Lest you think I don’t have my priorities straight, let me assure you that I was determined not to let having COVID affect my ability to eat delicious round foods on March 14th.

That’s right, Pi(e) Day 2022 was still on!

First up, quiche:

Our quiche is filled with spinach, feta, and Jamaican veggie sausage and was delicious, albeit a bit underdone when Rudi cut into it the first time. (The jiggle test failed me.) After we pulled out the first two slices, I popped it back into the oven to bake a few more minutes, and our second slices were much less viscous.

(Also, it is a particularly rich quiche because one of the two places I failed to adequately think out isolation rations was dairy. I went with full on heavy whipping cream so as to not run out of milk for our tea and coffee before we can make masked ventures back into the world.)

In between the quiche and my sweet pie, I also roasted a pie pumpkin that was starting to look sad and toasted its seeds. I’d cleared out the oven, after all, and was going to utilize it to its fullest.

Finally, it was on to the main course — dessert!

If you’re looking at my apple crisp and thinking it looks a little on the dry side, it is. I should have had a couple juicier baking apples, but I was trying to use up my oldest apples and they just didn’t produce enough liquid. So, yesterday, when the pie was fresh, it was just okay. Today, it was a far better pie as the apples had a chance to relax some.

But either way, we had COVID pie!

Spring arrives next Sunday, which means it’s time to consider the books I’d like to read as the weather warms and the sun stays up later and I’m able to read outside without my fingers freezing.

For this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, hosted at That Artsy Reader Girl, here are ten books I hope I get to before summer arrives:

1. An Impossible Imposter by Deanna Raybourn (the next book in the Veronica Speedwell series)
2. Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Sãenz
3. Sherry Thomas’ Miss Moriarty, I Presume?
4. Reclaim the Stars, edited by Zoraida Córdova
5. Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li
6. Emily Henry’s Book Lovers
7. My Plain Jane by Cynthia Hand
8. A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske
9. Malinda Lo’s Last Night at the Telegraph Club
10. Amanda Gorman’s Call Us What We Carry

Which books are you looking forward to reading this spring?

Rudi and I tested positive for COVID today.

We’d both been under the impression that spring allergies were plaguing us, an assumption reinforced by local meteorologists who assured us that the region’s pollen charts had suddenly skyrocketed off the charts last week. Rudi’s symptoms are worse than mine, again, in keeping with how we experience allergies (also, boy), so we’d been dosing with allergy meds and largely continuing on with our daily business.

In fact, the only reason I tested was because I was supposed to hang out with my most cautious friend and since I was snuffly I proactively sought to assure him there were no concerns.

Had it been someone else, I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought. And that’s how we assume we caught it. Because someone else assumed and didn’t test and brought their germs out with them.

Because we’re still careful. We’re vaxxed and boosted. We’re masking indoors and outdoors in crowded spaces (like the farmers market I visited this morning just before testing). I haven’t eaten indoors since … Salt Lake in January … although Rudi has. I have a relatively small footprint — thanks to remote working — and can give someone a rundown of pretty much every place I’ve been since last Sunday.

So, long story short, if you think your allergies seem particularly bad this year, it’s probably worth cracking open a rapid test (and I recognize I say this from a place of luxury in a city where tests are free and plentiful and handed out at most of our branch libraries) and making sure before you run out to the grocery store or work or a kid’s event.

And for goodness’ sake — keep wearing your mask so people like me don’t accidentally make you sick, too!

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Jordan almonds in Easter hues from the Italian shop.

2. My friend gave Planet Word a thumbs up when we visited on Sunday.

3. Walking in the evening with Rudi. (I’m looking forward to evening light returning in just a few days!)

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

I’ll admit I haven’t been doing a ton of knitting or reading recently. Sock Madness has stalled for me at 17 rows of knitting in a week, which makes finishing a pair in a second wholly unlikely. Tonight’s contribution to the endeavor was finding a cable needle.

I’m having a little more success reading in print. I have a book that I’m making progress through, albeit it slowly. I like the characters and the plot, but I’m loathe to see unhappiness come their way, which is surely has to for a short while in order to advance the plot. That I know the ending will be happy is probably what keeps me plodding along.

What’s had the most resonance lately is the audiobook of Stephen Spotswood’s Fortune Favors the Dead, a gumshoe novel featuring two female PIs in 1945 New York City, one of whom has MS and the other who is a bi former-circus employee. I don’t know if I’d be speeding through it quite so much if I were reading it in print; the reader does a good job honoring the this-side-of-parody approach Spotswood takes, which makes it a fun listen.

One of the things I appreciate most about the coolest months in D.C. is the preponderance of winter-blooming jasmine you see around the city, just waiting to make sure you know that spring is right around the corner.