Marrow Bones

Got up around two in the morning and started a fire in the cookstove. I rarely do this in August, but it's cool outdoors and I have these bones I need to cook. One fire, venting most of the heat, should allow me to simmer them for a couple of hours. A bed of sliced onions and turnips, some cranberries, a decent wine white and chicken stock (I hate beef stock), damp down the stove and go back to sleep. Later, I poke out the marrow and spread it on toast, mash the vegetables, resist the temptation to put butter on anything. The richness of marrow is difficult to describe. It melts and explodes on the tongue, wonderful dissolving grains of animal fat. The mashed vegetables are excellent, and the cranberries were a nice touch. A bag of cranberries keep forever and I throw a handful in almost anything. I love the way they burst in a stir-fry. The sauce I make for game is more sour than sweet, cranberries, some tamarind paste, and a little sorghum molasses. Another quiet day. I started reading about food taboos, one book to another, Levi-Strauss, the bible. Finally had to stop and read some light fiction. Auditory mirages. I've been hearing things all day, voices, whistling, even part of Sibelius' Second. The light breeze blowing on the season hardened leaves today is not the gentle breeze of June. Different voices. I sat out on the back stoop, drank a gin and tonic, and listened for a while. Even the frogs sound different, as though the acoustics had changed. Which they have. The light has certainly changed, slanting, breaking through the forest in shafts. The sumac are the first to lose leaves, actually they lose small branches because they grow so goddamn fast that the new branches can't carry a full load of wet leaves. The walnuts will be the next to go, capping their 90 day growing season. I have to make wood arrangements in September, and stock the larder, new used fridge, take the Jeep in for its recall, use that $100 pre-paid card (they must have had some serious liability claims) to buy a case of whiskey, a back-up bag of tobacco and plenty of papers. Powdered milk and powdered eggs assure me that I can at least make a cornmeal johnny-cake to put beans on top of. Ten cans of cooked beans, ten cans of tuna fish, ten cans of Mandarin orange segments, ten cans of tomato soup, twenty packages of Roasted Chicken ramen, and I like those Knorr rice/pasta packages, they make a hot meal very quickly. Ten packages of instant mashed potatoes, ten pounds of rice, ten pounds of cornmeal; a pound of dehydrated onions, a gallon of olive oil; salt-pork, dried mushrooms, and winter squash that I store near the back door. A new pile of 30 books that I want to read. Started splitting starter sticks for winter fires, from dry oak left over from last year; the stove pipe is clean, I have good gloves, I need to get the maul ground down. I want to rotate the wash-water buckets and bleach them. Long underwear is all clean. I need to get a baby crock-pot for cooking my grits, a snow shovel, and a plastic restaurant water pitcher I can use for transferring water. I've been using the same cut-off gallon water jug for several years and it's dying. I think an actual water pitcher would make things look more professional. I'm sure I can find one at Good-Will and I have a bunch of stuff to take there anyway. I'm giving away half of my clothes, I mean really, if you haven't worn it in two years, it's history. I have no sense of fashion, a selection of black jeans and black tee-shirts, then denim shirts. I wear my newest denim shirt to events. If I need pockets, I just wear a jacket over a tee-shirt, or over a denim shirt if it's cool outside, and I'd have a lot of pockets. I had to go to town, the library had called, and I could pick up a few things for the larder. The pub was filled with ladies, dozens of them, and they were very loud. Even screeching, which I hadn't heard in a while. The help wanted to go home with me. I drank a quick beer and disappeared. I'm confused by all the trappings. Some of my friends say I'm being paranoid, but, you know, I actually saw Momma fucking Santa Claus.