Lamb Bone

I am at the moment roasting a lamb bone at 500 degrees. It has been in my freezer for ten months leftover from Bill's Mom, Mary-Mom Calhoun's Holbrook Christmas dinner. I love the smell of lamb. I am also simmering lentils in a quart of whey leftover from Sunday's yogurt cheese making. My office is a flight of stairs up from my kitchen. I leave the door open for my cat and dog to visit along with the good aromas. I am 99 percent nose.

From my desk window I can see my laundry blowing in the wind. I hung it out on the line at 4:30 AM in the dark. It was an eerie feeling loading the line in the dark making that squeak we all recognize as the sound of a clothesline being loaded or or unloaded. Is it a sound we rarely hear anymore- like the pinging ring when driving over the pump line at an old gas station?

I have always been in love with clotheslines.

Parades bring out hidden personalities. I usually cry when I attend them but now I am in them!

I just added the roasted lamb bone and overflowed the pot. I always do this. I couldn't chop the lamb bone and was afraid if I started sawing or chopping I might hurt myself. This has happened slicing my bread with my antique serrated knife. It bounced off the hard crust and cut my thumb. It was last fall and there wasn't a band-aid in the house or cash on hand to get one. I had given Bill my bank card to get gas on his way to school. So I stepped out with Lily and my new neighbors were out. We started chatting. Ed and Marlene saw my finger was wrapped in a wad of toilet paper taped with art tape leaking red drops onto the cement sidewalk in front of them.
"I am a former ambulance driver", Ed said. And he ran inside and got a butterfly bandage and taped it on my sliced thumb. I was so grateful I ran inside and came out with a batch of fresh loaves. "There's no blood on these, I promise," I said. We have been friends ever since. My finger healed up perfectly thanks to their kindness.

The lambone lentil soup is amazing. I added roasted garlic, leftover potatoes, and cheap -ass port. We are dunking my zillion grain bread in it to soften it up.