Today I spent way more time than a healthy person should shouting at inanimate objects. Sometimes I think that if I got one good night’s sleep, the thousand miniature crises that happen during a typical day wouldn’t get to me so much. That’s a thesis I’d like to test some day, but what I’d really like to find is a way to stop everything from happening at once.

Here’s a synopsis. I got caught in traffic (not that that’s unusual). I spilled fruit juice on the carpet (while reaching for the phone, which turned out to be a wrong number). The printer insisted I had a paper jam and refused to perform, even though there was no jam and I followed its instruction to remove the back cover (so I had to unplug it and wait for it to settle down).

While all of this was happening, the Boss faxed me a six-page letter to type, at the same time I was trying to fax out the billing statements that I would have faxed out last night, except that the folks at the Kennel (and the Boss, and Tim) neglected to tell me that they’d changed the fax number there. So I had faxes going back and forth while the printer (which is also the fax machine) was refusing to work, and I was cleaning the juice stain out of the carpet.

And last night I was chopping onions at 1:00 in the morning. The reason for that (and there is a reason) was that I wanted to make my (or rather, Paula Deen’s) Taco Soup today, and it had to go into the slow cooker before noon (which also meant that I was in the kitchen browning hamburger (and onions, chopped) at 10:00 in the morning).

In other news, the soup came out better than last time, because I didn’t give in to the temptation to add liquid to it. The recipe doesn’t call for liquid, but before, without it, it seemed so, uh, solid. But it makes its own liquid as it slow cooks, and it’s better a little bit thick (thicker than last time, when I added liquid, that’s for sure). The recipe does require some creative math, because the way it’s written it serves 12 to 16 people, and I don’t know that many people who would want to eat my cooking.

It’s not that anything really horrible happened today, but it all added up. It wouldn’t have mattered as much if I’d had a decent night’s sleep for a change. I’m convinced of that. Also, I picked the wrong day to make that Taco Soup.