a melted cheese kind of day

I am working from home today, because I'm working on an article that is soon to be published, not in an academic journal, but in a journal that I had actually heard of before writing the article, which is something. Stay tuned. There's a winter storm warning in effect (my other reason for working from home), so I am watching the stages of winter storm go by in the outside world-- first several inches of snow, then torrents of rain, and supposedly there is flooding about.

Because my brain is working so hard and because it is this kind of a day, a day that makes you want to eat warm and gooey things, I have been eating way too much cheese. First a grilled ham and cheese sandwich (as my LOTR-obsessed husband would say, an "elevensie"), and then a very nice quesadilla. I'm not sure the cheese is helping my writing-- mostly I just feel like taking a nap.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and I'm excited, because I've always loved Valentine's Day. Even in all my lonely single years. I just think it's a great day to celebrate the people you love and how much they mean to you I'm reading a Paul Theroux book right now (he's a travel writer) and he is paddling around The Happy Isles of Oceania (that's the title of the book) and observing the indigenous people and their culture (this is about 20 years ago). In one group of people he found that the relationship they valued above all else was friendship-- and that even marriage was only seen as being a uniquely strong friendship, and that's why it was special. I thought that was interesting, and not untrue.

Not that I'm not really happy to have a Valentine this year, in addition to all my great friends. He took me on a very cool date on Saturday-- a reading of John and Abigail Adams' love letters to each other (some of the letters-- there are over 1000) accompanied by small courses of food taken from Abigail Adams' cookbooks. The letters were read by a pair of actors who did a masterful job. The letters were really interesting (and beautiful), and then the actors stayed in character and took questions. I happened to use the restroom afterwards at the same time as Abigail and she was still in character, exclaiming over the toilet paper and other modern amenities of the bathroom. Very funny. A bit later she was talking to someone at the next table over and J was listening in and suddenly she turned around and said, rather sternly, "Young man, I see that you are admiring me. If you have anything to say to me, you had best direct it to my husband." John walked by about then, heard the comment, and said to J, "It's quite all right sir, I admire her too." We laughed!

Here's a picture of us: