Old habit/problem, new title.

An article in the Manchester Guardian this morning identifies my (yours too?) bad habit of delaying my (your) bedtime with non-essential Me-Time. Any mother will recognize this, without the title. She is at the family’s beck and call, doing most of the housework (“shit-work” Gloria Steinem used to call it), solving everyone’s problems, including her husband’s. Is it worse or better now when, if she’s lucky, she still has her day job which she has to do at home, or if she has lost it and has nothing else (oh , yeah?) to do all day. The calls aren’t so bad but the becks are tough. By the end of the day when respite is in sight, i.e. everyone has stopped becking and most of them are asleep, time alone and time to be free is more appealing than sleep or sex, until morning when it’s time to get up. Then you wonder why you watched another Netflix episode or another Dr Ho ad or put off brushing teeth and hair.

Now it’s called “sleep procrastination” and it’s bad for our health.

Anon, anon. (Anon means wait for me while I procrastinate.)

And later is now, today, the day after yesterday. I worked hard all day, had to get the place presentable, prepare the food, with lots of little rests between so I could keep going. You’ve all done that, I’m sure, whatever your plan of action was..

It was worth it, warm enough we could have a glass of wine on the balcony by candlelight. (t’s almost dark at 7 now and dark night by 8.) I had everything set up: pre-chopped (celery, red and green peppers) partly cooked (sugar snap beans), cooked (arborio rice), and sautéd seasoned (shallots,, red onion) and leftover turkey breast, plus mango chili sauce, and splashes of soy sauce and Szechuan sauce in the rice. After the prep, done ahead, it took me 2 minutes to combine everything in the wok and then, after several thorough stirs, 5 minutes at high heat, covered, to bring it all to the table. My friends stayed with me, talking while I “cooked”.

We kept on talking. We had a lot to say. It was late by the time I finally went to bed. I was tired. This morning I’m still tired, also serene, calm and comforted.