household noticings

It's dark outside now when Zoralee wakes up from her late afternoon nap. It brings back a very specific feeling...the feeling of waking up from a late afternoon nap and it being dark outside. Do you remember that from childhood? Oh, hmm. It just dawned on me, even as I'm typing, that perhaps this has happened in adulthood too, which is why the memory is so fresh. I do like naps, after all, so the chances are good I've awoken from a few in the dark evening. But I'm pretty sure I'm having this feeling from childhood, because I also recall that as I came to, I'd smell various supper smells, and I'd hear the news being broadcast. I'd be a little wobbly as I made my way to the light of the kitchen, and I'd have a warm sense of safety in my gut. So yeah, childhood.

Do your cheese blocks in the fridge mold and/or get hard, crusty edges? Have I got a tip for you. I read it in one of those long email forwards that has 40,000 household tips, half of which you're like, "I doubt that works" and the other half you're like, "Man, I wish I'd remember that, but I probably won't." Well, I tried this, and it works!! Wrap the open end of your cheese block in tin foil, and secure it with a rubber band. No hard spots. No mold. This bumps wrapping cheese in seran wrap, a plastic baggie, or a wax baggie totally off the podium.

Dishes are vagabonds, and I'm not sure they should be. First, we keep dishes in the cupboard for storage. Then they're used at the table or around the house. Then they are placed in the sink for either a full washing or a quick rinse-off. Then they go to a drying rack (in the case of sink washing) or to the dishwasher. That's four places. There are at least four totally separate places where kitchen dishes spend their time - anywhere from minutes to days. And we have to handle them every single time. I'd like for somebody inventive to cut that down to two or three. Can a dishwasher be formatted to also be the storage bin instead of using cupboards? Crud, that's how we use it a lot of the time as it is. Maybe if we had two smaller dishwashers, we'd always have one free for the next load, and we could leave the other full of clean dishes and grab them straight out for use. I don't know the answers here, but somebody could make bank re-designing the entire kitchen system.