December 4th

It's a summery 55 sunny degrees today. Which is a delight for us but I'm afraid it's not good for the polar bears and melting ice-caps. Lily and I walked to the library, and I got three gigantic books of poetry, two by Kenneth Rexroth and a book of prose poems, while Lily patiently waited for me. Then I walked to the shoemaker and brought him my other pair of worn out clogs, the ones with the gaping holes soles. He said he could fix them!

When I arrived at the park there was nobody but Lily and me, and we played fetch with the muddy-pink ball. I worked on her sit-stay-fetch skills, giving her little triangles of cat food from an old pocket-sized tea tin. On the way home I looked for the jumping fish, but the sun was not on the water, so the fish was not jumping. I did see a bright sun dog in the sky when I was nearly home, in view from East School Street. It was amazing!

My pal Rachel stopped by to pick up Daniel Ladinsky's book of Hafiz poems and have a cup of coffee. I was so thrilled she was coming that I vacuumed the whole house even under the bed! I opened all the windows to bring in fresh air. Perhaps this bout of spring weather has brought on spring allergies and spring cleaning. I washed Lily in the backyard, rinsing her with the green rubber hose. She was very tolerant. She even let me trim her dew claws which seem to grow very fast.

I made a big yellow cornbread for supper which we ate with the last of the turkey soup. I slow-roasted two trays of almonds. And I shipped a painting to its new owner. A good day indeed.