My son called me at 11:30 last night.  The phone had been ringing for I don’t know how long.  I eventually woke up and fumbled in the dark for the receiver.  He was sobbing.  He aplologized for waking me up.  He told me that he wasn’t going to school tomorrow, and he wanted me to know.  He apologized again.  I told him I was sorry, asked him when I could see him next.  Suggested we get together to open a bank account for him the next day.  He said okay, through his sobs.  I’ve never heard him so sad.  I remember sad.

After the storm that dumped a foot of snow,

After the buzz of two-stroke gas engines,

After the plows have deposited their loads of salt and sand

            and pushed the black and brown slush to the sides,

After the shoveling and scraping and chopping,

After the white is mixed and muddied and melted,

It snows again.

Just a light, fluffy veil,

And all is new.

I’ve been riding my bike to work everyday.  This week has been the coldest week of the season.  I can honestly say I have never ridden a bicycle in weather this cold.  Ever. 

Since I ride from Kingston, over the bridge to Red Hook, I need to dress for a 45-minute ride.  Yesterday it was about 5 degrees F, but I was warm. 

Except for my toes.

I need to figure that out.  My theory is that bike shoes, though they may have insulating layers around the feet – mine are actually winter shoes and very warm – let cold air in through the soles.  When your feet are on the pedals instead of the ground, cold air rushes over all sides of your foot – top, sides and bottom, so even if you have heavy socks and booties which cover the sides and top of the shoe, your feet still get cold.  There is really not much insulation in a piece of plastic covered by a athletic insole.  So my next goal is to find some way of insulating the bottoms of my feet. 

I just started reading David Copperfield.  I haven’t read a book by Charles Dickens since I was in the ninth grade (Great Expectations) but I remember really liking it.  David Copperfield is supposedly Dickens’ favorite of all his books. It’s also, I think, his longest.

Though I’m only on chapter 3, I already love it.  Dickens’ prose is very wordy, but it’s fun to read, especially out loud.  And I love it when the narrator says stuff like, “It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if it were the next day when Peggotty broached the striking and adventurous proposition I am about to mention . . .”  He sort of talks directly to the reader, alerting me that something worth paying attention to is about to happen.  It’s fun, and it makes me perk up when I’ve been skimming along over some complex, wordy description, not paying too much attention, just thinking, “Oh this is just some more description I don’t need to read very carefully it’s not that important I don’t think,” and suddenly, “Whoa, what’s this?” and I’m now paying really close attention.

I think I’m going to like David Copperfield.

There are about 5 pounds of steak left over in the fridge.  Very large tupperware container.  A pile of beef.  I know it’s going to spoil before I can eat it all and that bothers me.  Maybe it’s the guilt from a Catholic upbringing where my mom frequently used the refrain “People are starving in Africa!” whenever we left anything uneaten on our dinner plates.  Maybe not.

Actually it has to do with a commercial I saw recently for, I think, KFC.  Some kind of big meal deal.  Really big meal.  And there’s this guy sitting on a couch and his cheeks are puffed and moving as he chews and smiles and someone says, “We are NEVER going to eat all this!” and the guy nods and smiles wider.  And I think something is wrong with a meal that is that big.  There is something wrong with be willing to pay for the experience of having too much to eat.  Because I know that I don’t have to go all the way to Africa to find someone who is hungry.