Seen in the checkout line at Bud's Shop 'n Save: A young Amish man in dress-up clothes, lugging a stack of eight extra-large boxes of baking soda.

Seen on an empty highway next to a chopped-up cornfield: A bald eagle disguised as a crow (i.e., strutting around cheerfully on the tarmac while inspecting a delicious ex-porcupine).

**

Otherwise, things are pretty quiet around here. I was supposed to be driving back and forth to Piscataquis County all day--first, lugging Paul up to the Reindeer Run 5K Race, then lugging myself to a gig at the Sangerville Grange--but both have been canceled, so here I am, still in my bathrobe, with nothing to do but bake and look out the window at the snow-sleet-rain-sleet-rain-snow-rain.

Yesterday afternoon I made stollen; today I'll make something else: Russian teacakes, maybe; or frosted butter cookies; or thumbprint tarts with jam. Like the stollen, they all freeze well and can be produced quickly for holiday emergencies.

The working title of my draft poem is "Essay on Midcentury Women." So I'll also spend some time today revisiting Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Man," with hopes that something will happen to me or the poem. But I can tell you right now that it won't be rhymed couplets or hardboiled snark. I am not in the mood for either.

Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things
To low ambition, and the pride of Kings.

He is pretty good at them, though.