“Christ, did a cow (bleep) in here?” – Kentucky Fried Movie

October 29, 2021

Storms are here today, it’s gray, drizzling, and cold. The weather is beginning to try and usher out Fall to welcome Winter. It’s the most depressing and exhilarating time of the year.

I am a December baby. For those that believe in astrological signs, Sagittarius, the wanderer and hunter. Prone to problems in romance and physically prone to liver problems. Hogwash. Or is it?

Winter’s arrival has always been wonderful to me. I travelled north a few times to catch glimpsed of the Aurora Borealis. Better than any laser light show. Dark and cold, not exactly my cup of tea, but also some of my favorite memories come from the year’s waning and rebirth of the next year and spring.

Orion dominates the sky for a few months. Loyal and steadfast according to myth, je represents my ‘sign’.

My favorite part of winter is egg nog in various forms makes a reappearance in the stores. I don’t mix it with alcohol anymore. I don’t drink. But I do so love the stuff, especially when imbibing it with whatever gastronomical experiment I’ve decided to experiment with for the holidays. Some have been raging successes, some dismal failures. Experimentation, it’s what I do. It’s fun. It can be creative. It keeps me (mostly) out of trouble.

I currently am typing this from my living room. The coffee table in front of me is covered from end to end with a small portion of the last of the year’s harvest. Tomatos. Mostly green, some ripe, and one bugger that has to go. When tomatos turn rogue. It’s not a healthy specimen. It’ll infect the others. One bad apple and all that.

It took me five days to finish the harvest which normally would have been done in a few hours. The plants have all been yanked and tossed in the compost pile to prepare the soil anew for next year. The kitchen table is buried under a cornucopia of squash, apples, eggplant, fennel, tomatos, peppers, spices, and seeds drying awaiting their opportunity to flourish in the new year once planted, as always during the final harvest. Haphazardly ripening or overripe vegetables and fruits. Recipe possibilities abound, merely the choice of which delights to guide the raw material a matter of deliberate decision or spur of the moment whim. I love and hate this time of year. The sun has begun fleeing the heavens much too early. Darkness comes way too soon. I am often a creature of the night who ironically enough hates the darkness.

I still have to prepare the garden for winter. We are less than a week from the first light dusting of snow. Each year it always sneaks up in surprise. I’m not up for it physically. Nature doesn’t care.

Thank goodness for online shopping and avoiding the ocean of humanity the stores will soon become. I’m an introvert by nature. Autism, and more importantly, personal preference have set me along this route. Dichotomy my (bleep). Everything is a choice. I choose companioned solitude.

I usually have an idea or concept when I begin writing. If it’s going to be a journal of sorts, usually I have a vague outline in my brain for a makeshift and vaguely linked series of takes that ultimately will wind up blossoming into an anthology, novella, or if my muse is smiling, a novel. Today I just let the writing flow stream of consciousness with no set destination in mind. I’m like the federal government today. It can be a fun exercise, but also incredibly confusing, even to me as the author.

Spike just leapt stop the back of the couch to do one of his daily rituals. He always does it when I first show signs of coming awake, and he randomly ambushes me throughout the day. Ear licking. It’s his favorite thing. My ears only. No idea why. The dog has issues. Who doesn’t?

Honey Bee took offense. She is so my dog. Mu guard dog. She tolerates those I love. She would give up her life unasked for for me. She has backed down rather large and aggressive dogs and wild animals before, all 22 pounds of her. She’s begun having her own physical issues. She’s old. It will utterly and completely destroy me when she dies. I don’t like her much. Stoopid dog.

I have had way too much free time of late to contemplate any and everything. It’s both wonderful and hellish. Thinking of things in different ways goes back to the whole experimentation experience. Great in small doses. Sucks when it is much of your life.

Stream of consciousness never has a real firm starting or end.

Peace.