Shifting Focus

Dappled light through a nearly complete canopy. A slight breeze dances the still-soft leaves. It was so lovely I must have gone into a trance. I sat out there for a couple of hours, then came back inside and finished Skip Fox's Wired To Zone, which is an amazing piece of writing. A wild, raunchy, funny ride, twisting and sliding the language; a wonderful thing. Ticks are going to be bad this summer; they're already bad. For years I've developed nasty ways of killing ticks, but now I just flick them into a small dish and drown them in rubbing alcohol. I might need them later. I'm freezing butter wrappers (I use a lot of butter during the morel season) because butter wrappers are so good for starting a fire. Some Tex-Mex almost instant rice, and I like it, ten for ten dollars, and I get several meals off each one. My new tin, in the pantry, I think held bags of caramel pop-corn. Now I'm stocking it with rice and beans; and instant rice, so I can eat quickly, if I need to. I'm going to buy a very small crock pot, five cups, just for cooking grits. I can live on grits and greens and salt-pork. Rodney came over and wanted to cry in my whiskey, he was already five sheets to the wind, I was writing, and I hated the interruption. Still, we ended up talking for a couple of hours, about how bad his life was, that he couldn't get a handle on it. I couldn't offer any solace. It's ugly out there. He thinks our lives are similar, but they're not. When he leaves I breathe a sigh of relief and go back to what I was reading, an essay about seeing. John Berger. Get a last splash of whiskey, roll a smoke, and sit in the opened back doorway, thinking about just how miserable it's possible to feel. Ackerman notes that predators have vertical eye-slits, goats and sheep have horizontal slits. Depends on what you need to see. Then there's what you want to see. Then there's what is. What Rodney sees in the world, right now, is not the same as what I see. It's spring, it's beautiful outside, I'm getting some things done, I have a few bucks in a coffee can, my vehicle is running fine, my time is my own. I don't look at the clock, unless I have to meet someone, and that's rare. My inclination toward isolation is generally respected, except for the occasional phone call concerning the cruise I'd won. I tell them to give it to someone else, I'm busy. I have to experiment with the new small crock pot, work out firewood options, extend the sauce for summer use. I need to take several loads to Good-Will, and rake the brush I've been clearing away from the house. Outdoor end-of-winter sale at Vandervorts Hardware and I got another set of long-underwear for cheap. At Kroger evaporated milk is on sale and I buy a few cans for the larder. Not exactly half-and-half for your coffee, but better than powdered milk. Marilyn and I canned goat's milk, which became evaporated milk even though no evaporation was involved, a sealed environment under pressure, but the milk caramelized and the moisture absorbed. The great benefit of this is that the sugars are water soluble, and they're retained, add a couple of eggs and it's a pudding. Wild plum sauce is good on this, or red onion jam. Rain wakes me and I have to walk through the house, checking for blowing water. Then sit for a while, listening, enjoying the cool breeze. Stay up to read The Sacred Cow And The Abominable Pig. Which inspires me to cook some bacon, which leads to bacon and an egg on toast. Life is good.