author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Hey! hey! guess what?! It is still, by the skin of its teeth, Friday, and here is a Fictionette: "Aya's Last Spell" (Patron-only links: ebook, audiobook), which is not nearly as sad a story as the title makes it out to be. Although maybe there's something sad about anything that's the last of its kind, provided that the thing in question is in some way a good thing. The last warm day of fall, for instance.

But hey, despite all my whining about winter in yesterday's post, I am here to tell you that there is at least one thing that does not suck about it. I went grocery shopping this morning, and there they were, piled up in a gorgeous and juicy display in the front of the produce section: It's satsuma season. Satsumas are serious comfort food. I bought a whole bunch of them. Also beet chips and plantain chips and peanut butter pretzel bites and pistachio nuts. I am all about healthy snacking this weekend.

Also a jar of "harvest pumpkin pasta sauce." It's orange. It's pasta sauce. It's a pasta sauce that is orange and made of pumpkins. I do not understand. But I have faith enough to commit to upending it over a stir-fried heap of spaghetti squash innards for lunch tomorrow.

There is also leftover butternut squash soup in the refrigerator. Soup is a cold-weather joy. Accordingly, I have stocked supplies for making udon noodle bowls too. Oh! And there's milk, for making hot chocolate. Which reminds me, the Hammond's candy display at the Niwot Market had these darling little hot chocolate stirring spoons--basically, a little wooden spoon stuck in a block of chocolate coated in peppermint sprinkles. You stick it in a cup of heated milk and stir until it's a cup of peppermint-flavored hot chocolate. I should go get some on my way home from practice Sunday, 'cause we've finally got hot chocolate weather now.

FINE. I suppose winter can stay.