Good morning from a poet who slept in till 6:30, abetted by the full participation and strangely good cheer of her normally antsy cat. I have no idea why Ruckus decided to be pleasant about this, but he graciously wallowed, and a good time was had by all.

Now I am drinking coffee and listening to laundry churn in the machine. Already the heat is kicking in, another summer day on the way, peppers and green beans and blueberries to pick, the endless watering chore, cat flopped on the cool paving stones, cold beer in the fridge and a cribbage game under the trees.

Tomorrow I've got to drive to a reading on the midcoast, about an hour and half downeast from Portland, and already I am highly appreciative of the new car A/C that will keep me from metamorphosing into a sweat hog.

So today I need to figure out what I'll be reading, and no doubt I'll dither around with various other tasks: cutting herbs for drying, packing away the herbs that are already dry, that sort of thing. I might start reading the next tome that Teresa and I are tackling together: T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets. I might hand-wash some winter sweaters. I might convince T that we should abandon work altogether and go out and do something fun instead. He will not be hard to convince.