i remember her, i don't remember me

I had a nice, quiet day, but it sure would be nice if the pandemic ended. It's too easy for me to fall into mindlessly scrolling twitter because nothing else is going on. But I managed to avoid that temptation for most of the day - I slept in a bit, made coffee, read one of the new cookbooks my parents gave me for Christmas, and then made scrambled eggs since I didn't have the ingredients for anything I might have made from that book. I then spent some quality time this afternoon trying to get my house back in order here - this mostly meant doing a bunch of laundry, organizing things in my bedroom, etc.

At some point, I had a long phone chat with California Barbara - we hadn't talked in a couple of months, and she texted me about something, so we ended up talking for an hour. That was a delightful break, and also made me deeply miss my California writing crew. Then, I made a new-to-me recipe for chicken enchiladas - they weren't from the cookbook I read, but rather from a reliable recipe website. I wasn't at all sure how they were going to turn out because the enchilada sauce tasted a little too oily and my corn tortillas were a week past the expiration date (despite having been purchased four days ago) - but they were really delicious and I would totally make them again. I also spread them across three different smaller baking dishes rather than making a 9x13 pan, so I can put two in the freezer and have a couple of meals each when I thaw and bake them at some future date. All in all, Future Sara is v. lucky that I had this foresight.

While I was cooking, and for a couple of hours after, I watched most of a Masterclass by N.K. Jemisin (author of some totally amazing fantasy novels). I signed up for Masterclass last week on a bit of a whim, thinking that watching some writing-related classes might replace the inspiration that I used to get by attending conferences - and while Masterclass can't replicate the real magic of conferences (aka sitting in the bar and getting industry gossip), the lecture itself was pretty thought provoking. There are a ton of interesting writing classes available, so we'll see what I get through in the next few weeks / months.

And now, I should go to bed - but first, allow me to document that yesterday I had a v. long, luxurious dinner with Katie at Bar Dough. We hadn't seen each other in almost two months, so we were very overdue - and I was able to snag a reservation for a private greenhouse, which is a totally enclosed space with heaters and a bluetooth speaker to play your own music. The reservation was supposed to be for ninety minutes, but they let us stay almost three hours - so we had burrata, and then a completely delicious pasta (I ate every bite despite the server selling it as 'big enough for leftovers'), and then a glass of fernet for dessert in homage to my San Francisco life. Then we left and sat in my car outside Katie's house talking for almost another hour. It of course wasn't enough to get fully caught up, but it went a long way.

And now, I'm going to bed for real - goodnight!