Yesterday turned out to be an olio of picky little chores . . . two small editing obligations to sweep from my desk, then compiling and printing handouts and teaching materials for the Monson conference, emailing back and forth with poets to schedule meetings and conversations, tracking down an arborist to come look at our backyard trees; plus walking and weeding and laundry and making frozen yogurt and chasing a groundhog out of the yard.

This morning I'll be out and about early, walking over to G's house so that we can suss out the details of our team-teaching day in Rockland later this month: a mishmash of poetry and improv-theater experiences for teachers and teaching artists, which will be fun and no doubt messy, and a bunch of people have already signed up, so G and I have to get on the stick and figure out just what we want to do with them.

The whole week has been crammed with these sorts of "figure out stuff for the future" tasks. I need to order firewood for the fall; I need to talk to my publisher about cover photos; I need to settle summer travel plans with my sons . . . It's a week of faculty meetings and future-work scheduling and consulting with poets about their revision projects and not yet doing any of the woolen washing and not yet finishing the spring cleaning and and and . . .

Last night I made fancy macaroni and cheese for dinner (gruyere and fontina rather than cheddar; so sloppy and good). Tonight, soup with arborio rice and homemade broth and parmesan, featuring escarole and onions freshly harvested from the garden. The roses are coming into bloom--already a big white rugosa and a glorious fragrant yellow tea rose are open, with pink and crimson varieties along the archway budded up and ready to burst.

Everything demands my attention.