Christmas Eve.

Yesterday in 27408 we woke up to mist and rain and then hard rain — almost a March rain, a spring rain, warm for December, anyway, fat drops, almost a half an inch out of all that. And then mid-afternoon the weather broke in a kind of dramatic way, sun hinting through the clouds and then the edge of the front rolling through clean as a line, a few last clouds and a high blue sky, sun off to the south and west and heat in it before the temperatures went spinning down out of the sixties for the thirties.

It had been a long, long time since I'd wanted to see the sun, since I'd seen the weather clear and thought that might be good. We're still six hundred inches below normal rainfall, but it's hard to say that when the sun came through yesterday and the dog aimed her face into it and we went through the neighborhood with the rainwater still running through the gutters that things weren't beautiful in a kind of indisputable way.

And now Christmas Eve, live from Asheville, NC, where after we got the car over the mountain last night we returned suddenly to winter, stiff wind and a dry cold air. They got their share of rain here yesterday, too, but this morning dawns cloudless and yellow and the dog can tell she's now where geography counts for something, keeps sniffing the air for moose, for elk, for grizzles, for something. For something well out of her abilities to chase after. Something to hope for. All this fur she's been pulling in all fall seems worth it.

A holiday's a strange thing. It's ten-thirty in the morning. My cousin's thermometer says it's 42.7 degrees outside. Let's go, for now, with what can be measured.