Just rambling on…

An almost scarily pleasant morning. 37 outdoors/53 indoors when I came down the ladder, a few high cirrus shreds but nothing that will keep the batteries from charging. So I booted the computer right away to see who was frothing about what today.

Found this article about Ayn Rand I haven’t really read yet except the intro that goes, “Like many others, I discovered Ayn Rand around the age of 15; her writings were my introduction to the field of philosophy, thereby setting me on the path to my present career.” I don’t recall how old I was when I first read Rand; certainly older than 15. Still quite young, though. Young enough to think being an “intellectual” might be cool, low-class and inexperienced enough never to have actually met one. She didn’t have anything to do with my career choices, though that would have been funny.

And that got me to thinking about college, like how old was I when I met someone who I knew had definitely gone to one? Because nobody in my family ever darkened the door of a college until my older brother did, and he was in his thirties or forties at the time. And the only guy that comes to mind was Jimmy Kittle, who was my hero. But to explain Jimmy I’d have to explain the Kittles, who in many ways were such a stereotype you’d call me a liar. Sad thing about the Kittles. Jimmy died young like something out of a Michael Landon TV-movie, and everything just fell to pieces. His mother was dead in less than a year and his father just sort of spun apart. I never met a Kittle again, and I’ve got a feeling they never met one another.

I thought about all this while washing my pants in the sink. Warm as it is this morning I still had frozen fingers. I’ve only got four wearable pairs of surplus BDUs left, and when something happens to one of them it’s a crisis. Yesterday I managed to smear one of my knees with a combination of stove soot and chainsaw bar oil that was positively viscous. Dish detergent works pretty good for cutting both, so I left the pants to soak overnight and then this morning I’ve been flailing them in the sink to get them clean. Maybe they’ll even dry by this afternoon, if the sun holds. The cabin’s plenty warm, but the water out of the tap is freezing and it’s making my fingers hurt. I’ve got them soaking again in water warmed on the stove now, mostly because I went a little crazy with the dish soap and the “empty” sink is full of suds, so I can’t rinse.

Army surplus clothes used to be so much easier to come by, have you noticed? But then this hasn’t been a good year for money.

Which got me to thinking about the things I had wanted to do with the cabin this year, and how I only got one of them done. I did insulate the floor, and that’s already paying benefits. But L is still a little disgusted with me because I never got around to laying the tile. It’s about half her fault: She spent all spring and summer tiling their extravaganza and is now an absolute master of the art but she’s also OCD as hell. She kept calling me up and adding layers to the project until I threw up my hands and said, “It’s too complicated!” So now I’ve probably got enough tile and other fixings to give four Lairs beautiful floors, but I’m still walking on OSB. And of course I never came close to siding the cabin, which is what I really wanted to do. $500 minimum, and where’s that coming from? I’ve a feeling that project will be completed by my heirs and assigns, if ever.

I was out this morning looking at what I got accomplished after two hours of chainsaw work yesterday, and it’s disgusting. Trouble with heating with juniper: It’s free and abundant, but juniper “trees” are basically bushes with delusions of grandeur. Sometimes you spend so much time cutting the brush away from the firewood-quality stuff you find you’ve cut everything away. Two solid hours of chainsaw work, and I haven’t covered the floor of the Jeep trailer with stove-length wood. But I need to get that done this week. I made a deal with Landlady, trading firewood for flour because I’m down to my last 30 pounds or so. And I did her right, filling her rack to the top, but then she was here for a solid week and it’s nearly empty again. So off to the boonies I go, me and my trusty chainsaw. Meanwhile I was calculating my own use last night, and I’m appalled. I put up a solid cord before wood-burning season, because usually I just cut it as I go through the winter and I’m never quite sure how much I actually use. And here it is the first week in December, and I’ve already gone through about 25% of it. So much for not cutting wood during the cold season, not that it’s that much of a burden.

Speaking of the first week in December, TUAK will celebrate its fifth anniversary in four days! We’ll have cake, if I remember.

Coffee’s done. Guess I’d better get back to those pants.