My Day

My day began at 10:30 PM yesterday, when I went to bed. After an hour in bed and still wide awake, I get out of bed and go to my kitchen. I pour a shot of brandy and retire to my living room and sip it in silent darkness. When I finish I pour another. And another. After five shots, I return to bed. It is 12:30 AM and I promptly go to sleep. I awaken at 5 AM. By 5:30 AM I know I am not going back to sleep. I get out of bed and go to my computer and chat for a while with a cyber-friend. At 7 AM I’m hungry and so I prepare breakfast: 2 eggs and 2 sausage patties. At 9:30 AM I am feeling tired, and I decide to lie on the sofa and take a 30 minute nap. I lie down on my left side and close my eyes.

I awaken. I am still lying on my left side. I have a feeling I have slept too long, and I fear it might already be noon. I turn over and swing my legs to the floor. I sit up and look at the clock. The clock reads exactly 2:00 PM. Oh my God.

I get up and promptly plop into my recliner chair. I turn on the TV and spend an hour watching toob: The Closer. By the time it ends the time is 3 PM. The day is sunny and the temperature is 50° F, so I go for a walk around the ‘hood. I get home shortly after 3:30 PM.

I decide this is a good time to burn out the wick in my kerosene heater. I remove the fuel tank and turn the wick up to maximum height. I light the wick and shut the door on the heater. It’s going to make fumes, but they will go outside.

Soon after, I start preparing my dinner. For tonight I decide to make a stir-fry. I slice green and red bell pepper, onion, and yellow squash. I add sliced mushrooms. I fire up my wok and add peanut oil, sesame oil, soy sauce, and dry sherry. I add diced garlic. I peel gingerroot and dice it and add it to the oil in the wok. I add cornstarch in water to thicken the liquid. After 5 minutes of stir-frying, I add cooked sirloin to the veggies and heat it.

I have no recipe and I “wing” everything. Nevertheless, dinner is quite tasty. A little salty perhaps; next time I’ll cut the soy sauce in half. I have enough prepared food for two meals. I’ll buy baby spinach and wilt it in the juice left over from cooking this meal.

The only downside is that preparing the ingredients, cooking, eating, and cleanup takes an hour and twenty minutes. That’s a lot of time just to feed myself one meal.

The kerosene heater wick has gone out, so I bring the heater inside and I add a full tank of fuel and wait an hour for the wick to soak up the fuel, and I light it.

I watch the evening news and then I go online to start the process of paying my 2010  taxes. First I go to TurboTax. I enter all my tax info, only to discover that the Free Edition can’t handle a 1099-B form. Abort.

I go to Online Tax Pros, a service I’ve used before, and again I enter my tax info. I can file my federal taxes, but I can’t file my state taxes. Abort.

Third time’s the charm: I find an online tax service that let’s me free-file federal and state tax forms. I enter my tax info. At last it’s done. I haven’t hit the “submit” button yet. I’ll wait a couple more weeks to be sure I get no more tax forms, and then I’ll come back and submit my tax return.

It’s getting late. I’ve had my get-to-sleep brandy. I’ll sign off now and go to bed. With any luck, I’ll get three or four hours of sleep.