Snow Bound

Lovely morning, and I never did lose power. Just over a foot of snow. My sleep schedule is severely tangled, so after an early lunch (bean soup and grilled cheese), I have to take a nap. Good fire, damped down, and I read a commentary on slave and Creole cooking until I nodded off, dreaming of dirty rice. Missed my oysters this week, and I'll miss the big feed down at B's because I just don't feel like slogging through a foot of snow. I highly recommend buying a smoked jowl and turning the entire thing into cracklings and rendered salty, smokey pork fat. Excellent stuff. I crave animal fat in the winter. When the sun came out, the shadows of the trees on the snow was striking. Extremely high contrast. Before the day is over I need to dump hot ashes again, and I need to make one trip to the woodpile, sweep drifted snow off the wood and bring an armload inside. It's supposed to get into the forties tomorrow and we'll have another round of freeze/thaw, but I should be able to get into town early one morning. The library opens at nine, so if I do everything else first I can be home by nine-thirty, before the driveway thaws. Critical issues. I melt a couple of gallons of top snow, that I can strain and boil for drinking water, then melt another couple of gallons of wash water, put the bean soup back on to heat and make a pone of cornbread. Pretty much takes up my day. The birds are in the sumac and puffed against the cold. I'm puffed up myself, wearing several layers, but comfortable, reading, listening to a little Sunday NPR. The usual celebrity crap, and I pay no interest to that, but the occasional human interest story, like the piece about censorship today, attracts my attention. The very best advertising is being banned, consider the spread of printing, in other countries, when the Catholic Church banned certain books. There were three popes and the chain of command was somewhat muddled. They're all assholes, in it for the money, and that ring that everyone has to kiss. I have no idea how this kind of crap became the norm. I subscribe to a more basic notion, Robert Johnson, Come Into My Kitchen.