Celebrating in Cambridge.

No snow here--just rain, and then clouds, and then clearing. But grey wetness is a good backdrop for small cozy spaces full of loved ones, and for a little stroll through (or at least near) one's new haunts, and for convivial meals. Even if we couldn't go into colleges today, because every one of them was locked tight, I was glad for the chance to show them off--with even a little flourish of proprietariness. I find myself using first-person pronouns at unexpected moments this week.


The sunset was just red enough to make me hope for clear skies for tomorrow's walk through meadows I love, beside a river I greet daily. It felt like a sunset of great promise.

Tomorrow, one night late, we will flambée a Christmas pudding, and I will think back with enormous fondness on the last time I flambéed something, back in my old house in Ithaca, with all my graduate school friends, one of whom stood by with a fire extinguisher in case the cherries jubilee flared up out of control. May it not require that much brandy to flame the pudding tomorrow.