On the bright side, I finished a poem draft. On the dim side, my car is making a weird noise.

The poem grew out of a set of four random words chosen from a book--a trigger I've been finding so helpful for the past couple of years: this time, mellow, real, California, island. Naturally my thoughts turned to Olivia Newton-John; also, a girl I went to high school with named Dawn Mello; also, the fact that California was basically the same as fairy land to me in those days; and the poem ended up being a treatise on overlapping words and young know-nothingness.

The weird noise in the car is a squeal coming intermittently from the driver's-side wheel well that may or may not be brakes, a sticky caliper, random rust because the car was sitting for a few days. . . . Isn't it lovely when not driving a car makes something go wrong?

It's cold this morning--down to the mid-40s--and I'm thinking I ought to harvest the rest of the poblanos and put them into the freezer. Tomato production has slowed, but the kale is finally jumping into the fray after spending two months looking spindly and sad. Last night I made a thick garlicy tomato sauce with a dishpan full of San Marzanos (which spellcheck idiotically suggests I edit to  Maroons). Today I'll harvest a new batch of radishes and order some seed garlic and make a pear pie. I'm feeling a bit oppressed by the closeness of neighbors, but that can't be helped. On the other hand I do live in a place where, when I take a walk, I often run into a poet laureate. That never happened in Harmony.