Now Playing: Felix Mendelssohn, Violin Concerto.

It appears to be the general trend for blogs to shake themselves off at the end of November like dogs emerging from a cold lake: "Well, glad we got that over with." (See Alistair, James, and co., Anna, Rachel, Jenny, Annalee, and even Asher.)

When I woke up this morning, it had been raining. The rose-and-gold colored leaves of the sweetgum tree outside my window were tipped with ice.

Showed up to work at half ten. I was three minutes early (score!), so instead of sitting in the car and trying to sip down the last few mouthfuls of hot Punjana, I rang Sarah to see how her revision is going. Her final for nursing is tomorrow morning.

O and I were the only two waitresses working this morning. The lunch rush began at noon today and only lasted for half-an-hour. I felt as though I could still breathe (for the most part), which was unusual. All my customers were kind. A couple of guys who came in yesterday came in today with a friend. They always order the same meal, right down to the drinks, but their friend kept asking me if we had beer and if he could bring some in from the club next door.

The lunch rush subsided quickly. I successfully checked out my last customers and started cleaning. Not having to deal with the soft drink machine today, cleaning went much more quickly, and O invited me to eat with her.

O and the cooks ended up leaving, so I finished my salad alone. The restaurant was empty except for the two bosses and the afternoon cook. I drove to the post office to post Christmas cards to the McCs and the Ws in N.I. Waiting in a line that ran out the door, I started A Ring of Endless Light, which Tara had lent me.

At home, I changed clothes quickly and took the dog around San Borne Lake. The afternoon was dramatic with the morbid flair of winter: brown-and-grey fields made even more dismal by soaking rain, low dark clouds racing across the sky, strokes of pale light glancing on black branches. No birds in the woods today except for a flock of mallards sheltering in the lee of some trees on the water. The dog raced and sniffed, zig-zagging, yo-yoing ahead and behind.

At home again, I sat on the floor and talked to Nicole on the phone for forty-five minutes. Intense but refreshing. Just as my mother called upstairs to say that tea was ready, we said good-bye. Annie chased a twistie all over the dining room floor during tea. Insane animal. My father and Stephen went to basketball practice in Ponca tonight, as usual. Having nothing else to do, it's become something of a tradition for my mother and me (and Sarah, when she's free) to watch a film on Tuesday evenings. Tonight, my mother and I settled down in the study to watch Prince Caspian.

I've written e-mails and uploaded photos to Facebook. My father and Stephen are home now. Outside the wind roars up the street, howling, a great, eerie endless booming in the bare trees. It whistles in the screen and moans like a siren under the door. It even stirs the curtains hanging over the window.