Watery first light glows blue against a skim of new snow. Coffee steams in a small white cup. Heat puffs from the registers.

It is Saturday morning and I am in no rush at all. I even stayed in bed till after 6--not quite asleep, not quite awake, though Chuckie valiantly did his alarm-clock duty: jumping on my head, licking my chin, sticking a paw in my ear.

Tomorrow I'll be reading at Bowdoin; Monday I'll head north so I can teach in Monson on Tuesday. So today has to be housework day. I am not thrilled to have to clog up my Saturday with vacuuming and toilet scrubbing, but so it goes.

Maybe we'll find out today if Tom's glue attempts have repaired the dishwasher. If not, though, he's got a plan B: a foraged dishwasher from his job site. And in cheerful news, our Sarasota gang has acquired tickets for an Orioles-Yankees spring-training game on the ides of March. That's Ruckus's birthday, and I can tell you right now that he and I would not have been rooting for the same team. Ruckus and I disagreed a lot about sports. Still, it will be good to celebrate his memory by arguing with him, as I did so often during his life.

So today: Cleaning the house. Figuring out what I'll be reading tomorrow. Maybe scratching out a draft for one or the other of my various writing projects. Finding something to make for dinner. Yesterday's meal was a lovely midwinter feast: pork chops marinated in lime and garlic, then oven-braised Julia Child-style and served on a bed of buttered spinach, alongside roasted red and purple fingerling potatoes with onions, a salad of sliced golden beets, and a pinch of kale microgreens. It was a delight for the eyes, and I doubt I can come up with something as pretty as that for tonight. But maybe homemade pizza will be good enough.