Sunday, June 21, 2015

20150621.0710

It is Fathers' Day again, and I am once again not only with the young lady who allows me to celebrate the holiday but with one I enable to celebrate it, as well as my wife's father. This will be the second year we have gotten together for the event, and it seems an enjoyable thing. We may have to keep doing it for a while. There are some advantages to living in such a place as Sherwood Cottage, such that we can all meet together for a Fathers' Day or other holiday. There are disadvantages, certainly, but it is good to be in such proximity to loved ones and their support. We have needed it, and it is helpful to have it.

Yesterday's smoking went well. While I ended up using too much black pepper in the rub (it did not scale evenly), the pork itself came out remarkably moist and tender, and the flavor under the black pepper was quite good. It emboldens me to continue to pursue smoking meats, which I have not done much since moving away from The City. It is strange that I smoked more there than here, where there is a culture that supports such activities and space in which to conduct them. Then again, it is not entirely inexpensive to run the smoker, and money does not flow so freely at Sherwood Cottage as in The City and the Best of the Boroughs. It may be worth continuing to do such a thing, though.

Today should be a fairly easy day. I have a little bit of work to do yet on my freelance piece; I knocked most of it out yesterday around running the smoker, but I left off not long before my parents arrived on their return trip from Missouri and Iowa, so there are a few words yet to compile. After that, I have other writing I need to do for other blogging and more formal writing projects that need doing, and there are a couple of job applications waiting for my attention. I also need to clean up the smoker from yesterday. While letting it sit overnight allows it to cool enough that it can be handled, there are things in the device that ought not to be allowed to remain unattended much longer than that. It will wait for breakfast, but not much past that. Still, that job is easy, if perhaps unpleasant, and it is soon accomplished.

Even on a holiday, there is work to be done. But I do not do well without tasks to accomplish; I find it a challenge to simply sit and be, thinking it somehow wasteful of my time and talents and an abrogation of who and what I am. That it is the day it is means only that I say "thank you" to my father and hear it said on my daughter's behalf (Ms. 8 still does not have the words to do so); it is still for me and those like me to do what gets thanked, whether it does or not on any day.

No comments:

Post a Comment