Chasing Holes

Spiced Moroccan shrimp was just what was needed to clear my sinuses. I used hot smoked Spanish paprika on this batch since it was just me eating it. Sabina was having sushi. The New Belgium Mothership Wit beer went in perfect context for the meal. Sometimes, beer goes better with food than wine. Mostly with spicy stuff, stir-fry, or American southern. At least in my opinion.

For being deep winter, my sinuses, driven by allergies, were fucking with me. It was quite unpleasant, but that's not a shocking statement for anyone who has allergies. Try as I might, I cannot figure out what specifically started it, although, I believe it was up on the Bull's Head.

Logically, that would mean I ran into some latent pollen spore from one of the pines or perhaps some mold hiding somewhere in the mine ruins by the Diamond Tunnel. I suppose it doesn't matter. From early on in the walkabout, I had to deal with my allergies.

But that did not ruin the trek. It was another lovely false spring day. Sunny, light winds, and relatively warm. After reaching the top of the Bull's Head, Sabina, outright vetoing my idea to scrabble down the front face because of the deep snow up top, wanted to go look for some holes she'd spied by virtue of binoculars from our front porch, toward the trial's western end. Although I wasn't necessarily in the mood to deal with my lifemate's fetish for trying to crawl into holes in the living earth, I acquiesced on the condition that next time we did the Bull's Head, we'd do the scrabbling.

So, we crawled up the south-facing slope of a mountain. It was honeycombed with closed off mining and vent holes. Parts of these mountains, even and especially in our little Sahel, where mining was such a big thing, are all but hollow now. Back in those bygone days, it was like so many ants, digging deep for the treasures contained therein.

The hole Sabina so dearly wanted to reach, the one she'd been eyeing from our front porch for the last two years, turned out to be little more than a crevice in the living stone of the mountain. It was possible, noting some of the discoloration on the rock, that someone may have had a fire there once, but it could have also been mineral deposits. There was the simultaneous sensation of accomplishment and disappointment.

So, we went and got beer. Sabina had sushi I'd picked up for her the night before and I made myself spicy Moroccan shrimp. Extra spicy. My sinuses, which had been fucking with me since the beginning of the walkabout, cleared. For me, that was an added accomplishment to the day.