Five or six inches of snow on the ground and another morning of grumpy children clomping off to uncanceled school: coffee and sentence fragments and applesauce cake for breakfast: a poodle who takes the lyrics of Professor Longhair to heart ("she walks right in, she walks right out, she walks right in, she walks right out," etc., etc.): working (me, not the poodle) to figure out an expanded punctuational role for the colon: a pink flowered bathrobe and slippers that make my feet hot: the world's most beautiful rosemary plant glowing spikily before my eyes: a freshly dusted desk with a charming tiny edition of Thomas Carlyle's Essay on Burns open on my copy stand: a window view of fir trees loaded with new snow: all of my western Pennsylvania reference books arranged in a tidy row beside my grandfather's ancient cabinet radio: the thought of composing a thought: