A light baritone chuckle drifted out of the kitchen to me sitting at the table in the dining room that November morning in 1991.

"Retrain of the Jet-Eye. How d'ya wantcher eggs?"

I opened my mouth to grouse at him, but he was right. I needed to just let it go and do the RIGHT assignment. I laughed.

"Over medium. You makin' bacon?"

"What's an egg without pork, girl?"

Okay, so my Uncle Fred and I tended toward the junk food that wasn't so much sweet as savory. But we both enjoyed the heck out of it. We ate healthy, most of the time. But comfort food is a necessity at times.

Y'see, we were commiserating, along with my dad. There hadn't been snow. There was supposed to be snow. But there hadn't been snow. We were supposed to get enough snow that I could make enough for those new boots I wanted (functional, comfortable, and winter-worthy, but really kyoot with enough heel to be unmistakably feminine), and he could make enough to get a new double-deck VCR so he could copy movies... Dad just wanted enough to take Mom out for dinner at The Rib. Hm? Oh, yeah, snow meant drives and walks to be shoveled at a good price.

"Make it tender but not crisp and nasty like Mom likes it."

"You've always had better taste than my sister, kid."

A noise of protest directed at both of us came from the woman on the couch with her nose in Julie Kenner's new superhero-romance weird mix novel.

I shut the book and stepped around the corner into the kitchen to watch the master at work. I think he loved to be in the kitchen almost as much as I did. Lightly whistling through his teeth as he grinned at his creations -- barely audible, but I knew what to listen for.

"So, since the storm missed us completely --"

Furrows pushed his brows down toward his nose.

"-- got any other ideas?"

He flipped the bacon and slipped a couple slices of wheat bread into the toaster as he resumed whistling, though with a look on his face that showed he was... plotting.

I waited patiently, knowing there was gonna be something, and besides... it smelled so good in here...

The toast popped up and he expertly plopped them on a plate and covered them in tender and lean bacon, an over-medium egg and a slice of cheese each before the plate somehow levitated to my hands.

"Well, the way I see it, in an Indian Summer, there's leaves to be gotten rid of... we just got to get our hands on some rakes, maybe borry a leaf-blower, and we're in business anyway."

I murmured my approval for both the open-faced sandwiches and his idea around my mouthful of the first bite.

"Hrglk. Mmrrfxqin. Sxjjkrntl thwbbplpl mnghdmpqvu."

"Oh, yeah, she does have one. I bet she'd rent it to us by the day instead of the job, too. Make us more cash."