It snowed last night...for the LAST time this year (let's hope). See, when we were in grade school (now called elementary school) we had to write poems, always writing poems. To learn what? Anyway, one of Molly's poems started out "It snowed last night, for the first time this year." And that's been a catch phrase for our (every-shrinking) family all these years. I can't say "It snowed last night" to anyone anytime without silently adding "for the first time this year." Sweet, sweet sister. Anyway, we only had a dusting, courtesy of Detroit, who got far more than a dusting. I had to scrape heavy ice/crust off my windshield and couldn't find a scraper this morning. Credit cards are very handy. I overslept intentionally today, which frustrates the dogs. We have a clerk who says fusstrates. My dogs were really fusstrated this morning. The contents of my bed included a toilet brush with the scrubber decapitated so that it is now totally useless (Jenica understands this fixation of Tess'), no roll of wrapping paper but a plastic pro-choice banner you're supposed to stick to your car, and a half-chewed roll of toilet paper for good measure. And Jack stood over me for 20 minutes barking at 3 second intervals. No exaggeration, 3-second intervals. It becomes a battle of wills--how long can I stand it for? And Chances nudges my head harder than you would think a dog could nudge. And Tess bounces around with treasures in her mouth, then runs to the living room/bathroom to find new ones. You'd think they'd be exhausted by the time I finally emerge from the covers. If I try to bury myself under the covers Tess digs like an avalanche rescue dog, frantically, before my air supply is cut off. Since she likes to sleep under the covers when it's cold, you'd think she'd just leave me alone and let me be under the covers. On the other hand, since she knows you go under the covers to SLEEP, perhaps she's working very hard to keep me AWAKE. Or, maybe I'm giving her entirely too much credit!

It's cool today, only supposed to be in the 40's, up to 70 tomorrow and maybe 80 on Friday. What? My daffodils are actually blooming. It's surprising how cheering that can be. I got home yesterday and walked around the yard, inspecting everything. Tess is so cheerful when I get home, it's hard to be anything but happy around her. She loves being let out of her cage, and really loves being with me. Runs away from me just so she can run back to me, leaping in the air. I have tete a tete daffodils, 6" high and incredibly cute, in several clumps now blooming bright yellow. My other standard borders of early bloomers are just starting to open. And, wonder of wonders, I have three batches of lupines coming up! This is a miracle, I've been trying to grow lupines for years. My friend Lin has fantastic lupines that I drool over each year, they just get better and better. Now I may actually have some bloom. There are some spectacular batches of lupines along the roadsides here in the North Country. They bloom in late June. I always associate lupines with Nova Scotia. Did we see them there, or did I just see pictures? I have a feeling we saw them. We saw Diana and Charles get married from a motel room. No...from a motel room we saw Diana and Charles get married. Molly saw more of it than I did, I had a hard time keeping my eyes open. It was at like 5 in the morning and she was wide awake. I do remember hearing Diana get his names in the wrong order, though. And look how that whole mess ended up.

I really like Molly's blog entry about family and Kristen being part of our family. I'm really happy she's willing to join our family. It completes a circle for me, and makes Henry that much more "alive" for the future. No, he's not alive. I keep remembering what his cold body felt like when I held it. If I hadn't done that I'm not sure I'd believe he was really, truly gone. Kristen and I shared a special time, standing there with the body, talking to him and talking to each other, talking about how he looked, stroking his hair and his face. God that sounds so morbid but it was so peaceful and wonderful at the time, so comforting to us. He was our Henry for that moment. And now we have our Kristen and our Margaret and our Grace and we're so lucky to have them with us.

Today there's a meeting of the correctional facility librarians here. They love going to meetings, which I suppose I would too if I worked in a prison. They have a different world of library service, that's for sure. I've been asked to meet & greet them, then stay for the meeting to talk about the interlibrary loan service we do and don't provide to them. Like, why can't we get them the book "Whoreson" or "The spook who sat by the door" every time they request it? And why can't we get them books to fill the subject request on lesbian sex slaves?

I ordered my ReDefeat Bush bumper sticker yesterday. I cut up the Silver Lake college decal for my car window so it just says Silver Lake now, quiet classy actually. I like to have something on my car that makes it mine. It's hard for me to put a Kerry sticker on my car, since I can barely support him, but I can certainly support a movement to defeat Bush. Lots of interesting sentiments at the march in DC, if my brain weren't such mush I could remember some of them.

Perhaps I should try to get some work done before the inmates, I mean librarians get here.