I got home midday with a trunkful of plants from Angela's garden--mostly lilies but also bloodroot and a big sedum. As a result, I had to finally overcome my procrastination and start digging up the ugly strip of grass between sidewalk and street. I've been wanting to get rid of the grass since we moved in, but I've had too many other garden jobs to keep me busy. Plus, nursery stock is expensive, and the sidewalk plot is a tricky spot--always under onslaught from dogs, snowplows, and the Public Works Department--and it requires plants that will be hardy under difficult conditions, that won't flop too much over the sidewalk, that will spread thickly enough to be their own weed control, and that won't break my heart when a guy with a jackhammer shows up. I've got a lot of street frontage (for a city yard), and not enough plants to fill the entire strip. But Ang did give me enough for a good-sized patch, and so I settled down to the chore: I broke a big chunk of weedy sod, hacked the tangled lily plants into plantable bunches, and set them into their new roadside home.

This morning I've got to hang laundry, mow grass, catch up on some other stuff that I haven't remembered yet, and then this afternoon I'll be in class, leading the first session of the current round of my chapbook seminar. Meanwhile, T is going to a Sea Dogs game with a friend, and I am a little bit jealous as currently the top-three Red Sox prospects are playing in Portland, and I know they won't be in Double-A for long.

Last night we had a treat for dinner: T brought home soft-shell crabs from the fish market, the first of the season. So I soaked them in milk, then dredged them in flour and fried them up, and we ate them with yogurt and caper sauce, alongside roasted potatoes with green onions and a big salad of baby kale, charred shishito peppers, cherry tomatoes, and fresh mint. I love these first big handfuls of garden herbs . . . the new onions, the chives and garlic chives, the first sprigs of mint and parsley and sage. And the wintered-over kale is still going strong.

In just a few days I'll be heading down to Boston to catch the Lake Shore Limited, and I am getting more and more excited. I don't know why I'm looking forward to this adventure so much, but I'm glad I am. . . I so often fret about traveling, but I'm straight-up thrilled about this trip. I keep pondering over all of the little details . . . how will I manage my toothbrush on the train? what books will I bring to read? how many meals do I need to pack for myself? where should it all fit into my backpack? And then once I get to Chicago, J has all kinds of fun planned--good food and a trip to the botanical gardens and maybe a White Sox game, and we're going to figure out his gardening situation, and we're going to hang out and tell jokes and admonish his misbehaving cats.

For now, though, I need to keep my head in the present tense: yard chores, class prep. And afterward, in the late afternoon, maybe I'll treat myself to a bike ride, and then I'll cook up some haddock for dinner, watch the evening clouds roll in, and imagine summer. "Durer would have seen a reason for living in a town like this." I don't even love the poems of Marianne Moore, but that line is always, always in my head.