Random-Ish and Spaghetti-Like

I'm tired.

Like I dunno... winter tired. Bone tired. And I've actually been sleeping.

They say "a woman's work is never done". It isn't. I recognize that other people seem to be FAR more organized and efficient than me. I may not be the best planner. I'm not the great housekeeper I used to be. Once the Sun came into my life it seems everything went to hell in a handbasket. Although while I was still working, I was pretty organized. I got up, got the Sun dressed and packed, put him in the Snugli or the backpack, got onto the train, got off at 125th, passed him over the turnstile to Bigbear, went back down to the platform, went to work.

So maybe I should say once I decided to go ahead and be an artist, everything went to hell in a handbasket. Maybe I'm just doing too many things. I feel like I'm never home. I don't have the time to do the projects and art work I want or need to do. The laundry is never completely done(how can only two people--one of them fairly small, generate so much laundry???), I'd love to cook for more than one day at a time but often don't manage to do that.

No, it's not Crackbook. Some of my best Crackbooking is done from my phone when I'm on a train. Though I do have days when I crackbook. No, it's not really blogwriting either. Besides, blogwriting is therapy for me. I don't write-I go nuts.

There just aren't enough hours in the day for one person. I'd feel worse about it except the two people I know who work from home/spend a lot of time shuffling the kids around--them being OneHalf and TheFatLady... neither one of them has time either. Neither one of them gets enough sleep. So I don't think it's just entirely that I'm a bad planner or a lousy housekeeper or an inefficient time manager. There's those things yes... but there just aren't enough hours in the day.

We slept late the Sun and I, and then I had to make him breakfast and hustle him off to Violin rehearsal. I was tired... had been up just about all night doing laundry. Then we shot downtown to 14th with Bigbear on a Trader Joe's run (Trader Joe's rocks), and then back up to the Bronx with a stop at Bona Vita Key Food for the rest of the stuff I needed. Then I came home and cooked. Did more laundry. Vacuumed. And I'm still behind.

But I needed to vent:

• I still want to write my "I Think I'm a Racist" post but it's still percolating, and since Black History month is around the corner--my least favorite month--I'll save my post for then, and in it I'll also explore why I hate Kwaanzaa.
  .
  
• I say I hate people, and I do. People suck. People are assholes. But at the same time, humankind is amazing. The history of our earth, or planet, the evolvement of language and custom and belief systems, the way we look depending on the region we originated in--all this fascinates me. We are all "Star Stuff". What make us up, the atoms and matter, is the same stuff that makes up the universe. What our bodies are made of; the cells, the plasma, the neurons, is all the same pretty much, no matter where in the world you find us. Yet each individual human is incredibly unique. How can you not believe in God... that there is a rhythm and an order to the universe? A plan?
  
  
• Why are humans hellbent on destroying each other? I haven't commented on what's going on in Israel and Gaza. But I've been thinking about it a lot. I don't know that I can take sides, even if it was my fight. I don't know enough about the specifics... haven't done any research on it on my own, to understand the politics. As someone who follows the Jewish faith, I have a sense of loyalty and I do understand the need for a country. But as an American of displaced descent, I can relate to wanting to hold onto the land I came from, where I was born. I can understand resentment at being pushed off of that land. But the numbers of the dead and multiplying...
  
  
• Tonight, walking to the bus from the supermarket, the sidewalk was a sheet of ice. I almost fell twice, and almost wrenched my knee out keeping my balance. The Sun, fascinated by the sleek, slippery surface and by the sound chopped up ice made under his boots, remarked "It sounds like I'm walking on broken glass. How come ice looks like glass, mom?"
  
  I didn't have a good answer for him. Why DOES ice look like glass? Two completely different substances, completely different temperatures. Yet, they're both slippery to walk on. And can be see-through. And can be shattered. And make crunching noises under your feet. I told him that a lot of things in life look very much like things unrelated to them. I think it's God's sense of humor, myself.
  
  
• I've discovered I make slammin' Hot Chocolate. Granted, for the most part I follow the recipe on the Hershey's cocoa powder tin, but I discovered something thanks to a box of hot chocolate I'd bought at Whole Foods once:
  
  2 rounded tablespoons cocoa powder per per person
  2 rounded tablespoons demerra or turbinado sugar per person
  a dash of salt per person
  1/2 tablespoon of vanilla extract per person
  dash of cinnamon per person
  for extra kick a dash of ground cayenne pepper per person
  1 cup milk per person
  1/8 cup or more boiling hot water
  
  In an appropriate saucepan, combine the dry ingredients. Stirring carefully but rapidly (preferably with a whisk) add enough boiling water to make a paste. Turn the flame under the mixture, stirring constantly. It will begin to bubble along the sides pretty quickly so be careful. It can scorch pretty quickly. Whisk in the milk, stirring constantly until the chocolate is almost boiling. Using a funnel, pour the hot chocolate into a mug. If you hold the funnel a little higher than the mug, it will make the chocolate froth. Top with whipped cream.
  
  
• The other morning I had to make a quick breakfast. And it came out so pretty and tasty I took a picture:
  
  3 large eggs
  1/4 tsp dried dill weed (fresh is better, but you'd need less dill weed if you do
  salt and pepper to taste
  2 tablespoons half and half (or milk)
  
  1 tablespoon butter
  1/2 cup coarsely grated Asiago cheese.
  (1/4 cup thawed/drained frozen chopped broccoli or leftover steamed broccoli if you like, or chopped tomatoes.
  
  Heat an oven to 550 degrees
  In a bowl beat all ingredients except the cheese and butter. In a skillet with a heatproof/metal handle, heat the skillet and add butter. When butter is melted, pour in egg mixture, pulling in the edges of the eggs as they set from the side of the pan. Lower the flame to low/medium. Once the eggs have mostly set, turn off the flame under the pan. If you're adding broccoli or tomatoes, sprinkle it on top of the eggs. Sprinkle the eggs with the cheese. Stick the skillet in the broiler, checking constantly. When the eggs puff up and get golden brown around the edges, remove from broiler. Cut into quarters, serve on top of buttered toast.