Leafing

Amazing. Rained off and on all day, sometimes hard, in sheets that swept across the ridge. My favorite Gunter Grass is probably The Flounder, I need to reread it. I got a little work done editing, actually inserted a complete sentence that was needed by way of explication. Usually, my close readers tell me, they can follow my jumps. Just now, for instance, I went outside, between showers, to collect enough morels for dinner, which I do in about eleven minutes. I knew this small patch was ready to erupt, because I'd noticed some leaves pushing up. The new leaves are breaking out, there's a faint blush of green against the sky. The oaks are holding back, but the maples and the poplars are right on the edge of exploding. The Bradford pears are blooming, they're pretty, but I don't like them. I do like the way their leaves just shove the blossoms out of the way, creating a rain like snow, and the trees go from white to red to green. The Redbud is coming on and it's a lovely thing to see. I need to get to the library again, I need to spend more time when I go there, and check out more books at a time. That would be part of my strategy for leaving the ridge less often. If I have enough interesting reading matter, I can weather almost anything. It rained hard enough that I shut down everything and sat in the dark, listening. Fell asleep, then woke when the rain stopped and flipped the breaker for the fridge back on. Cool enough that I need a flannel sheet as a blanket. I read about Southern trees for an hour. I might have to drive out tomorrow and look at the trees. It's a thousand vertical feet down to the Ohio and the flora is quite different down there. It's makes for an interesting time lapse trip. I'd dug just a couple of sang roots (as it's called around here) in the fall, and I remembered them. They were dry, and I rubbed off the dirt and skin, then sliced them very thin with a sharp knife, put them in a nice whiskey bottle with some grain alcohol. A sip of this, when you're embedded in snow, can be just the thing. Starting to get some things done, sharpened the clippers, bought one of those little testers that's tells you if an electric line is hot, and a new outdoor light for the back door. I need to be a plumber for a day and an electrician for a day. I have everything I think I need, for a couple of repairs, but in my heart I know there will a trip or two to the hardware store. When doing anything trips to the hardware store are inevitable. I sometimes stop, even when I don't need anything in particular, because I like the staff, the free popcorn; and just walk up and down the aisles, picking out a few things I might require in the future. Hardware stores are cool, especially that peg-board where they hang specialty items. Coffin locks and repair links for chains. I sometimes buy a piece of hardware just because I like the way it looks. I might not even know what it does, but elegance is apparent. The first ballet I saw, I was a junior in high school, but I'd skipped a grade, so I was young and stupid, was a revelation. "You mean, Sir, that my ass is a commodity?" No doubt exchanged on other exchanges. I come down strongly on the side of those who just want to be left alone. It's my body, I'll do with it what I will, I will not have some white slimy ass hole, male, telling me what I can and what I can't do. My sister flagged me down, from her golf-cart. She has good taste in pottery.