My winter SupportTeam

My house is amply stocked with books and there's no chance I will run out of things to read while a storm rages outside.

All the same, if so much as one snowflake drifts past the window I check the supply on my bedside table, and if it looks low I irrationally race to the library to top up.

It really doesn't make sense. Enough food in the house? I don't know. How much reading material on hand I know to the comma.

Around October of each year I am filled with angst about the winter months. Will it be as bad as last year? Will I be able to get out once in a while? Dear heaven, what if I run out of reading material?

That attitude is little iffy in the mental health department so I do take steps to lighten up.

I settle on a few authors who make me laugh or completely absorb my time and make sure I am stocked up with their works.

This year as always one choice will be Ross Thomas; he wrote mostly about the Washington political scene with a lot of conspiracies and bad deeds tossed in the mix. He had a dry, sophisticated humor and a perfect mastery of the language. Robert B. Parker, who died last week and whose Spenser series will be deeply missed and appreciated by me. Janet Evanovich and her Stephanie Plum series. It's unlikely that I will get through many chapters before I am roaring with laughter and that's perfect.

I just finished books by Peter Mansbridge and Rex Murphy and now I am alternating between Evanovich and Parker and Paul Shaffer's new book.

Did I mention I happen to be the mother of a published author? (Age of Persuasion co-authored by mike Tennant) It does seen fitting to mention this.

Since I am in a confiding mood, I must confess that so far this winter has been tame and perfect; the roads are drive- able and the snow falls in mannerly amounts, generally at night.

So far.

And my books and I are doing nicely.