I'm all by myself since my wife and kids left to visit in CT for a few days. It was a warm, sunny day and I spent it cleaning up my barn, making trips to the dump and generally organizing things to make life easier in my working world. It’s quiet without my little ones around and whereas it’s nice to catch my breath I miss them just the same. I would never have been able to get as much accomplished had they been around though.

The trees here are just beginning to bud and it won’t be long before they start producing the leaves that put the green in the Green Mountain State. I drove over to Keene, NH. to go to the bookstore and to pick up sundries for the coming week. They were having a sale on classical music and although I don’t really listen to classical much I did want to get something from Sergei Rachmaninoff. I bought two cds and I am listening to Adagio Sostenuto right now as I type this. It’s such a beautiful melody and it suits my mood at the moment perfectly. It’s funny, Eric Carmen wrote lyrics for this piece originally composed by Rachmaninoff and I believe it went to number one many years ago. Adagio Sostenuto was the original music although you may have heard it called… “All By Myself”.

I heard it is National Poetry Month in the US and so I will need to step up to the plate before the month is out. Must be because it's also my birthday month. There is also a new Poet Laureat in the US and whereas I have forgotten his name I know it's not me. How could it be? I haven't touched a poem in a long time. But it's been on my mind though. It pays $35,000.00 a year and you get an expense account of, I think, $5000.00. That'd be okay as long as it's part time and I can continue to work. Otherwise I'd not be interested unless I could weasel out some kind of graft or similar type of corruption that would help it pay better. I'll work on it and start boning up on my poeming in the meantime.