1. Our last few gingerbread stars are still crisp and good; still tasting of the butter we measured and melted and mixed.
2. I read aloud from his book until my voice cracks, my mind partly on what makes this narrative unwelcoming and hard work, and partly on the story of rats swarming a post-apoc Moscow subway in which ailing, fearful survivors form and break alliances across the dark between the stations.
3. We argue back and forth about important matters such as whether an omnipotent god could create a stone too heavy for him to lift; and whether by repeatedly halving the distance between two object you can ensure they never touch. Another twenty minutes of distraction.
