Tom came home early yesterday because the gale had knocked out power in Cape Elizabeth, where he was working. It was a big storm: my yard was littered with branches--none were huge, but most were full of wet green leaves. Trees have only just started to change colors here on the north's southern coast, so the high wind was a little alarming--the way it was ripping and tearing through the laden boughs--but the rain was a marvel. When the sun came out in the afternoon, the plants were glowing with relief.

Last night I roasted a chicken and served it with roasted rosemary potatoes, kale stewed in broth, and a salad of arugula and golden cherry tomatoes. There's still a lot of meat left on the bones, so I think I'll make a chicken-and-preserved-lemon risotto this evening. At some point during the day I'll need to cook down another batch of tomato sauce for the freezer; those bushels of unripe fruit are reddening fast.

The garden is still full of greens: kale, collards, chard, arugula. Except for basil, the herbs are also going strong, especially the cilantro. New spinach is coming up, but the squirrels keep digging in the rows, so that crop will probably fail. The zinnias and dahlias are furiously blooming.

I shipped out a batch of editing yesterday and am on the downward slope to finishing my first pass through that manuscript. I spent some time talking back and forth with the publisher about my forthcoming New and Selected. I prepped for this weekend's writing retreat. I took a zig-zag walk through the rain-wet neighborhood, admiring puddles and bowed maples and sodden asters. I listened to a ridiculous amount of play-off baseball, and gnashed my teeth as every single team I was rooting for lost. I texted my Chicago son about the horrible presidential debate. I listened to my younger son chatter about the play he's reading--Matthew Lopez's The Inheritance, which reworks the themes of Forster's Howards End, and which he saw in New York last winter, before all hell broke loose, and adores. I drank a beer and played cards with Tom.

Yesterday was a good life.