Silence

I just downed enough butter to clog an elephant's arteries. There was this large heel of slightly stale French bread- the kind with the tasty, chewy crust- and it needed lots of butter to make it moist enough to eat. I got carried away. I started out buttering the slab of bread, and ended up breading the slab of butter. Oh, well. I figure that, since my toe is going to kill me within days, I might as well eat deadly but enjoyable foods to excess.

Oh, the toe. More of the nail is dropping off. It looks as though it's going to detach all the way to the cuticle after all. It didn't hurt at first, but now it's beginning to feel sore. It stings a bit, rather like the way nails do when they are ingrown. I hope it doesn't get all bloody and nasty, and me without a digital camera and decent macro lens.

The temperature could be said to have plummeted tonight. Thursday was a bit warmer than Wednesday, but this morning is at least five degrees cooler than yesterday morning, and probably a good thirty degrees cooler than yesterday afternoon. I'll be going through the traditional seasonal transition ritual of piling blankets on when I go to bed and waking every couple of hours to peel them off, one by one.

No clouds formed for the moon to illuminate after all, and the full orb made its transit in splendid isolation. I resisted the urge to bay at it. The coyotes used to bay at it for me, but they haven't come around here in ages. In fact, there were no beasts of any sort abroad all night, as far as I could tell, and the air was once again still, and the crickets once again fell silent early. It was a bit eerie, watching that bright, empty landscape slowly swept by the creeping shadows of stolid trees. For once, I felt as though I could have used some company, but there wasn't so much as a moth. If it's that quiet again tomorrow night, I'm waking the cat up.

In or Out?

Ah, the old late summer conundrum. The night is nice and cool, but the house is still hot. Would I be justified in running the power-hog air conditioner for a couple of hours, so as to be comfortable now, when all I need to do is be patient and the house will probably cool off by two or three o'clock in the morning even if I don't run it? The most annoying thing is that, if the house had been properly designed for the climate, and well-insulated, there wouldn't be a problem. The house is stuck in the 1950s, when electricity was dirt cheap, and I'm stuck in the 21st century, when the monthly power bill drains away a small fortune. The silver (or, these days, nickle-clad copper) lining is that leaving the house hot and saving the money is a bit like being paid to go outdoors to be comfortable. I get next to nothing done when I'm outside, of course. I sit and watch the stars and the moon, and maybe think of a few novel phrases with which to them, and that's about it. But I save a couple of $. Oh, hell. Why am I even debating with myself? I know I'm going out. Poor Internets will have to get along without me.