Moment of truth for the kitchen counter stool: all the parts fit; it doesn’t look like a drunken donkey. Time for semifinal sanding and glue-up.

I know this is crazy talk to people up north but when spring comes this early I feel cheated out of a few weeks’ pleasurable anticipation.

This is Dashiell, my new canine overlord. He enjoys listening to Peter and the Wolf and is a fearless destroyer of welcome mats.

I would love to have a way to avoid gas stations where a screen flashes and yaps at me while I pump my gas. Or, I guess, to find gas stations that don’t have them. But that would require an app, and then I’m back to staring at a screen. Seriously considering just buying a mule.

I prefer to wake up my books by playing the “Good Morning” song for them. But sometimes I just spill coffee on them.

the daffodils I buried now knife blades slicing flaccid earth stretching reaching soon they will grow hands

No matter how many chairs I reupholster, I always have this moment of hesitation before I start breaking it down. What if I make it worse? Realistically, I cannot make this chair worse.

The cardinals are beatniks, with shades and goatees / Reciting bad poetry out in the trees.

A steel-haired couple dining out with his shrunken mother. The man’s posture rigid, emphasizing his gut. He orders his meal and his mother’s with the tone of one used to being in charge. His wife talks of baking. She says that she will not bake peanut butter cookies because only he will eat them. The old woman mumbles through a sudden glimmer of a smile; her son shrugs a reply, his eyes on his uneaten salad.

Left to right: blade mace, split vanilla bean, cardamom seed, peeled lemon zest. Steep in freshly boiled simple syrup (2 cups sugar in 1 cup water) until cool, strain, and add to seltzer for the best cream soda ever.