What I'll be doing today: Planting kohlrabi, turnips, calendula, and forget-me-nots; mowing grass; weeding the herb garden; hanging sheets and towels on the line; baking rhubarb crisp; reading Beowulf and Phineas Finn; listening to a Red Sox game; vacuuming and dusting; trying not to jump when New-Haircut Son walks into the room.

What the blackflies will be doing today: Ripping small bloody holes in human flesh.

***

Tomorrow my computer will be going to the computer doctor, so if you do not hear from me, do not despair. Of course, New-Haircut Son is trying to make me nervous.

"It's getting a lobotomy," he says calmly.

"Oh, no!" I cry. "It won't be able to write poems anymore! It will only shop online at Walmart and play interminable rounds of Candy Crush Saga! Oh, no!"

"That's right," he says calmly.