You know that old definition of eternity? Not old to me, but to you. It was in The Joy of Cooking, my edition. “Two people and a ham” is the Rombeck definition of eternity. I have added another definition: two people (or, worse, one person ) and a cauliflower. It goes on forever After soup, what? And then they invented cauliflower rice, and KD hides it in mac and cheese, and some shepherd’s pies mix cauliflower and mashed potatoes, and I enjoyed it in a cheese bread Kate made at the lake last year., and I have yet to eat it as a pizza crust. It does go on and on and on. I just cooked a PILE of stir-fried cauliflower and there’s going to be leftovers and I’m still looking at a good -sized, intact cauliflower to roast.

Not depressed exactly, but over-worked and tired is what I am, and not very excited about anything. Remember when you used to be excited about Christmas? It’s not that I don’t have a lot to do but most of it right now is tedious, grunt work, checking sources and references, and shopping for gift bags at the Dollar Store.. I keep having to re-invent myself. Well, we all do, don’t we? That is, if there was anyone there who needed reinvention.

Well - about excitement: I still remember putting my little girl, Kate, to bed a week or so before Christmas the year that she was four years old. As I shut the bedroom door I heard her sigh, a huge, jagged, several-syllable sigh in several different notes, not unhappy, just- excited, - unable to contain her anticipation. Note: no one can take a picture of that But I can still hear it.

My father was a doctor, as I’ve told you many times. On a house call he made shortly before Christmas (doctors did that in those days), he talked to a little girl as he was getting ready to leave. She was maybe seven or eight, older than my quivering Kate. He asked the child if she believed in Santa Claus.

“Yes,” the little girl said, “but this is the last year.” (I used the line in a play.)

I’m going to try to get excited about something this week, I promise..