In their own time and place

And last night we broke out the air conditioner for the first time since October because it was too hot for me to sleep otherwise. Heat-stunned and half-coherent, I wandered downstairs at four-thirty in the morning and fortunately derspatchel was still awake. The cats were puddled on the hardwood, transferring heat as quickly as their fur would let them. Sure, summer, come right in.

Before then, we made scones with my mother and helped her plant a bed of pansies by the front steps and transplant two forsythia bushes from the back to the side yard; we gave her a small clay hedgehog which Rob introduced with a tiny pen-sketch and a line of written Russian: a small bird saying, "Now you have a hedgehog!" It lives indoors now, with the cactic and the succulents.

( Ёжик. )

I did not try to see Psycho (1960) at the Brattle Theatre and I think I made the right decision.

Sydney Padua is speaking tonight at Porter Square Books. I have been reading Lovelace and Babbage since it existed. I got my brother a Brunel T-shirt for his birthday in 2010. He still wears it. Guess where I'll be?