Argh!! I just spent an hour and a half in a meeting - from 5:30 to 7:00 - in a room with big, floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on the incredible frosting-like snow, with trees bowed down and looking like the Sugar Plum Fairy scene in the Nutcracker . . . my skis and wax some 100 yards away, and untouchable . . . I love to ski at sunset.

This is the first snow of the season that has felt magnificent to me, and that I've wanted to be out in every chance I can get. And I won't get chances: I still have acres of papers to grade before my plane takes off.

Well, maybe I'll get chances.

I do seem to find a way to get chances when I feel this strident about something, don't I?

(And a big raspberry to me for letting events in my personal life overwhelm me this winter to the point where I forgot what's really important. Let's hope I learned a lesson.)