On Manners

Falling-snow slides are always surprising. The thaw. Temps right at freezing, but with full sun and heat escaping the house (heat always escapes) there are a few drips off the roof and no icicles. I clean out ashes and the smoke-chase on the stove, start another fire. Enough wood inside for today and tonight, but I need to go out and get a couple of armloads for tomorrow. Sardines on toast, with a large slice of onion, and it's wonderful, thank god I don't have to speak to anyone in person. Start out the day reading about table manners, then some interesting essays on cannibalism. Last of yesterday's cornbread and a bowl of soup for dinner. Stoke the fire with the largest log that will fit, damp it down, read some fiction (Lescroart), and thought for a while about civil liberties. By the time I got out to the woodshed the snow was settled and rotten. Tomorrow should be a mess. It doesn't matter much to me, as I have no intention of going far, just put up a sign, "Closed For The Season" and hunker down. Sometime after midnight it starts raining, and that wakes me, because it's been so quiet. It's nice, the rain on the roof, dampened, off the beat. I get a drink and roll a smoke, sit in the dark. I was thinking about eating with your hands, baby-back ribs or a crab boil, table manners generally, the way they take us a step remove. I can eat a quail with a knife and fork, I know which implement to use. Usually I dine alone and it's fairly casual, I eat with my right hand and hold a book in my left. The mud returns, warm enough that I let the fire go out, surprised that most of the snow is gone. Walked over to the driveway and it's still quite bad, everything is slick, and where the mud is exposed it's a soupy mess. But I don't have to be out in it, I don't have to be anywhere, I don't have to do anything. A great relief to not be caring for twenty or thirty animals, or having to commute to work, or compromising my time in any way. Make a cup of tea, listen to the news, read what I was working on last night, delete a few things, which involves changing some commas, which pretty much always engages my attention. Hash and a cheese omelet, with toasted cornbread for dinner. I can't complain.