Currently the cat is wandering from door to door, meowing to be let in . . . except that he's meowing through a dead mouse clamped between his jaws. It's amazing how much noise he can make with a rodent in his mouth, and he's extremely annoyed with me for refusing to allow him to bring his mouse inside, so the meowing is high-pitched and vigorous. I imagine all of the neighbors are craning against their windows to see what's wrong with him. He can be a very embarrassing pet. But he is a very good mouser.

I spent yesterday morning working on Frost Place things, which also involved reorganizing computer files, a tedious job that I finally found time to do. In the midst of this I had a rush of inspiration about a problem with the long poem I've been working so hard on, and I radically rewrote an entire section. That was an unexpected flash; who anticipates that inspiration will strike while filing?

Later in the day I harvested a big dishpan full of basil and made pesto for the freezer, then cut a bouquet of sage for drying. I went for two walks, in hopes of finding mushrooms after yesterday's rain, but had no luck at all. Mushroom foraging is terrible this summer. The only thing I've found is a single tiny dried-up chanterelle, too dirty and insect-bitten to save. 

Around the edges I'm reading Austen's Pride and Prejudice with a friend who's never read it before, and I'm reading Evan S. Connell's Mrs. Bridge, which I've read many times and which continues to be heartbreaking. I don't know of a better book about the insidiously sad and desperate world of midcentury American suburban housewives.