It's a dim morning: low-slung clouds, a small wind. Yesterday was spattered with sudden showers and bright sun, but today, I think, rain will settle in, so I should get outside and take those towels off the line while I still have time.

After gleaning a few books out of the pile at the Episcopal church's yard sale (Le Carre, Oates, Trevor, a bio of Millay), I settled into house and yard work and managed to get a fair amount done pretty quickly: floors and bathrooms cleaned and mopped, winter firewood equipment stowed in the basement for the season, towels and sheets changed and washed; and then mowing, trimming, flower deadheading, peony triage, and rescuing the carrot seedlings that some wretched squirrel had uprooted. Eventually I baked brownies, finished the Bronte biography (an accomplishment!), made asparagus salad and parmesan-breaded lamb chops, played cribbage, listened to the Red Sox lose big to the lowly White Sox (though, having recently been a temporary White Sox fan in Chicago, I admit to enjoying the buoyant delight of a crowd that had no expectation of victory).

I don't really have plans for today. I suppose I'll go grocery shopping, and I might transplant some nasturtium seedlings and do a little weeding, if the weather allows, but really anything could happen. It's a pleasant feeling to have the big weekly jobs behind me. I've started reading Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake. The vases are filled with peonies. I'm imagining fish chowder and herb bread for dinner.

Mostly I'm attempting to find a portal back into my brisk, productive, thoughtful existence. I knew this week's travels would disrupt and disable, and I tried to build in a weekend-at-home as a buffer and a convalescence, and I was right to do so. Still, nothing is easy.