T and I went out last night for an early movie and a late dinner, which is a date we should maybe have more often. As we were pleased to discover, it's easy to find a table in the Old Port at 8 p.m. on a weeknight, even in June. Mostly I tend to avoid the Old Port in the summer months, when it's the bastion of tourists and bar crawlers. But there are good restaurants in that neighborhood, and they are a pleasant stroll from the movie theater, through the briny night air, and a short drive home, along the lights of the cove. And it is nice to hold hands in public on a Tuesday.

Yesterday I got a chunk of work done on my Poetry Kitchen packet: all of the prose samples and most of the poems. I'll make a few more decisions today, and then I can start working on writing prompts. I also ordered a new printer. You may recall that a couple of years ago the roof leaked into our old one, and the machine has never recovered from the shock. For a while the left margins were still readable on the printouts (meaning that most poems were mostly legible), but last weekend, as I was printing out my manuscript draft, it gave up the ghost. Thus, I am spending yet more money on mechanized insentience. Blah.

Still, despite my luddite grumpiness, I am looking forward to a pretty day--sunny, mid-70s: an excellent day to hang sheets outside, listen to warblers in the woods, eat lunch in the garden; to cut fresh bouquets for the mantle and pull weeds in the shade; to sit by an open window in my blue chair, a book of poems in my lap, and watch robins splash in the birdbath. The Alcott House has its dreamy moments, and they are in bloom.