Well the fried cornmeal mush was okay. It was a little like trying to fry slices of jello. And it took a long time to brown up—probably because it’s mostly water. It was pretty bland, even with maple syrup, but that’s consistent with what I’ve always heard about it.
While I’m in here reviewing these reports, Rachel is outside having a blast and being ridiculously cute.

Day trip to Jasper
Rachel had an appointment in Jasper, IN, last Friday so we made a day of it. Jasper is a pretty unique town in southern Indiana. While the area has a lot of German ancestry, Jasper is one of the few places where it has remained an ongoing identity. While Rachel was in her appointment, I went to Sturm’s hardware store, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. There’s a store dog, who raced toward me in a flurry of barks when I entered the store.
Unexpected 2” of snow last weekend. Flurries right now. Temperatures below freezing all week. 2-4” more snow tomorrow. Flu rampaging the area. We are well and truly at the ass end of winter.
Woke up this morning from a very disturbing dream AND with “Sh-boom” by the Chords playing in my head. I think I’ve been watching too much David Lynch.
In our final months in the Holiness church, the Spider Man movie and soundtrack came out. Rachel and I loved it. After church on Sunday nights, we’d roll our tv out of the closet (literally), put in the spider man dvd, go to special features, and watch this video over and over. Good, cheesy memories
How we’re celebrating Imbolc/Candlemas
Content warning: paganism This year, a few holidays fall into this weekend: Candlemas, St. Brigid’s day, Imbolc. Maybe they’re historically related, maybe they’re not—you’ll have to look into that for yourself. Today I’ll just be writing about our plans. At some point in the past twenty years, I found out about Candlemas and the associated practice of eating crêpes (possibly because of their sun-like appearance?). That sounded good to us so we’ve been eating crêpes by candlelight every Candlemas for a few years now.
Happy 19th birthday to this kiddo!

Lovely night for a backyard fire

I realized this morning I’m still 47. I’ve been thinking I’m 48 for…I don’t know…months now?