Spanakopita filled with feta smooth as butter; chicken soup creamy with egg and lemon, sharp with dill; pillow-soft lamb; baklava taken apart into cream, crunch, cinnamon and caramel.

Why does the cat continue to gaze longingly at the bag of awesome Japanese crunchy snacks from which I am eating even after I offer her a tiny crumb of it and she acts like I have just given her a bit of poison? Cats must live in a magical world, where things are very mutable. It was poison, but maybe now it is tuna. Can I have some?

Can lasagna containing three different kinds of cheese (totaling approximately a pound and a half altogether) really be bad for you if it also has spinach and mushrooms in it?

(I thought not.)

Why on earth do I spend up to half an hour a day clicking around Facebook? If pressed, I could not possibly explain what I am even doing there. Yet it must bring me pleasure, since I continue to do so despite, at any moment (if at loose ends) having the option of going and getting myself a warm lapful of kitty. This has eliminated virtually all other forms of useless Internet fuckery, yet Facebook remains enthralling. Mysterious.

Will the lemony lentil soup we have taken to making every week still be as good even if we don’t use chicken stock, but just salted water, as The Minimalist claims?

Do giraffes try to find mates matching in height because otherwise their necks would really start to cramp up when they kissed?

Is this week going to go the way I want it to?

Will the lime tree ever flower?

When will I be free?

I have made the food I love most to eat:

I am complete. I have a cat, and I have a means of cheesecake production. I need nothing further.

Ross and I, looking forward to the leftovers of last night’s dinner but not being quite ready to eat it yet, decided to try making microwaved potato chips with the potato we had lying around from yesterday. They turned out beautifully, and we ate them with relish and pride—but five minutes later we both started feeling completely sick to our stomachs, probably (we now realize) because a few of the potato pieces were still a little raw, even though they mostly seemed nice and crisp.

Now we don’t even feel like having our soup: ergo, saddest.

After a marvelously enjoyable Saturday evening—which I would recap except that then I’d have to tell how you it involved me having three very strong drinks and I think I may have gotten a little too gay—and a very relaxing Sunday—on which I found myself floating on a homemade lunch that seemed to have come straight out of a bistro—the week has been a little heavy. Work bores me to numbness, which is okay because then my brain matches my toes. The end of December rushes towards me and, though I resist reflection, insists with accusing eyes that I judge myself and my year before I can move on.

Still, today held the prettiest parts of the season, and the yummiest parts of the pantry, and all is well until tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.