the bark has fallen off, the sapwood has melted away, once they fall, they rot quickly, but as long as they're standing, they are excellent firewood. I picked up, for ten bucks, off the sale table at the pawn shop, a 14 inch battery powered chain saw. Didn't know such a thing existed. It's good for harvesting branch wood, maybe twenty cuts on a charge. It's quiet, and the battery charges in a hour, so by the time you carry a few armloads of wood, it's ready to go again. Later in the spring I'll enjoy using it to clear a green space around the outside of the house. I could spend the rest of my life just harvesting saplings within a hundred yards, that and the pallets from behind the paint store, and I could be quite comfortable, heat-wise. Never split another fucking billet. On the other hand, I do enjoy splitting wood sometimes. Mindless pleasures. Correctly deducing lines of stress, hitting it just so, it's wonderful, the way the halves blow apart. Hey, listen, I have this under control. The you that did that wasn't you. We know that. When we have too many sequential minutes, things start to make sense; always there, you should insert a filter. No, really. You could make a case for almost anything. A battery powered chainsaw? I mean, really.