There's great sadness in the neighborhood: Jack, the across-the-street cat I was babysitting last week, hasn't been seen since Friday. A few days after his family got home from vacation, he just disappeared. We're all checking our sheds and garages, but everyone fears the worst. Despite his misanthropy, Jack is very popular, and his loss is a sorrow, not least for my cat Ruckus, his best friend. Over the years the two of them have had many nosy adventures together, and we are all grieved.

Today is the first of July, and the gray dawn air is thick and still and hazy. A robin trills. A train hoots. Temperatures are forecast to rise into the mid-80s, so I'm going to try to get a few garden chores done early in the day and then retreat indoors. With exquisitely bad timing, an editing project dropped on my desk yesterday, giving me one more thing to shoehorn among the other this-n-thats. But I really want to get it done before I leave, if I can. With that trip to Chicago looming later in the month, my schedule will only get more awkward.

So today: garden, violin, editing, laundry, paperwork, lists lists lists . . . tomorrow I'll be at Bowdoin, rehearsing for the Monson performance . . . I should comb through my teaching plans again . . . I've got to go for a walk; I haven't taken one for two days . . . and what will I make for dinner? . . . and poor Jack is gone . . . Sigh.