Happy New Year! I write to you from the comfort of my bed, to which I have returned after an early morning slog to the bus station with my excited younger son. The roads were covered with slush, the traffic lights were flashing, the sand trucks were grumbling . . . and my comforter and my cup of coffee are exceedingly pleasant after my short trek into the slop.

We still have a boy in the house: my son's college friend en route to a winter internship in town. But by later today Tom and I will have subsided back into a duo. I will roast a chicken and mash some potatoes and make a tomato salad. I will wash many sheets and towels. I will take the ornaments off the tree and vacuum up the needles and move the furniture around.

I wish you an equivalent ease in your puttering.