1) Eaten an amazingly intense dinner of bean curd skins stuffed with crab, spicy shrimp salad, and sweet/hot whole fried cod at my favorite Thai restaurant in Brookline.

2) Drunk obscene amounts of white wine.

3) Gone ocean kayaking under the beautiful sun (Hi, tough shit arm muscles. So glad I’ve been working you out for the past eleven months. Also, hi, Dana! I can’t believe we ran into you and Matt there! It was the most beautiful serendipity).

4) Wandered around the South End, stopping to sigh over the motley crew of butt-sniffing, ball-coveting, pug-humping puppies that filled the dog run we passed on the way back from the market.

5) Gotten half-soaked in the rain while walking.

6) Consumed the best portabello mushroom pressed sandwich I have ever eaten and the best hot chocolate I have ever sipped.

7) Gotten other-half-soaked (thus, wholly) in the rain while returning.

8) Made restaurant-quality pea-risotto while wearing the coziest pair of sweat pants ever (thanks, Jenn).

9) Seen a lot of this killer smile.

Edited to add (I can’t believe I forgot!)

3.5) Slept in till ten and had the perfect Sunday morning: newspaper, mug of coffee, challah french toast with veggie breakfast links, maple syrup, and strawberries as sweet as friendship.

Sigh.

When altering an alarm on a cell phone so that instead of reading “2:37pm” (whereupon it is used to wake you from a peaceful afternoon nap) it reads “4:45am” (a time that will allow you to rise with plenty of minutes in which to shower, eat and kiss your husband before getting on a bus to the airport for a 7:50am flight), it is not sufficient to merely edit the time; if you wish actually to be woken (and thus avoid nearly missing your very small, leg-room free AirTran plane), it is necessary also to press the somewhat unobtrusive button on the phone labeled “Enable.”

Just thought you should know.

I’m leaving tomorrow, very early, for Boston. Wish me luck. And if you like, you can read this while you’re waiting for me. It’s not the piece of writing I’m proudest of producing over the past year, but it does have the somewhat delightful distinction of being the first paid science journalism I’ve ever done in print form. I’m working rather hard on not letting it be the last.