Joblessness is Underrated

Unemployment is the shit, man. This is awesome. I am having the best day. I know that soon the novelty will fade and the poverty will start to be irksome, but in the meantime, it is absolutely incredible to wake up on a beautiful morning and not have to go be trapped miserable in an office for 8 or more hours.

It's beautiful today, the nicest day all summer, not humid & hot & horrible, miraculously not raining (so far but it's about to kick in) - just sunny & breezy & about 82 degrees. So I took Theo up on the parkway to Craggy Gardens. It was absolutely lovely up there and it just felt so right to be back out in the woods by myself. I've been a little low on solitude lately. On the way up we stopped at the scenic overlooks and at one of them was this great Asheville character: the Shofar Man. At least that's how I think of him. He's an older black guy, very nice, who goes around to various scenic spots and blows on this incredible long rams horn. I used to see him at the river park early in the mornings; he used to drive a cab (or maybe he still does) and he would stop at about 7:00 am to blow his shofar over the river as the sun rose. It was beautiful and eerie. So there he was today, without his cab, blowing the shofar over the scenic overlooks on the Parkway.

The hike up to the top of Craggy Gardens was gorgeous; I took many pictures and Theo had a wonderful bouncing time. There were rabbits to smell and lots of nice friendly people. Craggy is crowded, yes, but less so on a Wednesday than on the weekends - and anyway, the crowded spots off the parkway have less bears, which I like in a trail. We came back down to the parking lot and some people were emerging from another trailhead with. . . the ugliest dog in the world. Or so I thought at first. Then I thought, that's a baby rhino! They have a baby rhino! But no, they had a pig. On a leash. With a harness. A big pig. Named, of course, Wilbur. "That isn't a dog." I said to them. "No," said the guy, "It's a wild boar we just found." They were very nice and let me take a picture of Wilbur which I will post here momentarily. They said they were going to go home and give Wilbur a bath, since he kept wanting to root in all the mud. It was adorable.

And to cap it all off, there was an extremely cute park ranger type guy there who was watching the pig, than turned to watch me, gave me a big smile and said hello. Then James McMurtry came on the radio as I left and everything was really good. I like this feeling.