I Dream of Blogging

Last night I dreamt that I came up with a great idea for a blog post while I was cleaning the kitchen. Wait, why am I dreaming about cleaning the kitchen? Oh, maybe because that's all I seem to do, day in and day out. Anyway, this blog post idea was so great, I was chuckling to myself in anticipation. I might have even been chuckling aloud in my sleep. I have no idea, I sleep with earplugs. In the dream, I used my phone to record a voice memo that was somehow linked to Blogger. The phone created a new post for me, complete with title, all ready for me to start typing.

Needless to say, when I woke up this morning, I found that my phone does not magically link to Blogger, and not only is there *not* a cleverly-titled blog post waiting to be written, I have zero idea what the post was supposed to be about. Maybe it was some funny spin on stressing about one's lack of blogging. Maybe it was some cutting insight about parenting a toddler. Maybe it was some gratuitous eye-rolling at the dazzlingly banal Olympic commentary I've been hearing the past few nights.

Probably, though, it was a whiny, complainy post about having houseguests. Does anyone really like houseguests? Martha Stewart, probably. But that's just so she can lord it over them what a nauseatingly good "home-keeper" she is. Me, I'm not going to win any home-keeping awards any time soon. On a given day, if I've figured out what's for dinner before 5pm, then I've done my home-keeping duties.

But I digress. Having houseguests is really not my favorite thing, particularly when it's my mom. Benjamin Franklin and I agree about fish and guests starting to smell after three days. Each day I find some new idiosyncrasy to marvel at. Or maybe, it's just that her idiosyncrasies and mine collide when she stays here. As you know, I'm crunchy and try to conserve water and energy, and minimize waste. My mom is the QUEEN of disposable everything. Where I use Tupperware, she uses layers and layers of plastic wrap, followed by another layer of aluminum foil. Where I use dishcloths, she uses gobs and gobs of paper towels. I can't remember the last time I even bought paper towels, that's how infrequently we use them, but since she's been here we've mysteriously run out! We've run out of tissues and toilet paper too. (Don't worry, I still use toilet paper. I'm not that crunchy!)

When my mom loads the dishwasher, she meticulously washes each and every dish before she puts it in. While she's doing that, she leaves the hot water running full blast. I'm surprised she hasn't run out of hot water yet - it's only a 50 gallon tank! And while I'm super grateful to have someone in the house who's willing to load the dishwasher, it's hard to sit back and watch her make one of the house's most useful appliances redundant. Sure, I get it, some stuff needs to be scraped off before it goes in the dishwasher. But not everything has to be hand washed first.

And then there's the subject of day-old bread. I recently got a bread machine, and have been baking fresh bread about every 2-3 days ever since. It's a mini bread machine that makes a teeny tiny loaf, but even so we usually have a hunk left over by the time the next loaf is baked. So I basically have a never-ending supply of stale bread. It's great - I can make homemade breadcrumbs or French toast. Well, I made French toast once. Not so much with breadcrumbs. But anyway, I was about to compost a particularly stale bit of bread when my mom threw a fit. She insisted that I keep it, despite my protestations that there was plenty more stale bread where that came from. She wrapped it in three layers of plastic wrap and some tinfoil, labeled it, and stuck it in my tiny fridge, where it sits today, 10 days later. I've baked 4 loaves since then, and we haven't finished a single one. I've had to sneak out to the compost bin when she wasn't looking.

I don't mean to suggest that I like to waste food - quite the opposite. But my mom's food-hoarding is a little over the top. She saves (in plastic wrap, of course) the weirdest, smallest bits of food imaginable, and she won't let me get rid of any leftovers. She stashes her hoard in my fridge, which is overflowing. I should post a pic but I'm too ashamed. In there right now is a partially-eaten hard boiled egg, some tiny wedges of baked potato from 2 weeks ago, and three separate batches of old, congealed spaghetti.  Even though I don't like to waste food, over the years I've come to the realization that it's still wasting food if you put it in your fridge for two weeks and then toss it out when it's moldy. So I like to cut out the mold middleman and only save what we will realistically eat.

So my fridge is overflowing, my TP and paper towel rolls are empty, but you know what? Katie is absolutely over the moon having Grammy here. She even asks for her in the morning. "Wammy! Wammy!" I've never seen anything like it. Today she tried appealing to Grammy for safe harbor when it was time for her nap. Nice try, little one! So even though it's trying, I'll put up with Grammy's shenanigans for Katie's sake. Now if only I could get her to stop hinting that I need to put on moisturizer...