Usual Problems

Another storm moving in with snow, zero temps, and wind, so I spent the day working on firewood. In the mid-twenties today, bright and clear. It was treat to be outside but I certainly tracked in a lot of crap. Two more ricks of wood near the cookstove. Frozen wood chills the house right down, but I get a good fire going and put on my bathrobe over four layers, put on my Linda hat and fingerless gloves and I'm actually quite comfortable. I have the fried rice for two more dinners, then I'll have to come up with something, which isn't a problem because I have several options. I could make a large pan of scalloped potatoes, I have another acorn squash, another pound of sausage, another dozen eggs. I have Korean sardines, canned eel, and a jar of pickled okra. I'm not without reserves. I still have blackberries in the freezer, I have cornmeal, I can make biscuits on demand. I need a few things, but I'm not desperate, I can drink my coffee black, I can melt and boil snow for drinking water. Once I break into my back-up bottle of whiskey, I might start to get worried, but I can always hike in and out, ride into town with B, and stash some things at his place. If it doesn't snow too much tonight, I could get into town tomorrow. It seems unlikely. If it's a snow day, as predicted, I'll just read and stoke the stove. It's supposed to be bitter cold. I went to bed early, pretty much exhausted from working outside. It's not a bad feeling, to be physically tired, to roll about a bit and find a comfortable position, and be instantly asleep. About three in the morning, something woke me; my ears didn't pop exactly, but it had to do with atmospheric pressure. A very strange dream in which I was sitting on a stump at the edge of a small pond. It had started to rain, isolated large drops, and they were dimpling the water's surface, all of the circles overlapping into a three dimensional Venn Diagram that was seeming to make sense. I don't put much stock in dreams, leaning toward random neurons firing; but this one was lovely. I'm a fan of patterns, and not quite patterns. Always danced to the off-beat drummer. I credit this to the endless number of characters that enter your life if you move twelve times before you graduate from high school. A larger sampling. In some ways it's a blessing, seeing that there is a range of human experience; and in some ways it's a curse, noting the number of dead-ends.