I slept late again this morning . . . not with the hammer-to-the-head effect of Friday night's coma, but still much better and longer than usual. Outside, the sky is drear. We're forecast to get rain and sleet by late morning, with the storm lasting all day and night and into tomorrow. It will be the sort of day for a troupe of high-spirited aristocrats to clatter into the yard of a snug inn, to the joy of the innkeeper's widow and the consternation of the local drinkers. who are all sitting around the roaring fire telling weak jokes like 19th-century versions of Midsummer's Rude Mechanicals. 

Unfortunately, with social distancing, the inn is closed. The local drinkers are dozing at home in front of their own fires, and the aristocrats have all been hospitalized after catching the virus at a society ball, and the innkeeper's widow, who thought she'd finally managed to wriggle out from under the load of crushing debt her husband had bequeathed her, is now crouching over her sputtering laptop and typing poorhouse.com into her web browser by the light of a single tallow candle.

Here, at the Alcott House, things are not so dire. In fact, I've been feeling pretty fortunate. Yesterday I went for a 6-feet-apart-at-all-times walk with an old friend, who, on top of everything else, is scheduled for cancer surgery later this week. What do I have to complain about? Nothing. We still have a little income. We still have food. Our house is rain-proof. Our tempers are easy.

Speaking of food, I think I forgot to update you on Cafe Quarantine's menu. Last night we had potato gratin (shredded potatoes, sautéed onions, sage, red pepper flakes, parmesan, eggs, milk), a tomato and cucumber salad, and angel cake with blueberry sauce and sweetened yogurt. I made the angel cake from my freezer stash of leftover egg whites, which I've been collecting over the course of the year. Usually I save our annual angel cake for strawberry season, but my boys needed a treat and I needed the freezer space.

Tonight: a small ham, cornbread, roasted Brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes (yes, we're back to the root vegetable stash), another serving of angel cake.

Today, I suppose I'll do some maintenance housework: bathrooms at least, and some cat-fur vacuuming. I'm not going overboard. I want this weekend to feel like a break in the pattern. The three of us are planning to watch a movie together: maybe Pietro Germi's 1961 Divorce Italian-Style; maybe footage of the 1912 or 1964 Olympics (the Criterion Channel mysteriously features coverage of many old Olympic Games). The boy is in charge of choosing something that will entertain us all.

Here's a pantoum about weather and love. 

Epithalamion for Grendel

Dawn Potter

Cordgrass slashes rents into the wind, 

but I am waiting for my lover at the river. 

Close the floodgates: the tide is high 

and the one I love is mud and reeds, 

yet I am waiting for my lover at the river.

He strides into storms, he wades into pools of silt,

for the one I love is mud and reeds

and my hands long to cup his jagged face.

He strides into storms, he wades into pools of silt.

A scatter of fishes gathers in his wake. 

My hands long to cup his jagged face 

as herons bow to him in the saltmarsh,

as a scatter of fishes gathers in his wake.

Close the floodgates. The tide is high. 

Herons, bow to him in the saltmarsh.

Cordgrass, slash rents into the wind.

[first published in Vox Populi]