Household tip: if you find yourself with a lot of leftover chicken cacciatore, and your poetry group is suddenly canceled so you have to make dinner for two when you thought you were just leaving cold things in the refrigerator for your husband to heat up, you might consider turning that cacciatore into lasagna. I think it was the best I've ever made.

This morning I'm off to downtown for a meeting, then back home to read a manuscript and student essays. Tom and I have our first salsa class tonight, but there's still time to back out like cowards. I made preserved lemons yesterday, which I've been meaning to do for years, and they look bright and beautiful on the kitchen counter. The weather is fiercely cold and blustery, but exciting too. I love wind in my face, the sting of ice crystals. All those years spent doing animal chores in Harmony: twice a day, in all weathers, hauling water and food; milking goats in subzero temperatures, with a baby strapped onto my chest . . . How did I ever do it? But it seemed normal then. Like life.