Always Something

The Compost Games. Like clockwork. There are only three dogs left in the young pack, and they're looking pretty good, but I never saw the advantage of being loud. It is warmer, and the air is thick with the coming rain. I should have done my laundry. I need one of those wind-up weather channel radios. When I was in town more often, someone was always telling me what weather was coming, it's good to know when it's going to be below zero. New tires and rear shocks on the Jeep are a priority and I have to work through the logistics of that: dropping it off, spending the day somewhere, getting a ride back to pick up the vehicle. You live alone, these things become problematic. I can spend the day at the library and the coffee shop, TR can ferry me one way and I can walk the other. I hate the idea of spending a day in town doing nothing, but I don't see a way around it. Nothing is relative, I could spend a few hours in the University Library, reading about the Humanists, or walk down on the riverbank, go flirt with the girls on Market Street, or just read a novel in the front room of the pub. I'll get home, the fire will have died and the house will be cold. Little care, I can start a fire, I can keep my core above freezing. I don't remember falling asleep, but got up to pee and it was coons and a possum on the compost pile, glowing red eyes in my flashlight beam. They don't move except to swivel their heads and look at me. I spend most of the day restoring a couple of pieces of cast-iron cookware, which was way down on my list, but seemed like a good idea at the time. It's so warm outside that even the small fire I maintained to dry and cure the cookware (250 degrees) is enough to keep the house balmy. Last step is to rub the pieces completely with peanut oil and bake for an hour. During which time, after double checking everything on my leaving-the-house-with-a-fire-going list, I take a walk to gather some acorns. I want to make some acorn / cornmeal cakes suitable for winter hikes. Suddenly the day was over and I didn't feel like I'd accomplished very much, but I felt good about the way I'd spent my time. Cleaning cast-iron I always think about Herbert, at The Cape Playhouse, because he collected cast-iron in every manifestation and I cleaned hundreds of pieces with him. Herbert was special. He was a genius, an intuitive engineer, and a master of small detail. Hard to believe now, that I was seventeen when I first went to work for him and his partner, Helen, one in the great tradition of scenic painters. Tromp l'oeil was perfected at the Paris opera house, and she was a master. Apprentice in a place like that and the bar gets set rather high; deceiving the eye, acting, the nature of reality. I fall back on my ignorance, I thought everyone knew it was a performance. Thoreau went home for Sunday dinner. I settle for Spam and a piece of toast, there no place I'd rather go.