***
Dear love, up in the aerie, 5:30 p.m., sipping a glass of icefilled white wine, nice & minerally, Spanish, not a rioja, but reminiscent, dry & minerally, of the type a glass of which I savor when on occasion I take myself out to lunch...

Sweetheart, I wonder where you are... I sense that you're thinking of me, and you know that I'm thinking of you.... Many kisses, a few right here...

I'm back from a couple of hours in town. My writerly friend emailed me late last night suggesting that we catch Dickens' Christmas Carol, the matinee performance, a one-man show, the same actor who did the Emersonian play I saw a couple of months ago (with the same friend). I'm glad she suggested it - actually we'd floated the idea beforehand, but in early December the idea of going to a play on Christmas Eve seemed, I don't know, a little out of reach. I mean, it's a crunch time - even for me. As I emailed her in response to her message, I had actually toyed with the idea of attending the performance myself, and quickly dismissed the notion because I had so much cooking & baking to do.

Which I did -- I simply re-organized my day and got them out of the way this morning. I was baking two different types of cookies (dough pre-prepared), plus assembling two different types of involved salads... and I hadn't unloaded the dishwasher of yesterday's clean dishes... and the sink was full of dirty ones from last night's dinner plus breakfast.... plus all my mixing bowls & chopping boards and what have you--- the kitchen was, as of around 11, an absolute disaster zone -- the culinary equivalent of the Mr. Bean episode when he unleashes a paint-bomb to paint his apartment. I was just determined to get in my "trio", plus the cooking, plus the play... so I had to try to beat the clock, all the while trying not to overbake cookies, while ministering to other pots & pans.

Crazy. But do you know what? It all got done. I raced the clock and managed even to completely clean up the kitchen after the aftermath - one would never know that a mere hour before a small nuke had hit it. Ah, eleven. Oh good, D's not coming home til 1:30, I have to wash my hair, and I have to take a walk, let me lie down - oh my darling - with my battery-operated toys (one of which seems to be flagging, but hey, there's a spare), and so I did, raised the heat upstairs, kicked Claire out of my bed, shut the door, took off my ripped cashmeres (my sleepwear is very 'Gray Gardens' that way these days), and went for it, and thankfully despite all sorts of thoughts in other directions...

Ah finally! And with time to spare. I could get in an abbreviated workout, and then wash my hair, and dry it in the freshly cleaned brilliant sunfilled bathroom (because today was a beautiful sunny day) and then - for lunch - sample the salads I'd made, and sprint out the door.

Wow, way too much tedious detail, darling - I'm not trying to file a police report.
Listen officer, I love this man, crazy as it sounds -- oh, right - just the facts? well it was pecan shortbread, except that it became all crumbly, and also a taboulleh salad, and a curried couscous salad, which I hope will go over well

though D sampling them at lunch declared them all delicious

Dearest love, I need to break away from this post & join corporeal life already in progress -- the aroma of D's sofrito for arroz con pollo (at my request) is floating up the stairs.

All my love, wherever you are,

my tenderest regards in every way -

(this post is a mess, but I simply must launch it as is --
very many kisses -- )

Belle