On December 22, I waded out into the snowy garden and cut collard greens for dinner. It doesn't take much to excite us these days, and we were all very pleased to eat them, and marvel about them. I served them alongside sirloin medallions, roasted plum tomatoes, and brown rice, which Tom and I ate together in the dining room and Paul ate an hour later in the living room, after he'd tromped home from work.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and like much of New England we're forecast to get a giant wind and rain storm for the holiday, with power outages, trees down, etc. This year just won't let up.

Oh, well. I am determined to make the best of what we have to work with. If we end up eating bread and carrot sticks for meals, so be it. At least we have a wood stove and running water, and running water is more than we had in Harmony when the power was out.

Today Paul will mix up brioche dough for a babka, and I will undergo my abs class and then do some editing, and probably we'll play Scrabble, and I'll go for a walk with my neighbor, and eventually I'll make polenta and roasted Brussels sprouts for dinner. I'll read Proust, and Tom will try to solve the crossword puzzle, and Paul will sneak up behind us and play some loud walrus noises on his phone . . . 

Family life in the time of Covid.