I dreamed about an orphan boy who had been crippled with polio. He was perhaps 7 or 8 years old, black hair, olive skin, thin bent over and walked with difficulty. No one would adopt him, so he was due to be shipped out to the big concrete orphanage forever warehousing place. The social worker in charge of finding him adoptive parents, in her desperation to save him and as a last resort, took him up the hill to the vast rambling shack of a thin overworked motherwoman, black, who already had adopted 14 children. She agreed, resignedly, to adopt the boy, too, and add him to her brood. She stood at a stove stirring soup in a large pot as they talked. I think she resisted at first but finally was convinced to accept him.

I dreamed about many other things. In memory I see faces and have impressions of places and clothes and movements. And I can't articulate any of it.

***

The world is gray and white today and very cold. Some snow fell overnight and continues now midday to fly sideways across the block of yellowdeadweed vacant lots we look out on from our big windows here at the Old Same Place. I am sleepy. My bones hurt and there is a catch in my back from having slept funny.

Hot shower. Bufferins. Grab brotherB and head out for groceries and bookscouting. Over the weekend we brought home all our winter clothes from storage, so I have many warm sweaters to choose from.