More Dust

It goes without saying. Whatever I might have said wasn't strong enough. Concrete dust is everywhere. Even just cleaning the ledges, where the rear door enters, is a major activity. An extra hour of sleep, then a small amount of housework before cleaning my body, washing my hair, shaving. Rain in the morning, then a nice walk and I find enough morels for a late lunch, a lovely omelet, morels & shallots with shaved parmesan; I made a little pot of red-orange marmalade following John Thorne's lead. Excellent stuff, on a piece of multi-grain toast. Another little rain, a drizzle, and I curl up on the sofa with a couple of New Yorker articles, open an old-vines zinfandel, roll a smoke. Completely at peace, a wonderful feeling; when I bend over for a sip of wine, I look out at the newly cleansed green. It's coming on strong, I can barely see across the hollow. Rattlesnakes will be out soon. I want to see the yellow one, that dens to the north of the house, it's so strange. I'll see it and that'll be the end of the morel season once again. Ticks are bad again, the little 'seed' ticks are insidious and evil. I need to buy a new timer, the old one died, and the loin will need to be turned every fifteen minutes; experience teaches me that there will be interesting conversation and it's easy to lose track of time. And I need Mesquite charcoal. That, at least, should be, easy. Little squeals in the night, takes me a minute to identify baby mice. I think they're in the left over insulation in the tool room. I'll get rid of them in the morning, on my way out. Probably paint the back entry tomorrow. I got all of the supplies on Saturday, and D was going to get a coat of paint on the white patches, so that maybe we could get it in one coat. Red on red. Doubtful, but hope springs eternal. I don't do any social media, Glenn keeps up my posting site, but it's difficult to avoid contact completely, and I opened an email from Yearbook (or something) and there were actually some names I remembered, from high school. I'm not a sentimental guy and my best years are probably now, not then. But two names jump out: Terry Earwood, a racing fool, we once took his Dad's Porsche (his Dad was out of town) on a high-speed run down to Jacksonville Beach, my first time over 100 MPH; and Olinda Willis, who I remember dating, sometime either junior or senior year. That period is a blur to me, I worked my first season of professional theater before my first year of college, discovered marihuana, and LSD was still legal. I'd never been around so many gay people before, and the cooking was fabulous. I was coming out of that Southern Pot Roast tradition, I didn't know you could eat snails. My mother, bless her soul, had never used a clove of garlic; it was pretty much butter, salt and pepper. She does make gravy, though, and god bless her for that. A Red-Eye gravy from pork drippings and strong black coffee, a reduced milk gravy she makes that defies me, and a thing she does with toasted flour and bacon fat. Gravy is actually a beverage. Seriously. Phone was out last night, so I couldn't send. A good day, today, on the work front. I spent the morning finishing preppings the back entry, D went and got grouting supplies, after lunch, I painted, and D grouted the tile. I got all the large flat surfaces painted (one coat will cover!) but it'll all need cutting in tomorrow. Many edges. Most people don't like cutting edges, but I kind of zone out and get into it. The new tile looks good, the mortar is too bright, but I can dull it down with some coffee. I need to clean some other grout joints, mostly where bars were set up for events. I use a peroxcide cleaner (great stuff) and a toothbrush. D was late this morning, and I had a chance to haul trash and bullshit with the alley crew for a few minutes. They were putting the second coat of sealer on the stamped and lightly colored concrete and it was looking very good. They were being careful to overlap as little as possible; which I applaud, because an overlap, at this point, produces a visible line, where there are three coats of finish, not two. I had an Irish dinner in the bag, Cory had brought me an extra order of baby roasted potatoes, I don't know why, and I knew I had butter and sour-cream at home. Dismiss town, and retreat to the ridge, I'd rather die alone, then answer any question.