I enjoyed our time up at the lake. The "cabin" has come a long way since last May when its footings were first established. Our home could fit into one of the basement rooms and still have ample space for parking out front.
The lakeside manse is heated and cooled with geothermal energy derived from three shafts sunk deep into the earth, which I hoped at first would circulate magma about the place, until I was told that the shafts are only a couple of hundred feet deep. Still faintly disappointed about that. It hadn't been fully installed yet, actually, so we sweltered through intense magma-like weather until things clouded over and cooled off. Which was the same day the technician arrived to complete the installation, of course. I'll not complain too much - the technician was a fat, gasping, clam-faced fellow in his late 70s who hovered at the brink of cardiac arrest throughout his time with us. A hotter day would have killed him, and where would we have hidden the body? (Oh yes, the shafts...)
We arrived at lunchtime on a Sunday, so hot, I mentioned already, that I would have composed some rambling epic simile comparing my headache to a ravening lion, which coming down from the hills driven by gnawing hunger, crouches in the verdant tree-copse beside the swift stream that gushes forth from the grove sacred to the white-armed goddess beloved by the Boeotians, there to leap upon the easily scattered yearling lambs, running, leaping with the fresh kill limp between his teeth, his great heart beating fiercely, driven off by the well-shot stones from the shepherd's sling, but who can think in that heat?
In the evening as the sun went down, the clouds pushed each other towards us from the south-west. They were surly and bruised black - it wasn't long before they began to lash the hills with lightning, and sheets of it flashed all over the sky. We watched the storm drive up the lake until it surrounded us, and we were forced inside by the rough wind and pummeling rain. The power went out. A handful of orange candle flames trembled inside, white electric spiderwebs sizzled outside.
The rest of the week settled into a steady routine of in, on, around, and many other prepositions, too many to list, the lake. I read 2 inches of book entitled The Breakdown of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, which I bought on a whim at Chapters because they didn't have any of the books I actually intended to want. It is a fun read that will make you re-think what you know of ancient history and the nature of the human mind, but mainly I recommend buying it to prop casually on your coffee table, there to impress the heck out of friends and relatives, based on the reaction I got. Really I would have liked to argue, I mean discuss, the many very interesting and contentious points brought up in the book, but you need both a knowledgeable and argumentative opponent, I mean friend, to do that. Rachelle tries, and she likes to talk, but I can see her getting tired of arguing just as I'm gearing up. Oh Rachelle, don't you know I wanted a screeching fishwife with a Ph.D. in Classics for a marital partner? I'm sure I mentioned that at some point.
There were various sunburns, because I burn easily, which one day a doctor is sure to tell me was the cause of his "cancer of the whole thing" diagnosis. I'm at risk for cancer of the colon already, but I'm pretty sure the sun didn't shine up there. I also made my usual pathetic attempt to stand sideways on a board behind a boat while gallons of lakewater did their best to ram forcefully up passages the sun had not been able to penetrate.
There is more, but I have to stop.
The lakeside manse is heated and cooled with geothermal energy derived from three shafts sunk deep into the earth, which I hoped at first would circulate magma about the place, until I was told that the shafts are only a couple of hundred feet deep. Still faintly disappointed about that. It hadn't been fully installed yet, actually, so we sweltered through intense magma-like weather until things clouded over and cooled off. Which was the same day the technician arrived to complete the installation, of course. I'll not complain too much - the technician was a fat, gasping, clam-faced fellow in his late 70s who hovered at the brink of cardiac arrest throughout his time with us. A hotter day would have killed him, and where would we have hidden the body? (Oh yes, the shafts...)
We arrived at lunchtime on a Sunday, so hot, I mentioned already, that I would have composed some rambling epic simile comparing my headache to a ravening lion, which coming down from the hills driven by gnawing hunger, crouches in the verdant tree-copse beside the swift stream that gushes forth from the grove sacred to the white-armed goddess beloved by the Boeotians, there to leap upon the easily scattered yearling lambs, running, leaping with the fresh kill limp between his teeth, his great heart beating fiercely, driven off by the well-shot stones from the shepherd's sling, but who can think in that heat?
In the evening as the sun went down, the clouds pushed each other towards us from the south-west. They were surly and bruised black - it wasn't long before they began to lash the hills with lightning, and sheets of it flashed all over the sky. We watched the storm drive up the lake until it surrounded us, and we were forced inside by the rough wind and pummeling rain. The power went out. A handful of orange candle flames trembled inside, white electric spiderwebs sizzled outside.
The rest of the week settled into a steady routine of in, on, around, and many other prepositions, too many to list, the lake. I read 2 inches of book entitled The Breakdown of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, which I bought on a whim at Chapters because they didn't have any of the books I actually intended to want. It is a fun read that will make you re-think what you know of ancient history and the nature of the human mind, but mainly I recommend buying it to prop casually on your coffee table, there to impress the heck out of friends and relatives, based on the reaction I got. Really I would have liked to argue, I mean discuss, the many very interesting and contentious points brought up in the book, but you need both a knowledgeable and argumentative opponent, I mean friend, to do that. Rachelle tries, and she likes to talk, but I can see her getting tired of arguing just as I'm gearing up. Oh Rachelle, don't you know I wanted a screeching fishwife with a Ph.D. in Classics for a marital partner? I'm sure I mentioned that at some point.
There were various sunburns, because I burn easily, which one day a doctor is sure to tell me was the cause of his "cancer of the whole thing" diagnosis. I'm at risk for cancer of the colon already, but I'm pretty sure the sun didn't shine up there. I also made my usual pathetic attempt to stand sideways on a board behind a boat while gallons of lakewater did their best to ram forcefully up passages the sun had not been able to penetrate.
There is more, but I have to stop.
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