Schedule (pronounced the British way)

I take a nap every morning. I get up at 6:30, shower, and then nap for an hour and 13 minutes before I get up to get ready. It goes back to when I was in high school and got up at 5:20 every morning so I would be able to wake up H. I'd shower and then give H her first wake up warning. Ten minutes later I'd go back and turn on the lights if she wasn't up. After that her covers were taken away. I didn't need so much time to get ready, but H did, and I had to be up before her to make sure she got up. I asked her once what she expected to do when I left home and wouldn't be there to drag her out of bed.

This post is really about breakfast, and the fact that I don't normally eat it. I'd like to say that I don't have the time, but I have just admitted to you that I nap for an hour or more every morning. It's really a matter of priorities - sleep or food? Sleep will always win. I want to own a hotel called Food 'N Sleep. It appeals to everyone, this name.

Today I did eat breakfast, it being a Saturday and all. I made toast and pondered the changes I've made over the years in regards to how I prepare both it and cold cereal. Neither are very complicated to make, but I was surprised to find that I think a great deal about the process.

(1) Toast. The toaster at my apartment has no numbers on it.The toaster at home has numbers. It's better to have numbers, so you can ask which is the best for toast - a two and a half or a three perhaps? I tried fiddling with the numbers on my home toaster and my brother F told me to leave it on 3. Or maybe it was 4. Anyway, he said that there was no need to be moving it around like I was, and I trust his toast judgement so I didn't move it after that. This morning I had no idea which setting to put it on. There's a picture of light toast and one of dark toast on either side of the knob, which was more toward the dark toast picture. Ordinarily I'd trust whatever setting it was at, but that's when I'm at home, and I remembered that there are bagel eaters in my apartment. Bagels are thick. They probably require more toasting. I put it halfway in between light and dark and hoped it all came out alright.

It did. The buttering and jamming of my toast has changed over the years, but one thing that has not changed is that I examine both sides of the toast to determine which face is darker before buttering. Once I have my two pieces face up how I want them, I pick which one gets buttered first, and this is where everything has changed. I used to butter the darker piece first, probably because I find it more appealing than the other piece that didn't manage to become as toasted as I would have liked, and so I'd shun it and butter the better piece first.

I also believe (for no good or rational reason) that the darker piece is hotter than the lighter piece. This is key. Once I realized that I believed this, I had to change my buttering habits. If I butter the dark piece first, it means that the light piece, which is already not hot enough, is losing heat while I waste time buttering the darker hotter piece, and by the time I get to the lighter one, it will have lost the heat necessary to melt the butter I'm buttering with. So now I butter the lighter piece first, so that by the time I'm done with it, the darker piece will have cooled to be the same temperature that the lighter toast was when it was buttered. Like I said, this is not based in reason, it's just how I think.

(2) Cold cereal. I don't go in for any of those hot breakfast dishes, like oatmeal or eggs or anything. I ate raisin Bran growing up, and because it tastes the way it does, I was allowed to put two spoonfuls of sugar on it. I used to put the sugar on first, before pouring the milk. I realized eventually that this was foolish, and later in my life made the switch to sugaring after I'd poured the milk, so I'd get an equal adherence of sugar to the flakes. I was home this Christmas and was having a bowl of Raisin Bran, but I couldn't find the sugar, and you should always verify that you have the sugar before you pour the milk on, otherwise your cereal gets soggy while you're looking for it. Much like how you should make sure you have all the ingredients before you start in on making a cake.

I couldn't find the sugar. I told myself that seeing as I was an adult I could probably skip the sugar and eat the cereal for its nutritional value instead of demanding extra sugar for it. Then I asked myself who did I think I was kidding and continued the hunt until I found it.

I myself do not own any Raisin Bran, having been seduced by the likes of Marshmallow Mateys, Tootie Frooties, and Colossal Berry Crunch. I remember liking my Grandparents' house because they had honey nut cheerios. I have a few vague memories of my mom buying cereals other than Raisin Bran that I liked to eat - there was some Kix, and something similar to Honeycomb that was pretty good. Did you ever get those cereal samples in the mail growing up? Those tiny boxes? With Apple Jacks and Shredded Wheat and Fruit Loops? More importantly, did you know that the Trix rabbit actually got the Trix once? This was probably sometime in the early 90's. The company had children send in their votes about whether or not he should, and while I'm really too young to remember it, I think my older sisters sent in their votes, and the majority of the nation felt sorry for that silly rabbit, so he got some Trix. Is nothing constant in this world?

I have no good way to end this tedious post, so I'm just going to stop here and hope that none of you actually read this whole thing, and that if you did, you won't pay any more attention to your own buttering and sugaring methods now than you have in the past. The end.