AC

I'd gone to town specifically to buy a window unit for Black Dell, she needed cooler temps. We're operating at the very limit here, and I wanted more flexibility. I talked myself out of buying it because last night was very hot and I could only write between midnight and eight in the morning, but I made some notes. D calls, out of blue, and he has a new window unit he scored at an auction and wants to bring out and install. I mean, really. So he does, it means an extra trip to town to dispose of the packing, but Jesus Christ, he brings an AC unit, a fan, a quart of good balsamic, and jars of pickles. He does all the work, takes out the old unit (which I could not lift) installs the new unit and drinks a hard cider, which he brought. Before he leaves the house is already down to 78 degrees. Black Dell is pleased as punch. And though I'm now part of the strain on the electric grid, I'm comfortable, and D did all of the heavy lifting. After he left I got a wee dram of the Japanese single malt and cooked the week's oysters, steamed open with a dollop of salsa, and a nice avocado with lime juice. D also brought three gallons of drinking water, which only he and TR do, knowing how much water weighs. I'll stash them away against winter. In the old shower, from back when I had running water. I built a lovely shower stall which I now use for food storage, drinking water, dry tee-shirts. It's folly to imagine sense. Picked up the new Freeman book Searching For Sappho, and it's quite good though, of course, we actually know almost nothing about her. Still, a new complete translation of her work, plus some excellent research on the period. Then back into my study of the American Tractor. I only owned tractors for the ten years in Mississippi, first a John Deere tricycle, and then the 8N. I had a wagon ($100) with two axles and four car tires, so I used the tractor most days to haul stuff from one place to another, and for clearing brush. Breaking new ground occasionally, to extend the cornfield, and harrowing land to plant a forage crop. The AC unit goes in the window next to my desk, over the top of my dictionary table. The table is a 30 inch by 5 foot stone black lab counter, with matching two-drawer filing cabinets as a base, and installing the new AC unit means moving piles of reference books, three piles, each about a foot high, and the surrounding smaller volumes, Sri Lanka proverbs, Anglo-Saxon dictionaries, various field-guides, and a bone-yard of antiquated books that were once current. Which means a day of restoring order, and order is not defined. I keep Home Ground on top of one pile, the Yale Shakespeare on another, and the third pile is currently topped with a dictionary of Americanisms. I'm still involved in making cakes from corn. Found an old piece of iron, hammered flat, and use it to make an unleavened corn-cake, as close as I can come to an actual hoe-cake, my current hoe is steel and has a plastic handle, so it wouldn't work very well. It's difficult to make a hoe-cake, they mostly fall into the fire. I recommend a shovel-cake, which works pretty well. On several occasions I've made acceptable bread in a foil boat I seal up and bake right in the coals. It's more like polenta, but goes fine with Cut-Throat trout. Wherever you go, always take a lemon and a few of those little packets of salt and pepper. D had also brought a pineapple, they had been decoration at a festival he and Carma attended. Mid-afternoon I attacked it with my large knife. I did this outside, put a couple of servings aside, sucked the juice and ate what I could from the rest of it. I was so sticky I had to rinse off twice. Heat index above 100 degrees again, but the new AC gets the inside down to 78 degrees, and it's fine, parading around in my underwear, acting like what I imagined a normal person acts like.