I have one more zoom meeting this morning, and then, finally, finally, I'll be on vacation. I'm not quite sure what I'll do with myself in these strange new hours, with no responsibilities for the rest of the day other than laundry and dinner. The weather is forecast to be terrible--gale-force winds and weird warm rain--so I may simply light an afternoon fire in the stove and curl up with books and notebooks and Chuck and a cup of tea and a couch blanket, and listen to the wind howl.

We've got a busy weekend ahead: lots of Christmas prep, and we've been invited out for dinner on both Saturday and Sunday . . . what is this social whirl? Both T and I are looking forward to the holiday this year. It will be a crowd: both of our boys and their partners, our nephew and his parents, and my in-laws. The big house will be so full that T's parents made reservations for the two of us to stay in the fancy inn down the road, and we're very much looking forward to that novelty. After an autumn dotted with death, dreadful car repairs, a busted furnace, and overwork, the prospect of spending four nights in an inn above our pay grade seems extremely exciting.

And I would really, really, really like to work on some poems. Teresa and Jeannie and I are planning to dive into a communal experiment with linked sonnets in which we write poems wrapped around one another's lines. I'm excited to get started, now that I finally have a bit of space in which to imagine.