Tell me again why I live here.

Snow blown from open fields shrouded quarter-mile stretches of the highway as I drove to work this morning to turn in grade sheets for the last time this year. When I took this photo of the highway, an SUV about one hundred yards ahead of me had just entered the cloud of snow that blew from right to left across the highway. I had hoped to catch its taillights disappearing into the snowy fog; I should be grateful the driver didn't slow or stop the vehicle.

Temperatures have stayed so low (between 0� and 10� F) for so long (well beyond the diminishing range of my short-term memory), that I welcome a break in the weather that sends temperatures soaring to a balmy, spring-like 25� F. The truth is, however, that winter is yet to come, and the ground is frozen and the cat's not well.

For the next few days, however, I can (I will) wrap myself in the cocoon of hearth and home, living a life without deadlines (except meal times) and responsible for most of the day only to the squirrels, sparrows, juncos and cardinals at the feeder.

If this entry were a balanced one with the lead photo and implied query at the top, then a photo might appear below as a reply, a photo of me in a full-drool sofa snooze at two in the afternoon, perhaps. That no such picture appears is further evidence of life's apparent (not fundamental) imperfections and its lack of a comprehensible (not nonexistent) plot.

Reading: I've finished Robinson's In a Dry Season and I've begun an earlier one in the series, Past Reason Hated.