Meanwhile...

While I was grousing, wrapping up in blankets, feeling cranky and fatigued from the cold and Zoom, Japan had an earthquake (a delayed aftershock), a train derailed downtown, there was a bad fire at a complex housing students (12 apartments destroyed, the residents displaced), local firefighters had to battle that fire and fires related to the derailment in sub-zero wind-chills, Texas had a snowstorm (!), Portland had an ice storm, and now it's snowed in Nashville. Meanwhile, though Covid-19 rates are down, people are still suffering and dying from it. My little problems feel small indeed. Still, I forgive myself and give myself the needed days of just reading and resting. It helps me be better, I hope, when I interact with people again. Sigh....

One of the books I read on my couch was News of the World, by Paulette Jiles, a paperback I got from the ongoing library sale and which will go out in our Little Free Library once it's warm enough to go out there again. Tom Hanks is in the movie of this, and when I Googled it, it looked like I could see it on Netflix, but that was old news indeed. Or confusing news. Netflix streams it internationally but not here in the U.S., where it is again playing in some theatres, it appears. I will wait. But I am eager to see Helena Zengel, the young actor who plays the girl taken captive by the Kiowa, with whom she identifies, though her family of origin is German. I was drawn to her in the book.

The sun is shining today! It's up to 22 degrees! I felt warmer at work by keeping my hat on, and now I'm warmer at home by keeping it on still! My chalkboard poems have been shivery and blurry but there all month so far, and it's a short month, so I'll probably make it--a poem a day.