The foreshadowing device is nice too

Yesterday was Christmas. We did a Zoom call with P’s family, gifts between us (a Chinese cleaver and sand ginger for P, books on Japanese knitting patterns and Lakota recipes for me) and what had arrived from family (grippy oven mitts, a trivet, nice coffee, local corn grits). I spent the rest of the day getting grouchy and hormonal but managed to declare it and shield P from the worst of it. Crossword after lunch. The afternoon went to roasting the enormous tromboncino: sliced the neck into short lengths, peeled, diced; cut the seed cavity in half lengthwise and then did the same, scraping out the seeds with a grapefruit spoon. Surprisingly spaghetti-squash like texture around the seeds. Roasted with olive oil and salt, four sheet pans total. Roasting was a good call, since they reduced in size so substantially that I suspect boiling or steaming would’ve resulted in something watery and tasteless. As it is, the resulting tiny cubes are delicious. A+ will definitely repeat the experiment next year.

Dinner, talked to my folks, scrabble (563), SG-1, sleep. Extensive dreams about pandemic mishandling in schools.

Started reading An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green. The autobiographical content is pretty uncomfortable, but the plot is legit and the characters are sticky and imperfect. People solving problems in groups. Recommend.