Tom is sick and I am beginning to catch what he has, and the forecast is for snow and then snow and then a whole lot more snow. Last night Tom was watching Walker, Texas Ranger reruns punctuated by long, repetitive advertisements for knee braces and supplemental Medicare insurance and prostate pills.  Tom hates Walker, Texas Ranger, so my conclusion was that he was feverish. Nonetheless, I felt like I was trapped in a minor circle of hell . . . say, the Understaffed Department of Motor Vehicles circle or the Rash That Spreads circle. Finally my stamina gave way, and I went to bed, where I became entangled in home-repair-in-a-house-I've-never-seen-before/who-is-this-stranger-my-mother-is-marrying?/the-dam's-broken! dreams.

So it is a relief to be awake. Indeed a steady snow is falling, and I ought to be rushing out to cram myself into the grocery stores along with everyone else in Portland, but instead I am sitting here peacefully drinking black coffee and enjoying the experience of no longer dreaming about water damage.

Outside the window, snowflakes are swirling and twisting in the grey air. The city trees, with their broad crowns and bricked-up roots, wear their ice burdens elegantly, but the power lines sag like jump ropes. A pair of crows moseys over the roofs and dormers, heading toward the water treatment plant or the baked-bean factory.

I've been reading Frost's poems and a Murdoch novel. I've been working on poem drafts, and a grant application, and Frost Place materials. On Monday I will start a new editing project. I am hoping not to be sick. I am hoping not to have to watch that Walker, Texas Ranger channel any more. But who know?--illness is a strange taskmaster.