Piers Ploughman

Almost unreadable, but he uses quite a few archaic words, so I dig him out. In my dotage I'll probably sound like him. Loot is the preterite of let, to permit. "Ye've loot the ponies o'er the dyke." Burns. When I walked up to the window at The Dairy Bar the other day, one of the girls had already made my shake. She said she saw me get out of the Jeep, and that I always got a large vanilla shake. Orlings are the teeth of a comb. "He dragged his fingernail across the orlings of a pocket-comb as though it were an instrument." Bridwell. That luxuriant tuft of grass, where dung has been deposited? a tath. A threve (or thrave) is twenty-four sheaves of wheat. After mounding a threve, one imagines standing and stretching your back. I'm a cheap date, get me a shot whiskey and give me a dictionary. Restoring order I held out the book of Sinhalese proverbs and read through them. Proverbs are a window. "The adz which straightens timber is itself not quite straight." "The barking dogs will not frighten elephants." You don't want a mad elephant. Slodder is sticky mud. Sperage is asparagus, or 'sparrow grass'. Heat index tops out over a hundred again, and aside from an early trip to the outhouse I stayed inside, reading Thoreau and grazing on pickles and cheese. I'd picked up a very good zin, an old vine Lodi. I killed the breaker to the dying fridge. Very quiet, no bugs, no birds, rain coming. Grilled a small steak and cooked a sweet potato in case the power goes out. Grilled the sweet potato until it was about half done, then sliced it into rounds and caramelized them in butter. These are incredibly good. With corn bread and fried salt-pork, it's a meal for the gods; thin shaved steak, tomatoes and mozzarella, a few green leaves, it's out of the park.