Now it feels like winter--snow flurries in furious gusts, eddies at window panes. Bea is snoring softly next to me. We are both bundled, she and I, her head thrown back into her pillow, mouth open, cheeks pink. The windchimes are making a glorious racket and the ill-fitted storm windows in the sunroom bang in the wind. It's hard to ever really wake up on a day like today, when the the sun is only a reality for others. (I'd like to be in Australia by the sea this afternoon). Sally and Kevin came for lunch this afternoon and we all sat and stared at one another. Conversation was not bright and the best I could contribute was lines of "I'll Be There," by the Jackson 5, which was to be one of the most inane songs of all time. Cloying and saccharine, it sticks to the roof of my mouth, and Bea loves the Jackson 5 beyond all others.

"Jackson 5!" she demands on a daily basis, and for TV, "Tom and Jerry!" and for lunch, "Mac-e-bo-bos!" She and I share a rather bland diet there but it's punctuated by good books and frenzied rides on her tricycle, which she can maneuver around corners with astonishing speed and accuracy.

I'm thinking of all the household tasks I now have time for: finally tackling a closet I've been dreading for years (literally); paring things down, getting rid of say, half our stuff. I have the time but none of the will, because, let's face it, it's so very dull. If Jesus were to come back and I was cleaning out a closet, (I told Kevin and Sally today), I'd feel absolutely gipped.

How in the world do you spell that word? Gypped. That's just worse. Oh, I've no idea.

The sledding hill beckons children perhaps this afternoon but not me. It's a windchill of perhaps 1 degree and though I had high hopes of becoming Pioneer Mary and taking walks in every sort of weather, I am hiding from my better self today and baking cupcakes, one batch of which was a miserable failure (despite two sticks of butter, they taste like cornbread) and the other which succeeded so well I don't want anyone to eat them.

Jipped. That can't be right. I've been literate for a while now and my spelling just gets worse. Why?

Happy Friday, and may Happy Hour rise up to meet thee.

PS. Just ran the spell check and lo and behold, Gypped is correct. What a silly looking word that is. I wonder if it's embarrassed.