Upstairs, in our room, the bed creaks, then Tom clinks his coffee cup against its saucer. Across the tiny landing the cat sits glowering at my closed study door, where the young people are holed up. Occasionally he yowls ostentatiously and pokes a paw under the door, in hopes that they will invite him in. But no such luck yet.

It is Monday morning and my house is full of bodies, and I am so happy. It's too bad that T has to work both days before Christmas. Employers are such buzzkills, but what can you do? At least I will feed him well when he gets home--for instance, he can have another bowl of that eggnog ice cream. Boy, did that turn out well. It might be the most perfectly textured ice cream I've ever made, and the flavor is heaven. 

Today I need to make a pie crust, and then Lucy, our friend from the homeland, will drop by for a visit, and I ought to run an errand or two, and eventually I'll figure out what we're eating for dinner, but otherwise I am dedicated to doing nothing but hanging out.

Weirdly, though, the public poetry train keeps plowing ahead. Yesterday Tina Cane posted a video of me on her "Poetry Is Bread" reading series. In the evening I got notice that two of my new poems are out in the Maine Arts Journal (alongside poems by my friend Marita O'Neill). I thought I'd just be washing floors yesterday, but the words said otherwise.