Stop looking, actually. He’s right here. (And that’s Mr., not Captain, thanks.) Carol was at a dog show yesterday and I blasted out 4600 new words on Chapter 6, so it was not an especially romantic day, but that’s OK; we have built romance into the very fabric of our lives together, and in a sense we do a low-key, distributed Valentine’s Day 24/7. It’s not a giddy, infatuated romance–though we rediscover a little of that now and then—but rather the steady heat that comes of knowing one another unselfishly and deeply for a great many years. (For us, that would be closing in very quickly on 40.)
So Carol surprised me with a somewhat unusual Valentine’s Day present yesterday: A Colorado rib-eye steak cut in the shape of a heart. The steak came from Ranch Foods Direct, a Colorado Springs packing operation that buys local beef and buffalo and sells it both wholesale and at a couple of their own shops. We buy a lot of their meat, as it’s antibiotic and hormone-free, mostly grass-fed, and doesn’t travel very far to reach us. If you’re local, I do recommend them.
Knuckle-dragging, knob-headed Neanderthal that I am, I’ve been improving my health in recent months by eating less grain and more meat. The caveman diet has raised my general energy level (I don’t remember the last time I wrote 4600 words in one day!) and dropped my weight to 148, from 155 a year ago. I’d eat less sugar too, except that I haven’t eaten significant quantities of sugar in years. (I have dessert about three or four times a month, and then only after a big meal.)
Once Carol unveiled the steak, QBit couldn’t keep his eyes off it, and he followed me around the house as I looked for a suitable place for the inevitable photo opportunity. The weather should be good tomorrow. It may get up to 50, and be sunny, and we’re going to grill it out on the back deck. QBit and Aero will both get a little bit. Neanderthals had dogs, and still do. Neanderthals didn’t write computer books—and their dogs weighed a little more than fifteen pounds—but Tuesday was Darwin’s birthday. Here’s to evolution!
