Four posts before 5 a.m.?

Did you notice today's posts, up until this one, are all before 5 a.m.? If they have a "bleak, icy" tone, it's not just the pre-dawn vibrations, it was 10 below zero. I love the pre-dawn hours. You feel you have the whole day ahead of you -- even after frittering away three hours, as I did, blogging, answering email, reading the NYT, and inking in the extra-hard (even for a Saturday) crossword. But I shook myself out of that early morning trance, cleaned up the kitchen from last night's ravagings, fried some eggs, watched the news on TV, and then sat down for a session of exam-grading -- yes, yes, there are still exams to grade.

All right. Enough of that. I went out in the cold -- the warmed-up cold: it was +1 now. A little banking. A stop at Mike's Liquor for some cognac and, in honor of "My Dinner With André," one of the favorite movies we might watch tonight, some amaretto. A stop at Whole Foods to get some ground beef for the Bolognese sauce. The man behind me was buying "Peace" cereal ("supporting peace") and vanilla soy milk. (Wonder if he enjoys Maureen Dowd columns about men who are looking for women to serve them?)

Now, it's time for another session with the exams. Tasks to choose from at the end of the next session: unpack the second of the two tables that came from Crate & Barrel and screw on the legs, put the Bolognese sauce together, clean the downstairs rooms, and finally hang the last of the five blinds I have been trying to put up since November. These things will all surely get done, because some blogger pals are coming by at 6 for some TV and pasta. I mean these things will all surely get done -- except the blind.