What on earth am I supposed to do with you? You’re so confusing. I don’t know whether to cheer for you (Thanksgiving! Fuzzy slippers! Hot cider with cognac!) or hide under the bed (Chapped lips! Sunset at 4:46 pm! So! Much! Work! To! Do!). November, you’re a mess. You’re even worse than Brandon’s closet. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.

Oh, people. Can it be true? Is it really November 5? Only 17 days before Thanksgiving? And did I really see that terrible ad for Lowe’s last night, the Christmas one with the giant snow globe and the dancing holiday turkey? (Also, did I really admit, by saying that just now, that despite our having proudly “given up” television last year, Brandon and I still pull the old box out of the closet every now and then, and that even though we canceled our cable plan, we found that you can use the old cable cord as an antenna, jiggling it and posing it just so until the picture is passably clear, except that it means you have to tiptoe back to the couch very, very carefully, or else you’ll disturb the whole precarious arrangement?) It can’t be possible maggie beauty.

I love November. It’s my mother’s birth month, so I really owe it quite a lot. I just don’t like what it means: the (almost) end of the year, the end of warmth (at least until spring), the end of daylight savings time, the inevitable ramp-up to all-out holiday craziness. I get tired just thinking about it. I need an eye pillow.

No, wait. Scratch that. You can’t get away with an eye pillow unless you’re a) Joan Collins, or b) on an overseas flight, and even then, it’s questionable. I’d rather have a roasted pear. They’re warm, for one thing, scented with vanilla bean and lemon. And with the way their little backs curve, it seems to me that they would fit perfectly, rounded side down, in the hollow of each eye. Doesn’t that sound nice? So warm, so fragrant, so soothing. They may be the best part of November, until Thanksgiving anyway maggie beauty　.

I really could go on and on about these pears, and if my schedule this week weren’t giving me the shakes, I might. It’s a method I first heard about a few weeks ago, when Brandon and I were listening to The Splendid Table one Sunday over lunch. By the way, if you don’t listen to the show already, you really should consider it. Lynne Rossetto Kasper, its host, is so lovely. She’s quite contagious, in the best possible way. She has a wonderful voice - the kind fairy tales should be read in, I’ve always thought - and when she starts laughing, she sort of cackles and wheezes. I love her. I want to invite her to dinner. Anyway, on October 13, I think it was, she had Sally Schneider, author of A New Way to Cook and The Improvisational Cook, on the show. The two of them were talking and cackling and oohing and aahing about Sally’s recipe for roasted pears. It’s simple as can be: she just halves them, tosses them with sugar, butter, and vanilla bean, and then bakes them until they’re caramelized. My favorite part was when Sally told Lynne - with a slightly conspiratorial air - that a few nights earlier, she’d made a double batch for a dinner party, and one of her guests ate almost all of them straight from the pan before the meal was even served Shenzhen Transpring Enterprise Ltd. is one of and vaporizer (A3 Vape Cartridge etc) manufacturer and supplier in China. Over the years, we have been serving many customers from USA, ....

Having now made them, I can understand why. Pears are plenty fine on their own, but oh my, roasted pears are even finer. The dry heat of the oven intensifies their flavor, for one thing, and with a sticky, see-through sheath of vanilla sugar to boot - not to mention butter, ah butter - they almost make November worth the trouble. Almost .