I'm still hobbling a bit, but I did manage to get the front-yard garden and grass mowed and tidied before this week's onslaught of road construction begins. At the moment all is quiet, but cones and parked backhoes loom ominously. For the past several months workers have been tearing up the neighboring streets to replace gas lines, and now, it seems, our time has come. Ugh.

Seward's The Wars of the Roses is turning out to be a well-written history. The author tells his tale from the point of view of five different men and women of the period, one of whom is a woman commoner--a rare figure in fifteenth-century annals. I did not expect to be gripped by this book, but that's the lovely thing about reading: you never know what might turn up.

Which reminds me: the other day a friend asked what my favorite angry poem was, and I immediately answered, "Carruth's 'Adolf Eichmann.'" It's a good question. What's yours?