Tiny Snow.

The city salted Friendly and Market and they also salted a little down in the bottom of the neighborhood, but not up here—perhaps they know I have nowhere to go and nowhere to be. Perhaps they also know that there's no real chance of any real snow. Half an inch, the fancies are saying. And only half a chance of that. So: scrap sheathing boards over the top of the firewood pile, and we'll leave it at that.

Finally got the outbuilding warm today. I'm learning that little stove. And about R-values.

This may be the first time we've even clouded over this year, it occurs to me. Don't get excited: we return to freeze-dried and sun over the weekend. It's forty-two degrees out there right now, though. Feels balmy. Feels like you might not even need a jacket.

Around these parts tonight we'll raise a glass in the direction of Nashville, towards my grandparents, 400 some-odd miles away as the crow drives, if the crow were to drive, on that same Highway 70 right over there on top of that Greensboro hill. They taught me to love rib roast, cooked one the Saturday after Thanksgiving for years and years. In 2740X tradition, I'm grilling one tonight while I quarter-assedly watch the championship game. I never much care about this game. I never much like the teams in it. But I do love a good cold-weather rib roast, and this is some good cold weather.

Happy January. And thanks, Apple Store Genius Bar people, for returning my machine at top speed and safe and sound, and clean, even. No more thumb grease on the space bar. And a computer that comes on. What a country. What a new year. How nice it is to sit in the quiet of that nearly-insulated building and be chilly, and then, once that stove fires, not be chilly. Now if I can just bang out a sentence or three, all will be good and right and holy.