An early morning callout fixed us for a huge ham and rice dinner and another $50 bottle of wine. I used some of that wine to make a glaze for the ham, the first time I’ve cooked the whole thing. As opposed to heating up slices or slabs of ham. This was a 4.5 pounder. Cowboy Mike came over for his CDs just in time for a helping. He is really serious about that Amelia Island songwriter’s contest and has rehearsed an into that addresses the fact the judges will be bored by the time his turn rolls around.The weather people are trampling each other to spread panic about one hurricane or the other. They have the northern half of the country convinced these storms line up to wreck your house. Now that Faye fizzled, they are latching on to Gustav(?) and building that into a full week of propaganda. I way again, the danger is only if that hurricane wind hits your actual house, much like a tornado. Or a tsumani. Or a blizzard.
Peggy has called and we are slated for a dinner over there on this upcoming Thursday. She wants to show us what she’s written already concerning the bachelor’s cookbook. I’ll remind all the single dudes I know to write their recipes down if they want to be included. I believe the total count is now around 15 men, and quite a spectrum of backgrounds. None are the so-called professional types that most books focus on. This may be a major selling point. Anyone who reads GQ knows the hype that goes on, where sensible people might be asking why there are so darn many “professionals” who don’t already have steady relationships.
Trust me, ladies, the reason a man making $100,000 a year doesn’t have a girlfriend is no different than a man making $100 a year. Meanwhile, I’m measuring out a set of shelves and drawers in the utility room. That has to be done before most other projects and things are not really fully unpacked yet for lack of place to keep them permanently. This place is meant to last a long, long time. You hear that, Gustav?
By unpacked, I mean not organized yet. I keep finding things while looking for other things because a lot is still in open boxes. Books, for instance. I’ve got a lot of books and they are all over the place. Who remembers that book “Survive The Savage Sea”? It concerns a Pacific shipwreck in the 1960s, mostly a family who floated 38 days until they drifted into a shipping lane. I said “mostly” because the part that fascinated me was that this family took along passengers. One they mention was a 20-year-old who wanted a lift from Panama to Australia.
You see, at twenty a trip like that would have been a dream come true for me, but I was busy piling lumber up in the bush. The book reminds of the rubbish that environment is not as important as ambition. Ha. Those theories leave out details like how does a person just out of their teens even get to Panama with enough cash left for passage across the Pacific? Not from saving up the nickels from his paper route, let me tell you. Somebody in the crowd will always point out there is a book about Panama in the library, as if the traveler in question even knew what the inside of a library looked like, hey, I was twenty myself once.
I level much the same critique about libraries as computer manuals. There are tons of books that define a thing, but not a word on how to “make it run”. In a half-hour of study, anybody could quote you plenty about Panama, but not how a person in your circumstances could get there, then find a cheap but safe hostel, and negotiate your way halfway around the globe. Yep, to a one, they leave out such intricate little details. And it is not as if you could just ask around a small town for such advice, not unless you wanted your skull cracked in for being so “goddamed stupid in the first place”, not like I’m speaking from experience or anything.
Say, would you like a ham sandwich or anything? How about a ham omelet or maybe some pea soup with ham?
