The weather is abominable. Winds are howling around the house, sleet is being whipped around and drips down the windows. The air vents in the bathrooms clatter in the wind. The dead Christmas tree that we put outside on the deck after Christmas (because we’re lazy, and we were going to chop it into pieces in the spring when the weather is nicer, and also because it actually looked somewhat decorative at a distance) has blown down twice, and then we gave up righting it and let it lie. I’m glad I don’t need to go outside.