1. Tea 2. Bread 3. Shopping 4. Pantry 5. Emotions
Today was my last day completely off work or outside duties for weeks and weeks to come. Today was made difficult by some interpersonal events in the house, and by a good deal of emotion and memory rumination. It figures that whenever you delve into the world of your stuff you will not just be addressing the physical stuff. I am not sure I am ready to talk about those things here today. I imagined this blog would be a lighthearted way to keep me motivated and keep perspective on the wacky world of my things and (lack of) household organization (despite the reality that these things got this way for some not so great reasons). However, I am proud that despite these things I pushed on and made progress on a key project and did not just lay down and sleep or cry or shop as in the past. Back to the list:
I began the day by making tea. You may imagine that this involved a serene ritual, some artful ceramic mug, steam, careful selection of delicate leaves, and bamboo somewhere in the background. I too kept that fantasy in mind: later in the day I would count and discover I --a single human-- had 28 boxes, pouches, canisters etc of different types of teas. Note I live in a city with a tropical sweltering climate so hot tea is not really often on the menu but somehow it is part of my mental identity nonetheless. No, it is the South, we make iced tea here, though I don't sweeten it (Yankee anathema!) and the sad fact is I used only one of the hundreds of tea bags to boil up a soup pot full of ultra strong iced tea (it was a taxi pitcher sized bag) which can be stored and diluted in six mason jars. One jar will last me a day with diluting and ice. This is about four days to a week's worth of tea. This is not exactly using up volume of material quickly but it is economical, given how many times I stop in a week for a cold drink as I drive or am at school, and how much seltzer water we have previously been buying as our main household drink.
I got the bread machine down from the high shelf and washed a sticky coating of accumulated aerolized oil residue and thick dust off its surface. It is astonishing how much dirt and dust can accumulate supposedly in a modern house. I used to think of dusting as silly and trivial. I no longer think this. It is perhaps the only way we have left to keep back Ragnarok.
I looked up the manual online (of course we do not have the manual) and assembled my ingredients for French bread (no butter or eggs here). I found a jar of bread machine yeast which must be at least four years old and I had my doubts that it would work but one must try in this life, so I threw it in. 3 and a half hours later: really lovely French bread with a crunchy crust. I put fake transfats margarine on it and imagined I was in Paris, except i had carried my filth and dust with me on the plane. The bread machine bodes well for using up volume of material, however.
I made a trip to the grocery store. I did not need anything but it was my closest spot to land when I had to exit the house due to interpersonal events. Usually my habit is to drive around the city in a state to calm down, but that wastes gas and is not a particularly safe practice anyway. I wanted a few fresh veggies, so I bought a dollar bargain bag of tomatoes and some asparagus in sale for $ 1.99/pound ( that is a good price). I bought a bottle of heavy cream to round out my tea and coffee ( the powdered milk didn't cut the mustard yesterday), and some dog chews on sale for Coffee because he loves me and I love him and on our recent travel north there was a days long battle between him and Max over a rawhide donut.
And I cleaned the pantry. This epic struggle will be the subject of a future post.
Today was my last day completely off work or outside duties for weeks and weeks to come. Today was made difficult by some interpersonal events in the house, and by a good deal of emotion and memory rumination. It figures that whenever you delve into the world of your stuff you will not just be addressing the physical stuff. I am not sure I am ready to talk about those things here today. I imagined this blog would be a lighthearted way to keep me motivated and keep perspective on the wacky world of my things and (lack of) household organization (despite the reality that these things got this way for some not so great reasons). However, I am proud that despite these things I pushed on and made progress on a key project and did not just lay down and sleep or cry or shop as in the past. Back to the list:
I began the day by making tea. You may imagine that this involved a serene ritual, some artful ceramic mug, steam, careful selection of delicate leaves, and bamboo somewhere in the background. I too kept that fantasy in mind: later in the day I would count and discover I --a single human-- had 28 boxes, pouches, canisters etc of different types of teas. Note I live in a city with a tropical sweltering climate so hot tea is not really often on the menu but somehow it is part of my mental identity nonetheless. No, it is the South, we make iced tea here, though I don't sweeten it (Yankee anathema!) and the sad fact is I used only one of the hundreds of tea bags to boil up a soup pot full of ultra strong iced tea (it was a taxi pitcher sized bag) which can be stored and diluted in six mason jars. One jar will last me a day with diluting and ice. This is about four days to a week's worth of tea. This is not exactly using up volume of material quickly but it is economical, given how many times I stop in a week for a cold drink as I drive or am at school, and how much seltzer water we have previously been buying as our main household drink.
I got the bread machine down from the high shelf and washed a sticky coating of accumulated aerolized oil residue and thick dust off its surface. It is astonishing how much dirt and dust can accumulate supposedly in a modern house. I used to think of dusting as silly and trivial. I no longer think this. It is perhaps the only way we have left to keep back Ragnarok.
I looked up the manual online (of course we do not have the manual) and assembled my ingredients for French bread (no butter or eggs here). I found a jar of bread machine yeast which must be at least four years old and I had my doubts that it would work but one must try in this life, so I threw it in. 3 and a half hours later: really lovely French bread with a crunchy crust. I put fake transfats margarine on it and imagined I was in Paris, except i had carried my filth and dust with me on the plane. The bread machine bodes well for using up volume of material, however.
I made a trip to the grocery store. I did not need anything but it was my closest spot to land when I had to exit the house due to interpersonal events. Usually my habit is to drive around the city in a state to calm down, but that wastes gas and is not a particularly safe practice anyway. I wanted a few fresh veggies, so I bought a dollar bargain bag of tomatoes and some asparagus in sale for $ 1.99/pound ( that is a good price). I bought a bottle of heavy cream to round out my tea and coffee ( the powdered milk didn't cut the mustard yesterday), and some dog chews on sale for Coffee because he loves me and I love him and on our recent travel north there was a days long battle between him and Max over a rawhide donut.
And I cleaned the pantry. This epic struggle will be the subject of a future post.
Comments
Post a Comment