Stuffed-Up Tuesday

I got some new directions from our Human Resources. Until the end of the year, I can’t work more than 30 hours a week. So, I decided to only work seven hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

It felt weird going home at 4:00 PM, but I decided not to waste it. I changed clothes and then went out back. The first thing I did was to take down the hammock. I rolled it up, lugged it back in the house and up into the attic.

I hung it up on the two hooks I made for the first one (I always do that – I believe it keeps it from getting mouldy). Then I grabbed the Styrofoam rose bush covers and went back downstairs.

I went out into the garage, got my mule-hide gloves and shears and headed out to the rear of my property. I cut back each rose bush until the cone would fit over it. I put on the cone and topped it with a flat patio stone. There, done!

On the way back in, I stopped at the reflecting pool and pulled out the water lily. I set it on the patio to drain.

Back inside, I set about making dinner. I put some oil in my Dutch oven, added the candy thermometer and heated it up to 350 degrees F. First I made a serving of onion rings (I’m getting pretty good at judging the correct portion size and time).

When they were done, I set them on a paper towel to drain and hit them with table salt (the Kosher or sea salt doesn’t seem to stick as well).

The last time I was at Gordon Food Services, I picked up a bag of frozen, breaded calamari. So, I dug those out of the freezer and added what I thought was a good-sized portion. Wrong! They are much smaller and denser than onion rings and I had too many in the spider. So, my temperature immediately dropped to 320 degrees. Try as I might, I couldn’t get the temp back to 350 in the short three minutes it took to fry them.

I plated everything and added a small dish of store-bought seafood sauce to the plate. Then I went in to watch some TV and eat.

Dinner was very good, but I ate way too much.

I was still awake at 11:00 PM, so I started watching the news. I watch “live” the first of those trapped miners in Chile being pulled a half mile up from the cave-in. Very emotional!

I finally went to bed just after 1:00 AM. Oh, the stuffed-up part? After being outside a couple of hours, I spent the rest of the night blowing my nose and trying to breathe.