I’ve completed work on my new poetry book and now I’m waiting for the contract to sign. Then I’ll send it in.  In the meantime I have begun very preliminary work on my Outspoken Author book contracted by PM Press.  I wrote only two poems all week.  I’m waiting for my appointment with the 2^nd doctor at Beth Israel-Deaconess on Tuesday, hoping for a date for my knee replacement.  Unless I am busy, that’s all I can think about. I’m scared, nervous but my biggest fear is that he won’t schedule the surgery in time for me to fulfill my many gigs this spring.  I didn’t schedule anything for next fall because I thought I'd have the surgery then. But in the last  month, my knee has become far more painful.  I’m really hobbling around like a hundred year old.  I can’t live this way. I’m used to being very active.It has been very cold here. We had our first snow of the season, but it didn’t last.  Two hours later, it vanished.   We had a huge rainstorm one day, temperature shot up and the floods came down. We’ve been in a drought since August, so the rain was welcome but the high winds were not.  Still, we didn’t have any appreciable damage and the power stayed on.  All that’s left in the garden is a few Brussels sprouts –we had a huge harvest this year – and the remaining leeks that are hilled up and protected.  I keep learning new ways to cook Brussels sprouts and leeks.People love them or hate them; I think it’s genetic.  I love them so long as they are not overcooked.  I feel that way about everything in the cabbage family, cole crops.We had Thanksgiving with friends at Lois & Ramon’s house.  Everybody makes something.  I made my rum pumpkin pie and also a new recipe that was called cranberry apple relish but since it’s cooked was more like a fancy cranberry sauce.  It was delicious, spicy, chewy.  A wonderful feast, I think the best yet at our mutual friends Thanksgiving.Woody has been doing very hard work outside, covering roses with compost and tree peonies with salt hay, putting the gardens to sleep, turning the compost pile.  I’m of no use at all this year since right now I can barely walk.  I feel guilty, but until I get my operation and recover from it, I am utterly useless outside.It was interesting going through my essays, slow going but fascinating to me.  Sometimes I surprise myself.  I thought when I got the contract I’d have to write a lot, but I’ve only written one essay.  The problem is going to be cutting down on the length.  Even though only political essays are appropriate, there far are too many to include.  Since unlike fiction or memoir or poetry, I don’t read them to an audience or collect them until now, I forget most of them once they’re published in some zine or anthology.  So it’s almost as if I’m reading a stranger’s words.  Wow, when did I write that one?Efi my rescued Siamese is getting frail.  She’s going on 17, has chronic kidney disease and suffers from mild dementia.  Still, she’s pretty happy and so far her quality of life is okay.  She even played a little this week.  She has actually been getting on better with the male cats than she ever did when she was healthy.  For the most part, they’re good with her and don’t try to bully her.  When the youngest gets feisty with her, she gives him a good swat.Bring on Tuesday!  Waiting is driving me crazy.Tomorrow, December lst,  I open up applications for the 5^th annual juried intensive poetry workshop in Wellfleet June 16th-20^th 2014.  I need from any poet interested 5 of your best poems.  No resume, no bio.  I judge purely on the quality of the five poems submitted.  Generally I make my decisions by midJanuary, but I read the manuscripts on a first come, first read basis.  So if a good submission comes in on January 14^th and an equally good one arrived December 14^th, the earlier ms. takes the place.