One excellent side-effect of buying a new comforter, pillows, and memory-foam pad is that the cat has been too comfortable in bed to bother to yowl-claw me awake at some ungodly hour. For three days in a row, he has been the last one up. So we've all been sleeping well here in the doll-house . . . though I did have an unpleasant dream in which I villainously stole someone's identity or possessions or invented a mountain that did not exist and then made my victim climb it or something involving all of those nefarious behaviors; and if this plot does not make sense to you, well, join the club. (Also, there was a cave involved, and some elementary-school wall decorations. And I think I might have bleached my hair blond.)

Today I have nothing to do. No editing, no classroom prep, no vacuuming. I will walk to the post office to mail cookies to Son #2, but that's about my only pressing obligation. Otherwise, I am going to read and write and practice the violin and water my plants and make cookies for Son #1. When Tom comes home from work, we will walk to the library together. Then I will come home and make dinner and watch the Michigan-Oregon game and receive terse game-time texts from my father and Son #2.

By the way, you'll be shocked to hear that the FBI seems to be finding evidence of collusion between Russian officials and the Trump campaign. I mean, shocking, right? The terrible thing is that it's not shocking. As a poet friend wrote last night, "we knew it in our bones." But what the hell? And in the meantime Trump's callow son is sending rude tweets to the mayor of London, just as the man is dealing with a terrorist attack. And in the meantime our so-called president is threatening House Republicans with retaliation if they fail to support to the party's health-care "solution." And in the meantime the guy on the Senate Intelligence Committee who's been most vociferous in his outrage about leaked FBI information just leaked some FBI information. Our government is a humiliation.

But I did see some crocuses in bloom yesterday. So that's something.