A quiet morning, dark and humid. The birds are singing, and Ruckus and Jack are prowling down the sidewalk. Tom is upstairs asleep, and I am in my couch corner, in my red bathrobe, with my white cup and saucer, recovering from a little pollen-triggered sneezing fit.

Late in the day yesterday a small thunderstorm wandered through--not much rain, not much thunder, but enough to dampen and intensify the dense, vibrating greens of late spring. In the evening light I slowly wandered from bed to bed in the garden, the two cats trailing me, just letting the colors and shapes, the shadows and scents filter into me.

During the day I did a lot of weeding and cultivating in the Hill Country, where the early spring ephemeral leaves have finally wilted back enough to reveal the soil beneath. Iris and lupines are budding; white bridal veil and azaleas are phosphorescent in the gloaming light. That section of the yard looks better than it ever has before, though it's difficult to manage . . . lots of tree roots and stones, lots of persistent weeds, and the not always lovely leftovers from previous homeowner attempts at landscaping. But it's in good shape now, at least for a couple of weeks.

Today I'll turn my attention to the vegetable garden, and to figuring out how to reclaim the damaged sections out front. And I'll also try out the new trimmer that Tom bought for me. The previous one was cheap junk, and died in in its tracks yesterday, so T trundled me to Lowe's and picked out a sturdier one that's still light enough for me to easily wield. That's the problem with string trimmers--most of them are so damn heavy, even for a tallish woman with relatively good upper-body strength.

And later in the day: grocery shopping, reading, a nap, a slow dinner.

The news from Vermont is positive, but both mind and body improvement are halting and slow. Though he wants to come home so much, he's in no shape to do that yet. He is eating, and moving; he is off the drugs that were triggering the confusion, but he's still unclear about how real those terrible dreams were. He wants to believe that they were false but he can't quite wrap his head around the notion that they were hallucinations.