Actually a little snow last night, enough to require a light shovel this morning. Not enough for a snowblower, although I am anxious to try the big two-stage donated by neighbor Kathy. But also not enough, one might hope, to crust up what remains of ice on local lakes. I'm predicting a regatta—not this weekend, but the one following.

As an alternative to news I've been looking over Shakespeare's sonnets, and being astonished, once again, at the skill of the Bard. Sonnets are hard to write. Would it not it be fun to hang out with William for a week or two, looking over his shoulder as he was writing—writing something like this:

Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

One bit of fun is to try reading this out loud. It's not easy, especially the amazing line 10. After that, another bit of fun is reading it along with a skilled reader, like this: