At The Lodge

Jenny called and said she and Scott wanted to buy B and me lunch before the reading, so headed right out, since I had to walk down. Did nothing about my appearance, so I was looking very much the part of The Hermit From The Ridge. The thaw and a slight drizzle had started so I knew the walk back in to the house was going to be messy. Fine lunch, good conversation, and I gave a good reading, twelve pages focused strongly on the ridge and told a couple of anecdotes (B asked me to explain to the audience about micro-waving mice for the crows), then some chat afterwards. A fine afternoon. The driveway, as predicted, was a slick mess coming back in. B had bought me a whiskey for the actual reading, which made the whole affair much more like the readings we have when a writer visits the ridge. I think it's supposed to be in the forties tomorrow and the melt will cause minor flooding. Another messy day, withall. Of little concern to me, as my new schedule allows for a day off. I might split a rick of wood. At the lodge I read with care the new poster which was about what to do if you met a bear in the woods. The lodge is lovely, big timbered, lots of local stone, fireplaces. Everyone seemed to know who I was, which was mildly disconcerting. Very attention audience. Jenny runs the reading series, she's the Naturalist for the forest, incredibly bright, perky, and nine months pregnant, due in three days. We had both hoped she would go into labor during the reading. Didn't happen, and she and Scott left right away afterwards, because three young girls were staying at the lodge specifically to visit her, and wanted to see the hibernating snakes in her office. We talked about melanistic hybrids. How the texture of possum fat was very like caviar. All evening the snow sublimates into ground fog, and it's a lovely thing, the way what we see recedes and advances. It's March goddamn it, it is no longer February, and I want the fucking ice-jam to break. I want my feet to be warm. Last time I was in town, the Scioto River was breaking loose, huge ice-flows drifting into the flow of the Ohio; a few degrees of difference you're left with something else entirely. Still dripping at midnight. I might see the ground tomorrow.