Sunday, cozy Sunday

I love waking up to the sound of rain on the tin roof - especially when I know it's Sunday and I can burrow back into the blankets and allow myself to emerge from slumber by degrees. When I finally got up this morning and shuffled into the kitchen to make coffee, my to-do list for the day had taken shape. It looked a little like this:

1. Keep pajamas (or "soft pants," as my friend Kristin calls them) on as long as possible
2. Listen to all of To the Best of Our Knowledge on NPR
3. Read friend Eli's annual Year-End Letter, which arrived Saturday in the mail
4. Email Eli with profuse thanks for letter
5. Look at pictures taken Saturday at Mission San Luis' First Christmas event; download good ones
6. Mess around in the kitchen; prep for the coming week's meals; cook up a pot of caldo verde
7. Go see a movie (would require changing out of pajamas)
8. Read as much of the Sunday New York Times as possible before time to watch "Downton Abbey"
9. Try to stay awake through "Downton Abbey"
Not a bad little agenda for a rainy, chilly Sunday, I'd say. If I feel the need for some outdoorsy input, I can always read another chapter of Robert MacFarlane's "The Wild Places," or indulge in some backyard birdwatching through the kitchen window. In fact, I just had a staring contest through the binoculars with a young red-shouldered hawk perched in the walnut tree over my patio.

I don't mind narrowing my horizon to the kitchen window sill for a day - the transformative experience exists in the small spaces of my little nest just as it does in the expanses of salt marsh or the leafy cathedral of the piney woods. The window sill is in fact an altar - one of many in the house - with its own peculiar collection of totems and offerings.

I hope it rains all day. Maybe it'll wash the purple splotches of bird poop off my patio - blots left by the gluttonous, drunken robins that have been having rowdy berry-eating orgies in the cherry laurel tree in the back yard. My garden can use the rain (and it means I can postpone the grubbing, weeding and planting I was planning on doing today). I can use a quiet day of domestic devotionals.

I got plenty of people time Saturday at Mission San Luis, where my friend Chris was on duty in period attire with Henry, his big galoot of an English mastiff (the Spanish conquistadors traveled with war dogs much like modern mastiffs).

My pal Jennifer (Chris' significant other and Henry's human mommie) and I met up with some other friends and strolled around the grounds, which were bustling with living history interpreters and visitors.

So, today, the wee cottage and domestic pursuits that give me so much deep, deep joy. Jennifer and I agreed earlier this week that we could easily be happy as housewives, which seems a bit shameful to admit in this day and age. We are both products of the feminist era, with demanding, rewarding careers we love. Jennifer is a superb investigative reporter and writer; she is also a creative, intuitive and excellent cook who is happiest in the kitchen with the dog underfoot, kids racketing in the next room and a friend perched at the counter drinking her good red wine. I am.....well, I am whatever I am in the working world, but always a writer at heart. And I will get as much of a thrill cooking my Sunday caldo verde as I will from crafting a well-turned phrase for this blog.

The small obeisances of folding laundry warm from the dryer, of washing arugula from the garden for the week's salads, of tidying the jumble of books stacked by my bed, of washing dishes and all the myriad nest-fluffing tasks - they are so satisfying.

And now I'm going to go peek at the hawk again - he's still sitting there, impervious to the dive-bombing of the screaming bluejays. And then I'll start cooking that caldo.

Happy Sunday. Enjoy this cozy day. Blue skies will be back before you know it.