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tallow cabbage
Thursday, December 22 2005
There was a mysterious object in the living room this morning and Gretchen wanted me to tell her what it was. She didn't know if it was animal, vegetable, or mineral, though she was pretty sure it wasn't mineral. So as I was starting the fire this morning I looked at the thing. It was about the size of a cabbage and pink in color. Interspersed in it here and there were thin translucent layers traced by what appeared to be networks of veins. I decided that this thing was a large lump of bovine tallow, dragged in by the dogs from our downhill neighbors' compost pile. (Our downhill neighbors are big carnivores and the man of the house spent most of his life as a butcher.) I figured most of the tallow had probably already been eaten by our dogs and they would soon be puking it up here and there throughout the house, so I ended up burning most of what I found in the fire. It burned with a hot orange flame and sizzled as it did so, filling the air outdoors with the smell of a poverty barbecue.
This afternoon my four inch diameter copper pipe caps arrived via UPS, meaning I have most of what I need to complete my heat exchanger project. I made the mistake of soldering another copper radiator fin onto the exchanger's heater piping inside the laboratory, which quickly sullied its atmosphere with acrid solder flux smoke. It was so bad in there that I found myself getting light headed. Eventually I had to flee and close the door behind me so as not to pollute the entire house.
Later, as I buffed the heater pipe with steel wool, I watched the Frontline about the rise of the early Christian church. As always, when I'm reminded of how self-contradictory the gospels are, I found myself growing angry about all the people who insist the Bible is infallible. This insistance wouldn't be a big deal and I wouldn't be angry if it didn't have real world consequences for the state of idiocy in the nation. But the belief in the infallibility of the Bible lies at the root of Creationism and thus Intelligent Design, ideologies of ignorance that influential people were hoping to have taught with my tax dollars. A slightly different appointment by George W. Bush, and Intelligent Design would be a valid item for inclusion in the curriculum of a part of Pennsylvania. How about this: if students are to be taught Intelligent Design, how about classes in public schools where the axioms of the Gospels are converted to symbols and submitted to logical analysis?
This evening Gretchen and I went to the annual Christmas party of the friends in Woodstock we call "the photogenic vegan Buddhists." In keeping with the Jesus-centered Merry Christmasness of it all, I was decked out in two strings of Mardi Gras beads, one red and the other green. There was fire, there was a tree, and there were many pots of authentically vegan food. It was one of those parties where it's best to just sit on the couch and gossip like a teenager with your friends. At a certain point some people started singing Christmas carols, something that seemed to ick Gretchen out. But Hell, it was a Christmas party after all, and she soon returned to the room and joined in the singing.
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