Winter Thaw

By morning six inches of snow had settled to three. The dripping on the roof had become incessant and the trees were dropping their loads in silent explosions. The forecast is for rain but the ridge is right on the edge, which, because of the thousand extra feet of elevation over town, probably means more snow here, which could mean another six inches. Oh well. I make a pot of black beans and bake a batch of biscuits. A final biscuit, after a meal, with sorghum molasses, is always a treat. Not a good day for being outside. It's clammy and awful. B's having the family Sunday dinner at his house, so that the grand kids can sled on a run he'd prepared. He called and I'm tempted, but I'd have to hike down with crampons, then hike back up just before dark, and I just don't want to do that. If I could drive, I would go; the social interaction, a good meal, watching kids sled. But there's three inches of slick sloppy snow on the ground. I'd rather reread Proust. Always a fall-back position. Or any of the other text I encounter, the pile I've been accumulating, on the plank I put across the aquarium that used to house poisonous frogs, or that other pile, which completely covers the dining table. I eat at the island, close to the stove, but usually I'm wrapped in a lap-robe, over at Black Dell, seriously considering commas. The humidity must be close to 100% because there's a haze at ground level. Saturated air. After ten years in western Colorado, it's such an alien concept. Extra water? Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. But this is serious moisture, you have to think about snow melting, becoming ice, seeping into that top layer of the driveway. Quickly becomes treacherous, snot on a door knob is nothing compared to that top layer of slush. Like goose shit at a lawn-bowling event. It's simply not allowed. Would someone please just shoot the offending geese? I need a reading project for February and I'm down to a short list: Gunther Grass, Barth, George V. Higgins. I have a book binding project I'd like to complete. A hard bound edition of a lettered and signed set that are almost completely done. The cases are made and printed, the signatures are collated and hand-sewn, the spines are reinforced with crashing. All that remains is tipping the books into the cases. I've done this hundreds of times, but it's still difficult to get it more or less perfectly correct. Black beans on toast with an egg on top, fried salt-pork on the side, mustard greens cooked with garlic in peanut oil, cornbread. A last toasted slice, with organic butter and shade-grown organic blueberry jam, it's not a bad life.