Going Off-line

I have been having problems staying awake at work.

With the sugar reactions I have, even working as a traffic guard (which does not pay enough to cover rent, utilities, and food) does not leave me enough time to write and get enough sleep.

My wife and certain others are convinced that the problem is my use of computers and SNS, and especially my attempts at writing.

It looks like I'll have to find out if that is the case, since sleeping on the job is not allowed. (Even if it helped my work progress when I was doing translations.) Now I definitely can't afford to sleep on the job if I'm working as a traffic guard.

The doctor says I have to sleep eight hours a day. I don't see how that's going to work, especially when I have to exercise around forty-five minutes a day in order to sleep.

Up at 5:30. Chores for fifteen minutes to half an hour.

Exercise for forty-five minutes.

Eat breakfast, wash the dishes I used, collect lunch and fill my water bottles.

Pray.

Read a scripture from the Book of Mormon if there's time.

Leave by 7:10

Get home by 6:15.

Put my work stuff away.

Two or three days a week go take clean clothes to my mother-in-law, or pick up her dirty laundry.

Eat dinner, wash dishes.

Maybe I'll have time to help the missionaries with their English class one day a week.

Fold laundry.

Bathe.

In bed by 9:30, at the latest.

Somewhere in there I have to make time to look for work that will pay the bills.

Maybe, two days a week, I'll have time to write random nonsense for thirty minutes. I don't see anything more than random nonsense happening in that amount of time. But not until I find better work, work without overtime.

Six days a week, rinse and repeat.

But the experiment is now forced on me. It hasn't worked in the past, but it must work this time.

So, if you don't see any more updates to my writing, this is why.

[JMR202002182216: You may be able to slow me down, but you can't keep me down.]

Making New Year's Mochi Rice Cakes with the Family

御餅　おもち o-mochi: compressed rice cakes



This is one of those Japanese traditions. (Pardon the rough edits to remove private information.)

You can use regular rice, but it takes more muscle work and more time, and mochi rice tastes different, has a different texture, and a different chewiness. (Texture + chewiness == mouthfeel?) So my wife sent me to splurge a little on mochi rice yesterday. JPY 500 for 1.2 Kg (2.6 pounds).

She added pearled barley to the rice when she cooked it up today. Proto-B vitamin amino acids and fiber, to help offset the tendency for this to raise your blood sugar.

Then she got out the big pestle.



That's it resting against the side of the pan. I didn't get any pictures of either me or her using it. We were careful not to damage the surface of the rice cooker pan.

Many people would use a machine. At mochi-tsuki parties, they use a big mallet with a head as long as my forearm and twice as big around instead of a pestle, and, instead of a bowl or pan, a mortar made of a hollowed out tree trunk about a half-meter (foot and a half) wide.

One person swings the mallet, another rolls the mochi, and you have to get the rhythm right or someone gets hurt. It's a rite of trust.

 My daughter helped form the cakes.



 I rolled one in oatmeal and kinako (bean flour). It wasn't bad.

Happy New Year!