We had rain all afternoon and all night, and now, at 6 a.m., a light drizzle is still falling. Before this round started, I pulled out the bolting spinach, sowed fennel, beets, and green onions in its place, and transplanted some cabbage, chard, and zinnia seedlings. It's been hard, with so much dryness, to transplant safely . . . too much root shock without adequate, steady moisture. So I'm really grateful for this three-day extravaganza.

And we've been busy! Yesterday afternoon the three of us put on our raincoats and walked over to Lucy's new apartment for drinks and cat fun, and then she walked back with us for dinner at our house. Seeing friends has been a delight . . . hugging dear Lucy goodbye, whom I've loved since she was two years old: the sweetness of these reunions is rich.

I think today will be quieter. I'll tweak the essay draft I wrote yesterday morning, and probably, as the rain subsides, I'll do a little weeding in the Hill Country. Tom is spending his rainy hours constructing a bench for the backyard out of scraps of decking, and Paul has been appearing and disappearing--upstairs, then downstairs--half-invisible, half-omnipresent.

A set of ominous cones has appeared along the cross-street facing my house, with signs announcing parking bans till Friday. So tomorrow morning I expect an onslaught of jackhammers and dump trucks: a week of sonic torture . . . maybe more than a week, if they move on to the section directly in front of the house.

But for today, at least, we still have birdsong.

Day 2 of cold-and-damp has opened with overcast skies and a cat who has retreated to his late-sleeping winter hours. Thus, I wallowed in bed till almost 6 a.m., undisturbed by sunlight, birdsong, or a pet leaping full force onto my chest.

The boys have reluctantly given up their canoe trip idea: the forecast continues to be miserable for standard Memorial Day fun. Yesterday, even wearing three shirts and a coat, I was frozen when I got home from my outing to the McLaughlin Homestead. It took me hours to warm up: I felt like I'd spent 6 innings in a drizzle-swept lawn chair watching the Sisyphean progress of a "spring" Farm League baseball game. Those games always had a similar ice-inducing effect on my system.

Other than being cold, the outing was delightful. The homestead's grounds are lovely but slightly ramshackle, with large spreads of shade plantings that gave us hope for our own plots-in-progress. Valerie and I discovered that we were prone to laugh at the same road signs, and we slightly disgraced ourselves by giggling during the lilac-care tour, when the mild young arborist was suddenly pounced on by two old ladies who shouted at him for not starting the tour on time (he did) or in the correct place (he did), and browbeat him into repeating everything he'd already said in his talk. They were classic comic old lady bullies--say, Miss Doggett in Barbara Pym's novels; Mrs. Proudie in Anthony Trollope's--and the poor boy capitulated like a curate. As we walked away, he was meekly beginning his speech over again. . . .

I got home in the early afternoon to discover that the social whirl was not over: the boys had made reservations for indoor seats at a restaurant. To be sure, it wasn't very inside, as all of the windows and doors were wide open and we were freezing, but there were four walls and a ceiling.

Tonight we've been invited to our northcountry friend Lucy's new apartment in the neighborhood, to meet her cat and drink mojitos, and then she'll walk back to our place for dinner. I'll be serving American chop suey, classic food of the Harmony/Wellington diaspora, and this time everyone will be warm enough. 

I have to say: I am loving the communal rebirth.

Rain has been falling since 3 a.m. or so--a steady cold rain that will continue all morning. No doubt our watery weekend will shatter the peonies. The big double blooms have so little fortitude against weather; every year they are crushed by a downpour. So I'm glad I picked this bud early and let it open in the house.

The rain is dampening the boys' hopes for a canoe trip, and my outing to the lilac festival will be cold and wet, but do not think I am complaining. It has been desperately dry here, and the sound of water is a delight. Last night, as the chill moved in, I basked in the charms of winter-in-May--lighting a fire in the woodstove, brewing hot tea, simmering an ancho beef stew, to be served with rice and tortillas . . .

Now, as I stare outside, the yellow yard chairs waver behind the window drops. The grass greens and thickens, and the black soil gleams beneath white flowers. Yesterday afternoon I weeded most of the flowerbeds, front and back, and they are wet and clean and beautiful. Even the Shed Patch bed, recovering from its tree-limb accident, looks fresh and happy.

The weather is entering a stretch of coolness--a sunny high of 60 today, then highs in the 50s over the three-day weekend, with rain forecast for each. But Valerie and I have decided we don't care about drizzle and chill: we're still going on our Saturday outing to the lilac festival. I don't even know where it is, and I don't care; I'm just looking forward to sitting in the passenger seat and leaving town for a few hours.

Today, after my exercise class, I'll finish up an editing chapter, and then do the grocery shopping and probably some outside chores--weeding and such--before the rains kick in tonight. I don't know what day the boys will choose for their canoe trip this weekend, but Sunday and Monday look drier than Saturday--which means I'll probably have a day alone to write an essay and sort through some Frost Place obligations. I hope so: I could use a thinking day.

Outside, the peonies are beginning to bloom; my lemony Harmony irises are opening; a squirrel massacred a perfect broccoli seedling. Inside, I'm reading the Odyssey and, for a break, rereading Hilary Spurling's biography of Ivy Compton-Burnett . . . probably just her childhood years, as I always find myself particularly interested in those moments before one decides to become something. And her before-years are gothic.

Last night, as I was chopping up this gorgeous concoction of cilantro and chive flowers, a thunderstorm blew in, tore a giant widowmaker branch off one of our maples, and dropped it directly onto the new Shed Patch garden--exactly where I'd just harvested the cilantro.

Today Paul and I will try to get it out of there with pruners and a handsaw, but we may need to wait for Tom's chainsaw. My poor ferns and impatiens! And who knows if there will be any cilantro left to salvage.

At least we got rain--only an hour of it, but a soaker, and all of the garden that isn't squashed under a tree branch is feeling pretty happy.

Before the storm I'd replaced a peaked-looking hot pepper plant and dug in a few zinnia and sunflower plants, as my seeds were not germinating well. Everything was getting stressed by the dryness and the heat, so I'm glad the weather is forecast to cool down a bit, and maybe even give us some more rain over the weekend.

Tom has three days off, thank goodness, and he and Paul are planning a canoe outing for one of those days, while my neighbor and I are going off a little outing of our own--to a lilac festival in western Maine. At some point next week or weekend, James will arrive from Chicago for a visit, and then the following weekend we'll head out to Vermont for my nephew's high school graduation. . . . This social whirl feels so strange and wonderful.

Another scorcher on the way today, with the possibility of thunderstorms overnight. I'm hoping hard for rain: we are so dry, and it is so early to be watering as heavily as I am. 

Already it's 65 degrees outside--a cool humid dawn, and the birds have been singing wildly since 4 a.m.

Yesterday Paul went on an all-day outing, driving an hour west to hike up Pleasant Mountain, which meant that I was alone in the house for most of the day. I didn't write: I had to edit; but I got a whole lot done on the files, and the uninterrupted time felt miraculous. I'd almost forgotten that I could focus on a job for hours at a time.

In a few weeks Paul will be flying out to Chicago, and he and James will embark on a three-week Western road trip together. For the two of them, it should be a wonderful coda to a terrible year. When he gets back, he'll turn his attention to moving to New York City; and by late summer, if all goes to plan, I should get my study back and can start relearning how to be alone. It will be a shock, this repeat bout of empty nesting . . . but the change will be right.

In the meantime, I'll retreat back into my peripatetic routine: a dash of work amid distractions and chores. But the backyard should be shady and pleasant, a good place for ice tea and the Odyssey. I'll endure my exercise class before the weather gets too hot; I'll finish a few pages of my editing project; maybe I'll start the essay I need to write for Teresa's poetry letter; eventually I'll compile a chicken, cucumber, and macaroni salad for dinner. The darkness will slowly filter down among the maple leaves, and the fading yellow blooms of the rhododendron will float like pale moons in the gloaming.

Yesterday, during my 8 a.m. exercise class, the teacher noted that we'd been at this for six months, which amazed me. Have I actually managed to show up three times a week and do this painful hard thing I don't enjoy doing? I can hardly believe I've had so much gumption.

I'll be back at my editing desk this morning, and maybe I'll be home alone for a little while too, as I think Paul is planning to go hiking somewhere. Fortunately, I crammed yesterday full of vacuuming and bathroom cleaning and mowing and trimming, so I won't have waste today breathlessly juggling chores and job . . . other than the usual chores of laundry and cooking and watering and maybe a little bit of weeding, if time allows.

Last night I roasted a chicken, made mashed potatoes and giblet gravy and a big salad with fresh greens, and ended the meal with homemade orange ice cream and sugared blueberries. So today I'll boil down chicken stock and serve noodle soup for dinner . . . easy day 2 of the three-day chicken pattern. Maybe all of this non-chore time will give me a brief space to work on revisions, or read the Odyssey in the hammock, or ride my bike in the cemetery, or doze on the couch with the cat.

I'm just remembering now that I had a dream about a famous poet, except I don't remember who he was, or why he was talking to me, or whether I was a poet too.