Goldilocks was a wise little girl

Today I had a small success: in making lunch for E., I was able to get the fried plantains--tostones, in Nicaraguan and Cuban Spanish--just about right. This seems like a small thing, but as I am not very accustomed to deep frying as a primary method of cooking, I have yet to develop that sense of when the oil is at just the right temperature--not too hot, not too cold, but just right! (My dad, of course, has the sense after years of making scrumpdillyicious homeade donuts. But I guess it's not genetic.) In the past, I usually erred on the side of too hot, which meant the plaintains came out dark, dry and tough. Sometimes, if the oil was too cold, the coveted yellow disks languished too long and absorbed waaaaay too much grease. Neither result was appetizing. In any case, I was pleased that I managed to pull off the tostones, refried beans, roasted pork and rice all almost up to local snuff, and with the right timing. Hurray!

Several people, in particular my favorite former boss Mary Jean, have commented that they can't quite imagine what my daily life is like here in SJdS. One very short answer is that it involves a lot more manual labor and domestic tasks than I ever did in the U.S., and that's one of the things that I enjoy. Don't get me wrong, I've had a number of interesting and challenging jobs that have (mostly) kept me out of trouble and paid my bills, but I was just plain tired of sitting in front of a computer all the live long day. Such is the nature of white collar work. Now I can choose when and for how long to connect...this is why I'm not blogging constantly.

Today, for example, went very quickly--starting at about 6:15 a.m. when I had to leap out of bed and run next door to beg for a bucket of water after E. was left all soaped up with no water from the shower. The rest was taken up by buying, cooking & delivering a couple of meals to my love, who is trapped behind a desk at the Internet cafe; doing several loads of laundry in spite of the slow trickle of water; ditto several rounds of dishes; tracking down and conversatin' with four different lawyers to see how much they will soak me for to get my residency straightened out; prepping for & giving an English lesson; taking my favorite young kitty to the vet for follow-up from spaying surgery; and...I don't remember what else. But I find it sort of amazing that so many hours can pass just doing mundane tasks. And only about two and half hours of that would qualify as "work" by U.S. standards.