Monday: 4:30 alarm: Groan, get up, find my glasses, put on my bathrobe, grope my way downstairs, turn up the heat, make coffee, speed-tidy the common rooms, empty the dishwasher, change the kitchen towels . . . I'll stop with the litany; you get the idea.

Now Tom is in the kitchen fixing his lunch, and I'm beginning to think about my day. First thing, I'm going to make that poem recording for Monson Arts because otherwise I'll find some way to procrastinate. I do dislike recording myself. Then I've got some letters to answer and some Rilke to read. And then editing. And then a phone call with Teresa to talk about Rilke. And then mending and bike riding. And then an evening video conference with my poetry group.

What is Cafe Quarantine serving, you ask? I don't know. Actually, I think we're probably having corn beef hash and a salad, but the boys are on dinner patrol tonight because I'll be talking about poems. Today's heavy dose of poetry talk feels like a little holiday. I've been ridiculously busy with house management. Suddenly shifting from a two-adult to a three-adult household means the dirt factor has increased proportionately. More dishes, more boot tracks, more gunk in the drains, more random stuff parked in annoying places. Tiny little Alcott House does not thrive in an uproar. The mess gets out of hand quickly, and I get disoriented and gloomy. I do hate working in chaos.

Tom had the sweet idea of making a quarantine card to mail to family and friends. So he spent some time doing that yesterday while I was mopping, etc. Paul is writing a play. He tells me it's awful but he's got nothing better to do and maybe powering through the awful will teach him how to be less awful. That's a reasonable summary of apprenticeship.

Tonight we're supposed to get some snow: nothing alarming; an inch or two; it should melt quickly. At some point this week I'll need to venture out for supplies, and I'm already dreading it. I've still got plenty of meat (shrimp, ham, salt cod, salmon), and lots of storage vegetables, rice, pasta, flour, and dry legumes. But our stock of fruit is dwindling (Tom packs it in his lunches); I could use more onions (the ones at the store were soft and sprouted last week, so I didn't buy any); I'd like to get hold of several whole chickens (each one equals at least three meals, plus several quarts of broth).

Who knows what I'll find when I finally talk myself into shopping? Undoubtedly not what I'm hoping for.