Routines

CLEANING AND COOKING We’ll have the TV on, or listen to the radio, and we clean the house. I’m very domesticated: I can do everything except sew. On Saturdays, I go grocery shopping. I can tell you all the price points. My Sunday cooking routine is to make two or three different meals, one for Sunday night and the rest for during the week. I’ll do a fish, and baked chicken, and turkey meatloaf makes a great office lunch during the week. I’m economical. We don’t have a dishwasher; we have basic cable, and if it was up to me, I’d still have a rotary-dial phone.

Last night, a friend asked me if I read this “Sunday Routine” feature in the Times featuring New York City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott because bits of his routine sound like things I would do. Of course, when someone tells you something they read reminds him or her of you, you can’t help but look up the thing later in secret. Maybe it’s the rotary-dial phone and listening to the radio while cleaning, but Walcott reminds me more of my dad, or my grandfather — a very economical person with an old-fashioned sensibility. I don’t know any of the prices at the grocery store, but then again, I put on headphones and listen to podcasts while cleaning, and I do try to plan my meals for the week. But I’d probably go out to dinner a bit more often if I were earning what Walcott earns: $212,614.

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