I got through the regional and national contests and send WOMR the results yesterday. My room was covered with poems. You could not see the old Oriental carpet on the floor. Xena did not like that and demonstrated her displeasure by taking the brown shopping bag the national poems had arrived in and through the day turning it into unattractive confetti. My editor at PM wants an introduction and a new story to add to the paperback of THE COST OF LUNCH,ETC, my first and only collection of short stories. I started a new story in late November before all these tasks came due. I’d like to get back to it and hope I still can, once I have discharged all these contests and guest editorships and mss. for my class. I reached 117 this week. I caught up completely last Thursday and was proud of myself until more arrived. I haven’t gotten to them yet. Probably Monday. My assistant Melenie won’t be in as she is going for a doctor’s appointment at Beth Israel in Boston – where I had both knees replaced. Woody had a breakthrough in planning for raised beds for the veggie gardens. instead of hiring someone to build them, he found a local place that will deliver red cedar tomorrow and he has ordered the corners. That way he can make exactly the right size beds to maximize growing space. He will make the beds, starting at the next thaw, in the uppermost garden, which we call the Rosa – for Rosa Luxembourg. When I named it, I was thinking of a contrast to the Luxembourg gardens in Paris. Anyhow, that will be my garden to plane as I choose; Woody will control the main garden just below it; we’ll both work on the lower garden where he made 2 raised beds last spring. I was able to plant them and the pumpkins and winter squash did better than ever before down there. My computer is almost 5 years old and many things I want to do on it no longer work. the operating system is so old there is nothing I can download to fix things. We bought a new iMax to replace the old one and Monday a guy is coming to install it for me. I am looking forward to a new computer but with the usual trepidation of having to learn how to use all the programs they change and figuring how to do the things that I do in new ways. Today the Ravens come to Foxborough to play the Patriots. We are getting a pizza because they made the game start after 4 and I am damned if I am going to cook during the playoff game. I will mend sweaters the moths got to during it, but that’s the extent of my activities. Woody will go out and get the pizza before the game starts, we’ll heat it in the oven when we’re ready to eat and he’ll make a salad. We’ll have a valpolicello with it. Last night we went to a friend’s house to celebrate her birthday. She had always rented and every couple of years, she would have to move. But now she finally was able to get a mortgage on a small house. It’s perfect for her and the people who had previously owned it really put a lot of thought and money into making it attractive and livable. Because it is a small house – livingroom, kitchen, office, bath on the ground floor and bedroom upstairs, it wasn’t attractive to summer people who like big houses. therefore she has able to afford it. She works very hard, always has. It was a lovely party. Our friend Dale did the cooking. I made a sour cherry pie from what we were able to get from our tree before the birds raided it. I love tart cherries but it’s always a battle to get any before the birds eat them all. We harvested just enough for a pie last year.