At my age, it feels like every week a friend comes down with a serious disease like cancer or just dies. This week a close friend was told he had to have a triple bypass and soon – in ten days. Someone Woody knows but I don’t – a guy much involved in conservation here and apparently robust and very active—was found by  passing motorist after he has dropped dead hauling fire wood. He had no known medical condition and has just turned sixty last month. Since I had barely made his acquaintance, it didn’t affect me as much as Woody who was thrown off balance. He liked the guy and he was Woody’s age. Woody is building a raised bed herb garden for me. It’s a lot of work and he calls it a labor of love. I have always had an herb garden since I moved here inn 1971. These last three years, I couldn’t tend it since with my artificial knees, I can’t kneel for longer than a minute. it got overgrown and many of the herbs succumbed. I couldn’t dry any herbs but had to buy herbs I’ve always grown. I made no herb teas. I made no lavender sachets to keep away moths from my sweaters. Even in that period between eye operations when I was legally blind, I tended by herbs, although I did get stung a coupe of times because I could not see the bees when I was cutting herbs. This year, I did manage to make some herb vinegars –tarragon, chive blossom – but that was with Melenie’s help while she was my assistant. Melenie and I did many activities together I know I will never find anyone else to share – making freezer jams, sometimes planting, harvesting, cooking together. She became a pseudo-daughter. I miss her. It has been unseasonably warm with occasional cold breaks – we did have a frost one night that killed off the tender plants. We are getting salads from the garden, leeks and Swiss chard. I have one ms. I read and blurbed for a poet who had taken my juried intensive poetry workshop but a Detroit anthology I haven’t gotten to yet is hanging over me while I prepare for a panel at Temple Shalom in Newton next weekend. I prefer a poetry or short story reading to a panel – ten times, no a hundred times more. Willow is growing fast. She may be the happiest cat I’ve ever had. She purrs when you touch her and prances around all day with her tail straight up like a furry pole. I wrote only two poems this week. I’m negotiating for gigs on the way to and from Ann Arbor in late January – so far without success – and on the way to and from St. Louis in mid April, with two in Ohio already confirmed. I’m still waiting on Detroit. It’s important to attach subsidiary gigs to the big ones to pay for staying on the way and to make all that driving worthwhile. Tonight, friends are giving a party with lots of good food – they can cook. So many people can’t or won’t. We’re looking forward to it. Today I want to take the screens down. I always leave a few in strategic places, for instance in the diningroom to let smoke out when something burns or spills in the oven. I made a great dish last night of chicken with quinces. It’s my adaptation of a Romanian recipe. Served with brown rice and a salad and white wine. A small amount of leftovers should give us a good lunch.