The scene outside the living room window looks like a pen and ink wash. The stark black strokes of tree trunks towering above the white of newly fallen snow has mellowed with the freezing rain, bringing out shades of grey, on the trees, in the snow, the sky and the house in the distance.

Today, I stopped at the nursing home as part of our church’s ministry. The signs warned of a gastrointestinal illness at the facility and urged visitors to consider rescheduling their visit. Many of my friends have been posting about stomach bugs online and I hesitated for a moment. Yet I suspected that the residents may have had less visitors than usual and my visit might be all the more important.

The greyness and illness have dampened my enthusiasm for research and writing this weekend. I was thinking about installing Neo4J and playing with that a little bit, but that is more than I’m up for right now. I had been thinking of writing more about some of my recent dreams, which have been intricate and complicated.

Then there are the books I received for Christmas. They’ve been giving me ideas for various writing projects that I haven’t been able to launch into.

Meanwhile, Fiona is listening to ‘Castle’, which she does a lot. As one episode ended and the wrapped up all the pieces, it struck me, an episode of Castle that might be particularly interesting would be of an impoverished ex-student who kills a pawn broker.