SGFE---Beer o' clock

Julia and Julia made me miss cooking, too. There in Poland I had a well-set up kitchen. I brewed beer and rootbeer, made cheese, bread, pancakes and homemade sausage, and over the years made things like fig newtons, mustard, chocolate peanut butter cups, “Snickers,” salsa, guacamole, flour toritialls, corn tortillas, “Cinnabons,” orange marmalade, etc. I also made fruitcake yearly, and I made a bouche de Noel each year and put a picture of it in my journal. Oh, those long winter nights when I’d put on Jim Lauderdale or Songs in the Key of Springfield or A Charlie Brown Christmas and whip something fun up. The whole kitchen would be a mess by the time I finished, because I use the time when things are cooking to prepare the next steps of a recipe, not to mention interruptions. But by the time I would go to bed, it was clean and in order. Ricky recently requested muffins, so I had to email V my recipe.
I don’t know what else I can write about that I miss in Poland, unless it is connected with Ricky. We had a nice apartment. And, of course I miss my friends Luke Newrok and Andy Tchibo. I had a good church there, too, conservative in theology but liberal in practice, where the people really cared about me. R would go there with me. V didn’t go but stayed home and did Christian Yoga and watched breakfast shows. She went to Catholic church once every couple of months. On cold days I took him to church by sled, pulling him behind me. There was no Sunday school, so we would go upstairs and play with toys. When the weather was warm enough, we’d go outside. We’d fellowship and the happy throng—Andy and his crew and us and whoever else—would wander back home, where I’d usually make waffles.

Right now I want nothing more than to have several hours of rest and drink several beers, followed up by a lazy morning. I don’t want sleep so much, though I suppose I am not getting enough; I want rest. I have been subbing for sick teachers at my school, and consequently have to come right home and go right to bed and get a minimum of sleep starting at an hour that is much earlier than normal for me. I take naps, which helps. Now I have a cold myself.
That sort of routine of the evening and morning make life for me. After a day of teaching, I get off the bus at abt ten o seven and shop if I need sth, or I just go straight home. When I get home and start preparing my dinner, the theme of Family Guy starts playing in my head. I eat or take my dinner to the living room for two episodes of the show. At midnight I have beer—at this time black and tans: Guiness on top of Bass. (A barkeep in London once warned me not to order one if in Ireland.) Also at that time the good tv is pretty much over and I should turn it off and blog and play guitar instead of waste my time watching news about celebrities’ bikinis and the like.
If I really get into the blog, I’ll have a third beer, but I usually will have played steel by then. I now know all of Cold, Cold Heart.
I hit the shower at abt one a.m. and get in bed at abt two or two-thirty. I would go later if I was in my own place. Right before bed I read for abt five or ten minutes.
A writer once said that a successful day depends on a leisurely breakfast. I agree. Coffee—four cups—and a good newspaper with an international view (NY Times, Gauridian, etc. are ideal.
I don’t really turn on until the afternoon, which is when I’m ready to operate at full tilt.
Even when I worked as a machinist and got up at 4:45 every day for years, I still operated like a night owl who was trying to go to bed early and never really got into a good habit. Early to bed, early to rise saps life if you ax me. Some of the most self-righteous people I have ever met regarding jobs and sleep hours are farmers.
But it’s really nice to have money again, for the first time in three or four months. Steve no longer has to buy all my meals when we go out. I can drink better beer (I still want to homebrew—waiting for my own place. I just wish I had time to enjoy life. But the three-day weekend is coming—I only work Monday thru Thursday.
Thursday five o five. Beer: 30 is almost here.