TrueOyster of Ember

It was a chilly, drizzly day, so I didn't finish the raking. I hope I can do it tomorrow, which is supposed to be a dry day before it actually rains on Thursday. I kind of wish I was going to be here to work on the yard next week, but I'm sure I'll be having more fun at the beach house. Instead, I finished putting the laundry away and partially cleaned the bathroom. I didn't scrub the bathtub yet. We went to the bookstore to work, for a hit of cheer in the afternoon. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home and bought a lottery ticket--just in case! I found the old recipe for brownies that I used to use. It has four eggs, four ounces of chocolate, two cups of sugar, one cup of flour, half a cup of butter, and a cup of nuts. And some vanilla and a pinch of salt. Wow, cool, I just remembered that off the top of my head. It's simple. I wanted to make that one, and another one that you can mix up in a saucepan, and see which one was better. But I ran out of sugar. So I just made the one. Then I called Dr. Nurse to arrange a hostage exchange--her Tupperware container for my cake holder. The Tupperware was full of still-warm brownies. I had learned via email from the Duchess that Mr. Dr. Nurse's grandfather died this weekend. When we stopped in, they both looked very tired. They had dark shadows under their eyes, and Dr. Nurse said she'd been up since 4:30. Those poor young things! This not-sleeping thing should not happen to people that young. We only stayed a minute, because they clearly needed a quiet evening. I hope a chocolate-enriched snack helped.

I also made four loaves of bread and disassembled the remains of a chicken so I could boil the bones. We watched the Hallmark Christmas movie channel while we waited for the bread to get done so I could make the Sparrowhawk his favorite snack--fresh bread with mayo and a big slice of tomato. Believe it or not, I had three tomatoes sitting in a bowl, the last green tomatoes that I'd picked off my plants before the first frost. I kept thinking I'd make fried green tomatoes with them. But as I procrastinated and they continued to sit there, they actually ripened! Two of them turned red, and one turned yellow. We ate the red ones tonight, and they were good and in fact tastier than the ones you buy at the store. A small miracle. I'm beginning to enjoy the Hallmark channel . . . am I losing my marbles? It's probably a temporary aberration. . . .