Layman's Terms

Ringing in my ears. Wakes me. I didn't have a fire tonight, first time since forever. And this new schedule is interesting, where I crash early, because of the walk in, then get up at two or three in the morning and write for another couple of hours. Or sit and think. Get a wee dram and roll a smoke. Layers of responsibility had been building up, and I wanted no part of them, wanted shed of any situation where someone could point a finger at me. I have a plan for tomorrow, bacon, potatoes, eggs and toast; then I'll take a walk in the woods, find something that interests me, if not, I'll invent a narrative. Muddy mess outside, but I pull on a sacrificial layer and walk out to the little graveyard. It's the season when the leaves have collected and rotted in the slight depressions, so most of the graves are shallow black pools. I think of this as The Annual Grave Count, and I've never gotten the same number twice. Today I counted 23, more than half of them quite small. I sat out there, on my graveyard watching stump. When Scott graded out the frog ponds on my driveway he dug a ditch, with the corner of the dozer blade that runs to lower ground to the north. The result is a new catchment for run-off and melt that isn't in the middle of my access. Familiar noise drew me over there. Sure enough, the first annual frog orgy. Most of these eggs will die, frozen, but it's sign of the season. I squat and stay very still until I become invisible and watch them for an hour. Froggy porn. Finally go back inside and have a second round of breakfast. I'd cooked enough bacon and potatoes to do it all again. I'd made a lovely red-onion jam, with jalapeno and serrano peppers, thickened with wild blackberry syrup. This was so good, I used a last piece of buttered toast to clean out the skillet. I have so many cast-iron skillets, there are five on or around the stove right now, and a dozen more in circulation. I almost never wash these, but wipe them out and use Kosher salt to scrape off any little bits that didn't de-glace, then oil them again. I had so many bottles of hot sauce in my office, that some off them hadn't been used, maybe ever, and the chili oils had risen to the top. I used a syringe to siphon off the clear oil, and used it to re-season the six inch skillet (I have five of them) that I use only for frying eggs. When I fry an egg, in that well seasoned skillet, I use a pat of butter or a scant teaspoon of bacon fat in winter, or a goodly dribble of vegetable or nut oil in summer, and fry the egg until the white sets, then add a few drops of vermouth and put on a lid until the yolk skins over. I do love the perfect egg. The crows again, we always get to this point, where they expect the micro-waved mouse with a dash of horseradish sauce, and I can play along, because it's funny; then they finally drive me crazy with their idiotic noise and I run them off in a fit of anger. My thresh-hold level for sounds that have become uncomfortable to me, is sunk to record levels. Though I see how we might use it to our advantage in an opera.