Wood stove weather has arrived, and our tiny heater is at its best at this time of year--enough oomph to cut the evening chill and keep me from turning on the furnace just yet. Yesterday afternoon I lit a fire and then made an early dinner so that T and I could go out to a showing of The Bride of Frankenstein at the film archive, which is a funny little warehouse down by the docks stacked with cans of 16-millimeter film. They host a Tuesday-night series that T loves, and that I sometimes attend, and last night I was in the mood to see Elsa Lanchester's crazy hairdo and some mad science equipment, so off we went.

Two movies in one week: that's a lot of movie outings for me; but it's been fun. And when we got home, the house was still cozy from the dying embers, and the cat was feeling peppy again after spending all day recovering from his vaccines, so the three of us sat on the couch and played Yahtzee and visited. Well, the cat didn't play Yahtzee, but you get the idea.

Visited is my Harmony friend Linda's term. "Some church folks dropped by and we visited." When Linda and I visit, I ask how her grandchildren are doing and she asks me how my sons are doing. And then we talk about changes in the town, and health problems, and whether or not her husband is likely to get a deer into the freezer this fall, but we avoid poetry like the plague.

Even though I'm not on the road this week, I've been busy--meetings almost every day, plus lots of desk work. Today will be more of the same: exercise regimen, then editing all morning, then a meeting about teaching conference stuff, and then I ought to clean the upstairs rooms and figure out something or other for dinner . . . maybe an Italian-style stuffed meatloaf: greens, olives, almonds, breadcrumbs. Next Monday I'll drive north again, teach on Tuesday, and on Friday I'll head to NYC for four days in the city. This week is practically a nap compared to what's ahead, and it's good I got my sick days out of the way.