the CHAR.

guys,
i left work twenty minutes early!
yeah.
i felt like i HAD to-
i mean,
it's s'posed to rain all day today,
and it was lookin' pretty menacing up in the sky yesterday,
so i wanted to get home,
get some charcoal lit in the big burly barbarian hotbox grill i've got,
and fire up some three-day weekendedness for our faces.
yeah!
ampy-d had the party started already,
making fancy stuffed mushrooms,
and preparing some pretty little fingerling 'tatoes, too-
guys,
the fire was HOT,
the flames were licking at all the oil-drizzles i could drip on the coals,
and the eats were especially smoky.
in fact,
they were downright charred.
check the big-black-grillmark-type teleport:

wow.
that's a lot of food for one person.
holiday weekends aren't too much of a big deal up here
at the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress,
but shark-gluttony will find any excuse to really activate a heaping plateful
of superfat blarpity overidulgence,
and this was that opportunity for us to showcase our own lack of restraint.
mmmmm.
vegan sausages? yep.
vegan hot dog? yuuuuup.
vegan tummyache? word!
too much is the right amount,
and exxxtra garlic in the onion and kale stuffed 'shrooms was a good idea-
topped with baconical bric-a-brac and pretend smoked gouda,
they had the joint jumpin',
even as all those tubes on buns with peppers had it poppin'.
that's no joke.
***********
hot, hard walks in the woods mean getting the drop
on drips and drabs of sweaty everything.
there're soo many ticks taking shorts on our skin whenever we wear shorts,
and it's hard to make lemonade out of lyme's.
ugh.
so it's long pants, hiking boots, and a dog who only wants to roll in the mud
on the banks of the streams we come across three times per walk...
that's what midmornings are made out of up here.
it isn't the worst, but it sure is time consuming-
also,
my poor little crabtree has allergies when it comes to bug bites.
his thin little piglet skin gets SO effed up by 'squitos and flies and chiggs,
but he only ever wants to be outside tempting them with his scrumptuous blood.
i respect it.
i mean,
the wrench isn't only a choice for people.
anybody can opt to enact the hard styles in place of the safe bets.
even crabby.
...and he does.
we're off on adventures at the cost of a big itch, and some twitching,
and the gloved removal of any and all ivy of the poisonous variety,
destroyed as we find it along the trails.
huh?
yeah.
i bring a pocketful of clippers with me,
and i snip away all the invasive natural growth
that promises to ruin our outdoor time together
more than the dog could all on his own.
that's real.
he's out cold,
sleeping in,
and recovering from a spell of puffy-skinned suckiness,
brought on by bugs and bites and a little attack of the sneaky wheat flour temptations.
y'know?
oh.
he chewed a bag of flour, ate a bunch,
and his dumb purebred terrier DNA couldn't digest it,
so he's a bumpy hot mess of lumps and discomfort-
which HE deserves, but is such a whiny little baby about
that we're BOTH being punished.
hahahaha.
i love this little A*-hole,
despite my firm intention not to become a crazy dog person.
really, i s'pose i'm not,
since i could give less than no F*s about any other domestic animals out there.
me and my battle-beast have a relationship, though,
and an understanding.
every day is a chance to mess around with the other,
testing the limits of good faith and good fun and good sense,
and it really is better not to do that all alone.
i'm grateful for this little siphon of time and money,
and for the minor joys he brings on occasion;
never quiet, never soft.....