I’m trying to learn my lines for the play, Dancing at Lughnasa, and it is not as easy as I had hoped it would be. Then again, the nightly hurricanes this week have exhausted me, and I have trouble concentrating when I’m groggy. Pearl reacts to the wind and the rain like it’s thunder, or fireworks, and pants and whines and jumps on and off the bed. For three nights in a row I bet I got a combined nine hours of sleep, and I really do need eight hours in a row. The rain is a challenge emotionally. It’s just so unusable. Snow and ice I can work with. Ski, skate, snowshoe. Sled with the kids. Shovel it, even. When I said so to Chip he agreed that he’d rather be snowshoing than hiking in rubber boots, but wishing won’t make it so, and at least we have rubber boots and two good legs to walk on. ” I wouldn’t choose it, but I’m not complaining. It’s saved us a lot of money. The store is so slow, at least I’m not paying 200 dollars a day to plow the parking lot.” It is still January, after all. —And we are gaining five minutes of daylight a day, and I can feel it — and here’s some even better news: Lexie and Stuart had a baby girl last night in Sitka. (Well, very early this morning, when I was finally sleeping. Did you know it blew 70 again at the Eldred Rock lighthouse during that storm?) Loralai Lani DeWitt was born at 3:07 and weighed in at 8lbs.4oz. and by all accounts all is very well.
