Slightly Paranoid

I don't use a real Kroger card at Kroger anymore. I use one in a name I got from the cemetery in town. No one needs to know what groceries I buy. Another rain day, off and on hard. I reread The Nick Adams Stories, had morels on toast, got out for one walk between showers. More rain in the evening, the windows are open on the lee side and it smells wonderful. The trees and shrubs are drinking deeply, the next time the sun comes out I won't be able to see 50 feet. The blackberries are beautiful, and this rain predicts a good harvest. I've never seen so many blossoms. Serious rain sets in and I have to shut down for a while. Curl up on the sofa with a pile of essays and book reviews. My sister calls and we talk about Mom and Dad. She's moved them to a facility out nearer to her, and it all sounds completely dreadful. I couldn't do it, but Brenda can, and I'm filled with admiration. I need to get down there again, and I'd love getting out, once I was on the road. I always hate leaving, but once I'm on the road, I enjoy myself. A bath in Valentine, a shower in Moab, fry-bread in Mexican Hat, firm, cold, cut-throat trout caught above the beaver dams. My CD player has died (I'm having a run of failures) so I was sitting in the driveway listening to Bach in the Jeep. I always turn around, when I get home, and park facing out the driveway, when I saw headlights coming up the hill. It was a deputy sheriff (11 at night) and I felt like I'd been caught, you know, listening to Bach in the dark. He was a bit nervous and I asked him what was happening. It seems the power company had notified the law that my electric consumption had gone up significantly this past winter and that I might be doing something illicit. I invited him into the house, gave him a wee dram of Glendronach, and bade him look around. Then explained that I had used more back-up electric heat the past winter. He looked around, noting that I seemed to have an interesting life, and being completely overwhelmed with the walls of books. I told him to call, before he came up again, to warn me that there would be lights in the night, that I didn't like being surprised. He wants to bring his girlfriend up to meet me, she reads books. The Scioto Sideshow, look what we've got in this county. I tell him to call me ahead of time and I'll fix dinner. Can't hurt to get to know the local guy. I once had a CIA agent in my house, and have been interviewed by the FBI about some people I've known. It doesn't mean I'm not a nice person, but it has made me slightly paranoid. That, and the fact that I know people like Michael, who is a scholar of conspiracies, and propagates a few of his own. We've come a long way: out of the trees and most of us now stop at stop signs. Makes me proud to be a lemur without a tail. Dense clouds moving in, so I fry enough potatoes to make several sandwiches. I just leave them on the stove, in their skillet, and cover it with the spatter-screen, so the mice won't get into it. I set a mouse trap next to it. Corvus do enjoy a fresh mouse. If the bread is soft enough to fold over, it's just mayo and potato and a slice of onion; if it's a country loaf, I build an open-face thing and top it with a sauce or dressing. Maybe it isn't the NSA but Betty Crocker who's trying to get into my head. The foodie terrorist, blew up a tomato aspic, and died in a hail of artichokes. I exaggerate, naturally, because I was born in Tennessee. I have relatives that talk in a patois that no one else can understand. The noun for a tug is the same as the noun for a broken arm at the hands of a cousin.