It is January 12th and it is pouring rain outside. But we needn't go digging for our little Totes because the deluge is about to end. Tomorrow we start the plunge. I was to visit a friend in Minneapolis this week-end. Not anymore! The high there will be – 10 F! (In the negatives here as well.)

Listen, I’m all for bypassing weather talk. After the horrors of South East Asia and the disastrous flooding in Southern California, I want to do away with this topic. But my eyes keep straying outside to the flash of umbrellas... Yuk.

Do you wonder why a Wisconsinite has to find ways of amusing herself during this bleak and troubling month – with, for example, taking great pains to arrange the top of the shelf next to her desk, just so that the eye can roam to the warm, soft glow of the lamp over the two wooden figures from Poland? A pleasant distraction from the damp gray slush outside.