In the week she was here with me in Chicago Sarah and I accomplished the following:

1) Visited and spent money at four different bookstores—five if you count the one in the Newberry Library—and wandered up through all nine floors of the Harold Washington Public Library in downtown Chicago, until we reached the sunny winter garden at the top.

2) Drank one small, dry cappuccino each at Intelligentsia, three times (two different branches).

3) Explored two museums, one spice store, one garden store, and several funky little whatchamacallit/thingamabob stores.

4) Cooked for each other: she made an amazing lime-cilantro-basil-peanut beef stir-fry from her latest holiday cookbook, and I made Thai curry (with Ross) and risotto. We have video of the production of the beef stir-fry, and when I look at it now it makes me weep that there is none left. I ate the last of it this morning with a scrap of challah. I nearly expired from happiness.

5) Watched Bette Davis smolder like a beautiful, bitter candle on the big screen at the Music Box Theater.

6) Consumed copious amounts of vodka, Wensleydale cheese with cranberries, peach cobbler ice-cream with fresh mango, and various other things that are good for both body and soul.

7) Watched seven episodes of Buffy (what? Sarah’s making her way through; it wasn’t my fault. Honest).

8) Photographed the city and each other using five different cameras, in snow, rain, and sunshine.

9) Talked for hours of cabbages and kings, food, creativity, life, love, the past, the present, and the future.

In the twelve hours since Sarah left me in my quiet house without Ross (who has gone to Spokane to see his family, and without whom I can neither be relied upon to eat nor to sleep according to a reasonable schedule), I have accomplished the following:

1) Cut my hair.