5 March 2004

It is so gorgeous here today. The snow is coming down pretty heavily still, and it's the thick, wet, sticky kind that has the branches covered. I stumbled into the office, still waking up, and sat down to see what e-mail I had. Read a few messages and decided to get breakfast. Turned around. And saw this out my window:

Now, it looks like there's a layer of ice underneath, and it may have damaged a tree in the front yard, and it does delay Timprov's tennis-playing by at least two days. But -- so gorgeous. Like a pretty present from my city. A present that may involve sawing branches later, but...well. And it's March -- it'll be gone in a few, right? Maybe? And I've run errands every other day this week -- I can stay home and not run errands today and can just admire the prettypretty snow from inside. Maybe. If I go out, it won't be on an errand but for fun.

Ohh. Tree update. The prettypretty snow has caused an uglyugly break in the tree out front. One of the biggest branches is just a total loss. We're talking more than half of the tree here. If the tree stays alive, it'll be with a huge ugly gap. Also, one of the trees had budded out and lost a big branch down into the driveway. And the ones in the back have lost a bunch of branches that will need clearing away. Uhhh, thanks snow. Sigh. At least I enjoyed the look of it for an hour or so.

On the up side, one of the neighbors has snow-blown our driveway. Which is very nice and much appreciated, and I wish I knew which neighbor it was so I could thank him/her.

Thomas has some promises for you about the fiction he will not write. I think he should start a dealie, you know, like with those people who get teenagers to promise not to have sex? Only with higher honesty rates. I'd sign on. I swear all those things, too! No mistletoe, and the only Spin-the-Bottle I've written about has not turned out the way the main characters wanted, secretly or otherwise. No fabulous Spin-the-Bottle-inspired romance for me!

I have decided I really want to color Easter eggs this year. I don't know why, I just do. I think partly because it seems frivolous, and I need a little of that from time to time. Now the question is whether I'll be contented with the 99-cent package or whether I will have to spend $3 on this particular bit of frivolity to be satisfied. We will have parti-colored eggsalad and deviled eggs after Easter. It will be good.

So, the agenda for today is all homeish stuff: editing some articles to editorial specifications, working on the book, maybe a little cleaning, definitely some baking and cooking. Finishing up the Tuchman book, I hope. I have gotten to the bit where people are actually shooting at each other, which involves more staring into space on my part than the bits where they're diplomatizing about it all. I'm in the mood to curl up with a good novel today, a novel and maybe a cup of cocoa or a warm slice of banana bread or both. But in order to do that, I should really finish this chapter. And actually bake the banana bread. And so on.