On this cold and windy morning, young Charles is the happiest cat on earth. Home! Home! Home! As soon as I released him from his travel crate yesterday, he began racing through the house, screeching around corners, hurling himself onto rugs, rolling around in ecstasy, throwing himself into our arms. He kept this up, with only mild breaks, from midafternoon till 9 p.m., when he got into bed with me and finally fell asleep. According to the kennel owner, he was an excellent guest--playing, cuddling, even making friends with one of the other visiting cats. I believe her: Chuck is the kind of guy who makes the best of his circumstances. But he sure is thrilled to be home.

Yesterday I caught up on housework and laundry, changed the sheets, did most of the grocery shopping, fetched Chuck, and otherwise reestablished our nest. Today I'll turn my thoughts to poetry. I've got my Tennyson homework to read, thoughts to sketch out for the conference faculty performance, notebook scratchings to revisit. I'm immersed (again) in Updike's Rabbit Is Rich and have two new novels waiting in the wings: Rachel Kushner's Creation Lake and Andrew Miller's The Land in Winter. Why not take a cue from Chuck and wallow in it all like a pig in clover?

And if I get tired of being cerebral, I can go for a slippery, windy walk; or mess around with my very slow cleaning-the-basement project; or make gnocchi; or finish the grocery shopping; or have a little private dance party in the kitchen. The day is my oyster.

We got home by midafternoon yesterday, a much quicker and easier drive than our snowy Christmas Eve journey was. That gave me plenty of time to wash, hang up, dry, fold, and stow two loads of laundry; make borscht for dinner; water houseplants; carry firewood. Vacation was so lovely, but reigniting the workaday pilot light felt good too.

Now here we are at Monday--a sloppy, messy, icy Monday, and I wish Tom didn't have to drive to work in it. By the time I need to pick up Chuck, it should be straight rain, but the situation doesn't look good now. My plan before fetching the big kitten is to get onto my mat, clean the bathrooms and floors, and then make a grocery-store run, if time and weather allow. But if the sleet persists, I may end up baking my own bread and concocting yet another what's-on-hand meal. Thank goodness for sturdy winter produce, those carrots, turnips, beets, and cabbages waiting cheerfully in the refrigerator drawer; the shallots and potatoes in the cellar; the boxes of stock and bags of mushrooms in the freezer.

With Christmas behind us, the next week looms enticingly . . . home; temporary unemployment; a long chance to read and write and putter. Other than prepping for our little New Year's Eve party, I am untethered.

Here I am, posting at the incredibly late hour of 7:30 a.m., because, praise the gods, I slept like I was under enchantment until well after daylight. Now here I sit by the hotel window, sipping from a mug of weak-witted coffee, staring out into a 7-degree parking lot, and admiring the icicles that hang like catfish whiskers off my Subaru's grille.

Later today we will tearfully bid goodbye to the big party and wend our way back to the little northern city by the sea. It's been a fabulous holiday--my in-laws filled with joy and generosity, the kids outside making snow angels and clambering through drifts, unless they are inside arguing over Monopoly or washing piles of dishes or disappearing to take naps or curling up to read books or suddenly squeezing me into a hug . . . What a crew. I love them so.

The snow came on suddenly last night, while we were all out to dinner in Northampton, and the drive back to Amherst was a wintry glare of headlights and swirl. Now, in the morning dark, I sit by the window in our hotel room eying the parking-lot Subarus, lumpy under seven inches or so of fresh white.

I had trouble falling asleep again, but at least this time I stayed asleep once I finally capitulated, so I guess I will take that as a victory. Yesterday was another round of games and puzzles and long walks. Today, if the snow allows, the party might venture out to the bowling alley or maybe mosey around town without any particular purpose . . . 

I hear someone beginning to scrape snow off the inn steps and sidewalks. I am thinking fondly of future coffee, less fondly of the forthcoming giant breakfast. I'm becoming a little tired of eating, but I suppose that is a regular holiday side-effect.

I should go get dressed, but before I leave you here's a link to a tribute to Baron Wormser in the new issue of the Maine Arts Journal.

Yesterday, as my father-in-law told us happily at the end of the evening, was "raucous." It's been a lively cheerful Christmas, jam-packed with family traditions, such as listening to Sounds of North American Frogs (one of the funniest recordings ever made) and continuously rearranging the Christmas displays into ominous tableaux.

But for some reason, despite going to bed very late, I couldn't fall asleep, then couldn't stay asleep. So for the moment I am feeling groggy and fragile, like someone who might accidentally collapse into her dinner plate. Let's hope a nap is in my future.

I write to you from an armchair next to a first-floor window with a view of three Subarus in a parking lot. No snow to speak of down here in the south, though yesterday we had to shovel six inches out of our driveway and white-knuckle our way to the Massachusetts border before the weather agreed to let up. But in the end we arrived safely, the kids arrived safely, and the day closed with a big jambalaya dinner and a noisy card game.

Now it is Christmas morning, and all is quiet in this inn . . . no excited children waking up their parents at ungodly hours; not even one single animatronic holiday rat in the lobby (see my poem "Christmas at the Ramada" in How the Crimes Happened if you want more about that story).  I am wishing for coffee but none seems to be available. In fact, I am unsure that humans run this inn: we have not laid eyes on any staff person since we arrived. However, apparently someone/something will provide breakfast at 7 a.m. I am kind of hoping for C3PO in a holiday apron. I feel he might be a good cook.

In the meantime, coffee-less, I stare out at the Subarus--one from Massachusetts, one from Connecticut, one from Maine. Lights are on in the house next door. Perhaps at this very moment aggravated boys are attempting to drag their fake-reluctant father out of bed by flipping the bedroom light switch on and off and bombarding him with snatches of Metallica songs at top volume. It's been known to happen.

Last night at dinner our own giant boys were putting on "The James and Paul Show," the two of them trying to upstage each other with "remember when we used to" craziness, performing their childhood in the Harmony woods as if it were a Wild West show . . . which maybe it was.

No doubt, there will be much more of that today. I hope you, too, will enjoy a loud and goofy holiday or, conversely, if you prefer, a quiet and thoughtful one.

I send much love.

Well, it's snowing hard out there--a sticky, postcardy sort of snow, glorifying every twig and garden stalk.  Peering into the dark, I'm struggling to guess accumulation: certainly there's enough to shovel. The storm is supposed to die down by mid-morning, so we should be able to hit the road at a reasonable time. But that doesn't prevent me from feeling, in the present tense, a little daunted.

This holiday has opened awkwardly. Yesterday my older son called from Chicago to tell me he was recovering from a bout of something-or-other and wondering if he should travel. My heart sank: my in-laws have set their heart on this big party; we all have, really. But I behaved like a sensible mother and coached him through a Covid test. And fortunately, as soon as he tested negative, he started feeling better. Last night's texts were quite cheerful, so I hope we've dodged that particular bullet. But now Tom and I are immersed in this weather situation, which could affect how easily we can pick up the Chicagoans at the airport in Connecticut . . . 

I will stop fretting and think of good things. I'm sitting here cozily in my couch corner, drinking hot black coffee and admiring the Christmas lights among the cards on the mantle. Chuck has been safely stowed at the kennel. My suitcase is packed. The wrapped packages look beautiful in their bags. Prepped in the refrigerator are boxes of smoked fish, special cheeses, black cake, and three kinds of cookies.  I've chosen Updike's Rabbit Is Rich as my vacation novel. I wrote a sonnet yesterday. Things will be okay, surely.