January is a dry dirty month

January is not my favorite. Even though yesterday, at a garden party in Belvedere (not our usual stomping ground, but as they say, don't buy drugs but always accept them) I saw my first acacia and tulip magnolia of the season, blooming earlier on the mild bay than in contemptuous Cupertino, it's still a dreary smudgy dusty not-enough-sky in your eye month.

This weekend saw the stains (wine? chocolate? it was a birthday party, for Pete's sake) come out of the red tablecloth at long last. Hot water and Oxyclean. A very yucko load of towels covered in wine stains, garage floor debris , leaves and broken glass (that was a spectacular feature fim, "Wine Bottle Meets Cement Floor"). The regular cold colored (2), hot socks and tshirts (2), cold pale (I can't really call it white, cream, beige, gray, yellowed, peach, undie colored). Stella's sheets are still in a pile on the garage floor, red, purple, gold, orange. There is one green pot holder on the top of that pile. That redeems it all somehow -- a bad weekend, in spite of the champagne in Belvedere, my sister/brother in laws, a successful Patriot's football game, and sleeping in Sunday morning.

January blows cold, clear, and dusty. Too soon for green and blossoms, never too soon for a bad day at the office and itchy hair. I'm not convincing myself. Are you? Begin descent, watch. Watch.