Spring snow. It's coming down hard for the moment but will eventually metamorphose into all sorts of mess. The coast is forecast to get sleet ice snow ice sleet rain rain rain rain sleet, plus heavy wind. So of course I lit a fire in the stove this morning. It's horrible-weather Saturday. I've got a recovering sprained ankle and no place to go. Why not spend the day on the couch watching the flames? Later I'll put a stew into the oven. I'll watch some college basketball and text about it with my kid. I'll read. The weather can do what it likes. I don't mind.

Yesterday I finished the second of my small editing jobs. I've caught up on my contest reading and prepped for Wednesday's class. I've answered emails and washed the floors and folded the sheets and stocked the pantry shelves with food. It is so pleasant to be sitting in my couch corner, on a dark and snowy morning, in front of this glowing wood fire, with my beloved upstairs asleep, with the cat curled up like a burger bun, with no anxious "I need to do . . . " doorbells ringing in my brain.

Last night, for dinner, I made a divine macaroni and cheese--a combination of gruyere, cheddar, and fontina in fresh bechamel sauce, with minced onion and lots of paprika. I'm still thinking about it this morning; it's funny how the memory of meals can stay so vivid. I often recall foods from the far past . . . my aunt's homemade ice cream, with fresh Jersey peaches pulled ripe from the tree; the plain but perfectly cooked green beans at the lonesome French restaurant on windswept Route One; the creamed spinach at the mobster steakhouse somewhere in Manhattan; the fried clams at a seaside shack that had five or ten sinks lined up around the edges of the dining room; a sun-warmed tomato eaten like an apple in my father's garden . . .

And now this coffee . . . black and bitter in its small white cup. I drink very little coffee these days. It messes with my sleep and my nerves. But I treasure my daily thimbleful . . . like my friend who smokes one cigarette a day, in the evening, outside on the porch. The ritual is all.