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Chicken Littles in my subconscious
Wednesday, January 27 2016
On today's firewood salvaging mission, I went a quarter mile or so south down the Stick Trail and then went downhill (east) 50 or 70 feet until I came to a standing dead tree maybe six inches at breast height, which I easily felled. It had looked like a Red Oak, though once I could see the exposed wood, I realized it must be a Red Maple (which, in trees this size, has bark similar to a Red Oak's). I don't burn much maple of any species for a variety of reasons: there isn't much of it up here on the mountain, the wood doesn't last long once the tree has died, and I prefer oak. But the wood was dry, so I bucked up about seven or eight pieces and strapped them to my backpack. It looked like an impressive load, but from moving the pack around I could tell it didn't have anywhere near the mass that a similar-looking load of oak (even relatively-light Red Oak) would have had. So I added a couple small pieces of Chestnut Oak, the scraps of which are ubiquitous in this highland forest. Today's load came to a moderate 108.45 pounds.
Gretchen went over to Susan and David's place to dogsit this evening, meaning I had the house to myself and could party like a rock star. I'd been drinking kratom tea for much of the afternoon, and soon after Gretchen left I switched to alcohol and added also tried to get one of my brass "redneck pipes" (marijuana paraphernalia made from plumbing fittings) to work. It was all gummed up, so I had to poke it with a tiny screwdriver. I then took a resin hit from it that was so powerful that I immediately regretted it. I knew that I then needed to get my affairs in order and start watching some teevee, because within minutes I would be helpless. So I plopped down on the couch in the teevee room and started watching an episode of Halt and Catch Fire, season two.
As I watched the television, I could feel waves of anxiety passing through my body. These would be interspersed with more gentle periods, allowing me to enjoy what I was watching. But then the anxiety would come again, sometimes manifesting as an unpleasant (and ominous) fullness in my chest. I'm the kind of person who easily imagines that I am dying when I'm having such bad effects from drugs, but at least this time the conscious part of my brain was able to calm the many Chicken Littles in my subconscious. I'm sure the strength of these effects were the result of a synergistic interaction between kratom and marijuana. I usually like that combination (it's particularly good if one is planning on doing anything sexual, and who isn't?), but this wasn't fun at all.
While I was going through all that, Gretchen called from Susan and David's place to say that the house was cold and she couldn't figure out how to operate the television. Also, she'd forgotten her reading glasses and she's at the point now where she needs reading glasses in order to read. So she ended up coming home. She saw that I was watching my own program and said something about just going back, but I said no, let's watch something together. This was how we came to be watching the Daily Show and the Nightly Show, and it was good to have someone there as I gradually recovered my ability to function (I never told her what was going on, though she could probably smell the smoke from my pipe).
Eventually Gretchen returned to Susan & David's place and I eventually had an epic snack attack. In responding to that, I found the perfect snack food, something so good (if simple), a recipe is in order:
- Drain water from a 16 ounce can of Bush's Best large butter beans (give that water to any dogs who happen to be around)
- Mix in a third of a jar of Trader Joe's organic tomatillo roasted yellow chili salsa.
- Add several drops of Dave's Ghost Pepper Insanity Sauce (to taste).
- Mix well.
- Use this as a dip with Hannaford-brand organic multigrain corn chips.
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