Where did my sourdough starter come from, and why is it called Sigrid?

Back from the state conference. Lorraine and I ran the swap table again, the twenty-seventh year by her count. On the last morning she handed me a pint jar with a square of cloth over the top and said, "Feed her on Saturdays." It is sourdough starter, a piece of the one she has kept going since 1994.

I have named it Sigrid, after Sigrid Undset, since I am six hundred pages into her. Lorraine says a starter should not have a name grander than its owner's. It rode home in the cup holder.

Fourteen below with the wind. The Packers lost to the Giants at home after losing one game all season. R. turned it off with six minutes left, said "Well," and went down to the basement to sharpen chisels.

Sunday calls: Ellen at 6:30, tired, Owen has an ear infection. David did not pick up. Kate texted "busy can I call tmrw" and I answered that tomorrow was fine.

I am rereading "Kristin Lavransdatter" before Norway, in the newer translation this time.

She sleeps through most of the visit now. I read anyway; Annette says she is calmer for a voice.

When she was awake today she had business. She has given me three things, and had Hal bring them in so that she could see me take them. Her own copy of the book I am reading her, with her pencil in the margins from thirty springs. One drawer of the old card catalog from Stony Brook, the oak one, S to Sh, which she carried out to her car the week they went over to computers. And a quart jar from the back of her refrigerator: the starter. The original, from 1994, the one mine was taken from.

She said, "Feed her on Saturdays." It is what she said the first time.

I have two now.

Forty-six years. Ephraim, room 6, two nights. R. walked the whole shore trail on the new knee and timed himself.

I read "Tom Lake" on the porch swing in an afternoon, in cherry country, with a slice of pie. I would have telephoned Lorraine before I had finished the last page.

I keep both starters going. R. has labeled the jars: S, and S Sr.

Dr. Raghavan has taken me off the bone pill after five years. She calls it a holiday. My spine is, she says, slightly better than it was.