These days...

The heat is off, in the house, because it was relatively warm during the day. But it's been cold and rainy, overnight, and the rooms are chilly. A few years ago, I would've thrown a log or two into the fireplace, waited until they were well ignited, and warmed myself a bit before climbing back onto the futon. And I'd have gone to sleep listening to the crackle of well-seasoned logs burning, their faint, smokey odor filling the room.

But these days, our grandson lives with us and his athsma precludes the use of the fireplace. And it's also among the litany of health complaints I've developed myself over the past couple of years. So the fireplace is cold and the last stocks of firewood, and the storage racks we'd built for it, have long since been given away. And once this is posted I'll crawl back into the futon and listen to the furnace running while I wait for morning...