So, yeah, the voices are back.

These are the voices I've mentioned in prior posts. I don't actually hear voices in my head, I just find it easier to characterize repeatedly returning thoughts and impulses as 'the voices'. The thing is that these particular impulses are almost always on the order of 'You should learn to make schnecken today.' Or 'Go buy some lye. You have to learn to make soap.' Or 'Fudge. You currently have no idea how to make it? GO FIND OUT AND THEN MAKE SOME. Even if you haven't eaten it in years GO MAKE SOME.' Some people get the overwhelming repeated urge to declare themselves the Messiah, some people get the overwhelming urge to go out and commit hideous crimes, I get orders to learn to make food and the occasional other domestic product. Go fig.

Anyway, this time the urge has been BUY A CHARCOAL GRILL. Not, you understand, for barbecuing- although I intend to use it for that, so at some point when I can invite people over to my place there will be a barbecue to use, although fair warning, the landlord's son is a fisherman and he keeps lobster traps in the backyard. No, this time the charcoal grill is because I need something to smoke bacon in, and since I'm not nearly as likely to smoke meats as I am to make jerky and fruit leather, a smoker would be a one-purpose-only item, whereas a charcoal grill would be a means to make dinner that I could serve to myself or my friends. And a means to produce bacon.

So, yeah. Ordered a small portable grill from the local Ace Hardware. They'll let me know when it's in stock. In the meantime I should probably find some kind of decent local farmer who sells pork belly or lamb belly, or at least check out the prices at the local butcher shop. (Yes, lamb. Turkey bacon is not bacon, it's turkey that's been chopped up and reformatted into bacon shape. Lamb bacon is made from lamb belly, aka lamb breast or lamb flap, because sheep are the only other agricultural mammal that have the same kind of striations of meat and fat as the part of pigs that gets made into bacon.) The meat will have to cure in the fridge for several days before I can smoke it.

(no subject)

So, question. If you have an inflatable kayak, and you don't have a car, and you use a pump to inflate and deflate the kayak, and it's the kind of pump you brace with your feet and push down on like Wile E. Coyote pushing down on the TNT detonator handle, where do you put the pump when you've inflated the boat? Bring it with you when you go out into the water, or leave it in a concealed spot on shore, or what?

... I may have tested the kayak out in the living room today and realized that just possibly there might be a problem when I actually put the boat in the water. The pump and the duffel for the folded-up kayak either have to come with me or be left on shore.