I read the word "demon" as someone unrelated said the word in the background, and then, not five minutes later, I read the words "the great wave" the instant someone on YouTube said the same thing! Spooky message from the beyond or just too much multitasking?

Last year I retraced John Steinbeck’s journey to Baja, Mexico. He and his best friend, marine biologist Ed Ricketts, collected specimens in one of the most biologically diverse oceans in the world. My account of that trip is in the current issue of Alta.

There needs to be a name for the jarring effect in prose of a writer stopping the flow of narrative, looking something up real quick on the Internet, and inserting it, fill-in-the-blank style, into a paragraph.

I made chocolate bonbons with speculoos-cookie-ganache filling. I’m happy they came out. Tempering chocolate is intimidating.

Thanks!

As you can see, the scarf is quite long. We changed the color of the yarn to mark special occasions. The big yellow patch, for example, is the cross-country trip we took in June. It creates a visual picture of how chaotic 2023 was for us!

Update on the knitting clock my husband made last year. It knits a row per day, marking time while making a scarf. Here's a picture of the clock on the last day of the year.

Thanks! Happy new year.

Over on my blog, I posted 12 Things From 2023, where I describe this rather awful year, including my dad's death, my mother-in-law's stroke, and ten other events--some good! www.ohjoy.org/12-things-fr...

Emily Dickinson’s Gingerbread Recipe www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/wp-content/u...