I shake stunningly beautiful snow from my mittens onto my cats. Mid-January. Winter’s loveliness has just arrived. My house is again the three of us, two fluent in Cat and one marginally fluent in Human. The one who speaks Human gets the deciding vote, so we get up very early. The Cat speakers are wholly in favor of this, as the wood fire is fed and the cat kibble rationed into bowls. Eventually, the dawn finds us, and the rest of the world creeps in.

If this keeps us, the prognosis is mad-as-a-hatter by Honest Abe’s birthday. No fear of that. Any hermiting is constrained around here. Two small excerpts from my novel are accepted by journals. The cats and I nestle into our narrative. I let them lick butter from my fingers. Snow silently fluffs around us, concealing the stars, the sunflower stalks, the ash bucket I left by the step.