Back from deer camp '08 and have just finished turning a deer into food. Yes, one lucky deer volunteered "him"self to become steaks, burger, chili, stroganoff, and jerky, thus saving "him"self from potential fates including starving/freezing to death and being eaten by wolves who probably don't even know how to make a red wine reduction. I put "him" in quotes because he didn't have antlers, and I was pretty shocked when I flipped him over and saw deer nuts under a buck.In non-hunting news, tales were told, friends and relatives visited, whiskey was passed, cribbage played, and wicked wind and cold were endured. In other endurance news, I shared a futon with my dad in very small log cabin. For those unfamiliar, he is a prodigious snorer. I compare it to the sound of a chainsaw cutting through a haunted iron bathtub filled with snot. His ability to reach full volume 37 seconds after lying down, and recovery rate after a rollover nudge are second to none. There are three people in the world who are in the same league:1: Justin Peik, who brings his own tent to the BWCA and puts it up as far from the respectable folk as possible.2: Liz's mom Patty, who scores high in sheer volume. Always knowing when your girlfriend's mom was asleep had absolutely no advantages whatsoever.3. My freshman year roommate, Mike, whose ragged, irregular sleep breathing inspired smothery thoughts.One aspect of spending upwards of 8 hours in a tree while attempting to remain silent and motionless is perseveration on thoughts either pleasant or unpleasant. Ear worms, whether actual songs or just ideas, are a constant hazard. One day I was thinking about metallurgy and medieval weaponry in the context of a global zombie infestation (had just finished the book World War Z, a fun read about the inevitable zombie apocalypse). For some reason I thought of the phrase "bellows evil" thinking that the double meaning of something bellowing evil and an actual evil bellows would make a cool lyric to a dark and overdramatic rock song. So, working backwards from "bellows evil" I envisioned a bell or a person's voice sounding like a bell signifying something ominous. I thought about the bell being forged by damned people (which rhymes with evil) in a cursed town or possibly one of Uday Hussein's torture houses with fire smuggled up from the bowels of hell and an evil bellows. In the end, I opted for:With a voice like a bell that was cast in hell
By desperate people
Using iron that was salvaged from a fatal shipwreck
And bellows evil
So that took up about three hours. Fortunately, by the time I got around to figuring out who would be saying such ominous things or what that message would potentially be, I'd pretty much lost interest. By the third day or so, thoughts become mostly incoherent so nobody has to hear about those. It was a good sittin' year all in all. Was very glad to get home and see Liz and all the hard work she had put in on the house.
