O singer of Persephone! Dost thou remember Sicily?

I dreamed of aiding and abetting a mad scientist in New York City, the kind who had been responsible for genuinely non-cinematic mayhem and in hiding for years. I kept being taken for male and possibly in the dream I was. I was also thought to be dead, for reasons I can't remember either. At one point we were looking through used books on one of those street-vendor's tables; I had no money, so I didn't buy a children's picture book, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman, in which Medea ran off with Hades when he came for the two sons she'd murdered. I remember her with red ribbons and gold coins in her black, heavy hair, and the same shade of blood laced all down her arms.

Impending Fimbulwinter notwithstanding, the Hanukkah party was good: conversation, two kinds of homemade applesauce, and many, many latkes. My brother made onion rings, Randi made fried pickles. There was a substantial quantity of chicken and I forgot about the baked apples, with the results that we have sort of a third kind of applesauce now. Attendance was somewhat reduced because of the storm, but I was very glad of the usual suspects—Eric and his people, my best cousins, nineweaving. Two friends of my mother's showed up somewhat late in the evening and were evicted just as it began to snow. My brother and Randi are still here and may be until tomorrow, unless the state of Massachusetts gets off its frosty keister and actually clears the roads. (But we sent everyone home with fudge, as it is now that time of year.)

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go out again and shovel the snowpocalypse.