This is what a good snowshoeing trail looks like. Fresh powder not beaten down by snomobiles. This is part of a route we take from our house along the lake, then up hill behind Heald farm and almost as far as the Troy General Store. We have also been out on trails in town as cold temps have kept our good snow intact. Most trails are snomobile routes.

What is the neatest thing about this guy Richard Blanco who will serve as the inaugural poet in a couple of weeks? That he lives in Maine? That he is Cuban-American? That he is gay? That he is a civil engineer? No, it is that he serves on the planning board of his town. He helps them get the wording of ordinances right. His poems are warm, funny slices of immigrant family life in America.

If at book group I traded a copy of Fabio Morbito's Toolbox to George for a copy of Keizer's Help, does that make me a closet UU? And what credit do I get for spotting a copy of a Marilynne Robinson book in a display of $2.99 books at Job Lots?

"Life is gathering material," as Robert De Niro says in Being Flynn, one of those movies that lingers in your head. Sometimes it is best to write about sensitive material in coded form. Gertrude Stein and Jonathan Swift come to mind.