Q: How to know you’ve probably done too much baking in one day?

A: When you reach out for something with your left hand and are horrified to realize that you’re using all four of your fingers together, as one, to oppose your thumb. Just like you would, if your left hand was in an oven mitt.Yes, indeed, the holiday baking is done at last. The final tally of destruction: two batches each of fudge, Boston cream candy, gingerbread, chocolate chip cookies, peanut brittle, and one batch of blondies.

Strangely enough, my kitchen is clean. I had enough time between batches to clean things up as I went, and my kitchen is not destroyed at this point.

Tomorrow I will rise, wrap everything up, and head off to stores to find the boxes I’ll need to ship these packages. I’ll go with Kat to the AAA office to pick up maps for my roadtrip (yes, road trip, it’s official). Then I’ll go home, package up the goods, address the boxes, and head to the post office for the ascertainment of the final shipping bill.

Then it shall be done, and I shall rejoice quietly.

Amidst the baking, today was good—calls from Andrew (“road trip? excellent!”), John (“Can you get Jeff to help me? I’ve got a problem…”), and Brad (“Hey, here’s an update on what’s been going on here…”). I felt…connected, somehow—a feeling that often is a bit lacking considering that I’m often fairly physically isolated from my friends.

When I mentioned to Brad about a friend I was keeping an eye on, he laughed and made comment about how I seem to mother all my friends already. Once I’ve got this many, what’s one more?

But the highlight…Bravo screened Wings of Desire today. I’ve wanted to see this film for some time, but haven’t been able to find it for rent. Aaron recommended it highly—in fact, it’s his favorite movie—and when I saw that it was being aired today, I stopped everything to watch it.

It’s lovely—achingly sad, pensive, lonely, lovely—almost movie-haiku in its attempt to evoke emotion using images and (few) words. It cements my earlier feeling that Hollywood’s attempted remake, City of Angels, was a bad idea at best and an insult at worst.

I hope Andrew has seen this movie. If not, then I think we might have to watch this while I’m in Illinois. Aaron says he might have to watch it again soon. Perhaps these two events can be made to coincide.