Day One of the week, and it should have been a reasonable Sunday, but it's 5AM now, and I hardly feel sleepy at all.  Cortisol, it must be.  The door opened at 5:30, and in came the early burst, ready to get 3 or 4 courses in before paying their checks at 6:45 to head to the Dumbarton Oaks Concert Series. Which means rushing.  Which sets a tone.  And then people keep coming, and the waiter downstairs has already called off any extra help.

Moonshiners--good TV.  The cat sits next to me on the arm of the couch, purring away.  She likes being near me these days, affectionately, and she seems rather expressive, as if we finally we're talking quite steadily, her with purring, little vocalizations, nudges of the head, a suggestion of a deep ear massage.  She's taken to, as its getting to be winter time, the old Polish lady's Flemish chair, the burlap underneath turning to sawdust, the right sag for her to curl up agains the cold.  But she likes to lie close to me as well as I sleep.  Mom had a good line about the towel I keep at the head of the bed to absorb the blood from her rectal cancer.  Get a red one, that way feeling more comfortable, wisdom from our old neighbor from Amherst.

There is the soothing Frank's Hot Sauce taste of an '09 Chinon to calm me down, if that's what it does.  There's the Optimus Svea little brass mountain climber stove to play with, along with dishes done.  Mom is coming to town.  A baby is being born.