Yesterday morning at 5am, I was not only awake but browning three pounds ground beef (cursing, once again, the fact that one can't just dump raw meat into a slow cooker) for spaghetti sauce. It occurred to me that not only was I cooking 11 hours in advance for a dinner, but also 35 hours in advance for the next day's dinner, which would also be spaghetti, just one day old and reheated. It also occurred to me that I had actually started cooking at six pm the night prior, since I had had to take the ground beef out from the freezer in order defrost it. Then, it occurred to me that I had planned this meal five days before taking the meat out, in the aisle of Stop and Save, where I had to calculate, sort and purchase a horrifying $300 of protein to last us the month.

When you do the math, it turns out that I started cooking on Thursday in order to eat leftovers the next Thursday, which we need to eat because on Thursday night, my son has swimming, my husband has his food co-op meeting, and I have an article due (the baby just gets to sit there, limp noodles up his nose, watching us run around). This is the juggling act between 5pm and 8 pm in the average American household, one that requires throwing a ball up (dinner!) one week in advance and keeping it up there in the air by the sheer force of grit, will, and reminder Post-it-notes plastered all over the house—so that you have your two hands free to manage the other five or six balls (job ball, kid ball, volunteer ball, spouse ball, house ball, friend ball, errand ball, the poor neglected goldfish who hovers by his sunken, algae-covered castle, looking ever upward for the possibility of a food flake ball—okay that's 8 balls, but who's counting).

Which is why I found this video on The Daily Dot so inspiring, even though the site had such a different interpretation of Selyna Bogino's talents, focusing on her 967,967 views on YouTube and her rigorous practice routine.
 
To me she was not only literally doing what so many of us do figuratively, she was adding new ways to do it that I will institute this upcoming Thursday:

• Lie down. Note that she does not attempt to run around while managing all the balls. She rests on bench. I, too, can work, nag the kids and cook from a horizontal position (as long as I get my husband to stir the sauce)

• Go Italian. Prior to managing the 5 balls with her feet and hands, she give herself a long luxurious hair flip of the kind one sees only in Rome. Such a gesture makes you look confident and a little disdainful—qualities that discourage toddlers who scream for ketchup on their old, slightly dried-out spaghetti.
  

• Remember your perspective. At the end of her act, the camera drops awkwardly, revealing the background of her life—a playroom filled with kiddie foam pads and toy bins. Sure, she can get basketballs to spin like planets in a solar system of her own making, but when it's done, she has to share her practice space and tidy up dirty laundry, just like the rest of us mortal, metaphorical jugglers.
  

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