Chilaquiles!

11/14/2025

I made the chilaquiles! To be honest, I made the enchilada sauce the night before--do you know how easy it is to make enchilada sauce? Well, it is. Just some tomato sauce and spices warmed with oil and flour. Cost about a quarter as much as buying a can ready-made. 

Keshav loved the chilaquiles, but he did not finish them, so he gave the rest to me, which is what often happens when he is full. I was happy to finish them, and you know what? I made myself a full serving later in the morning. Leftover refried beans and tortilla chips are gone!

I was thinking the other day about when I started making Keshav's breakfasts, and I can't remember the exact date, but I suspect it was around the time he started working day shifts at Cedars. I usually get up early, like 4am early, and in the past I relished the hours of quiet before he awoke. I remember that when he started working and getting up at 5:30am, I was initially annoyed, feeling that he was "intruding" on my quiet time. 

Realizing that this frustration would be futile, as his schedule was not changing, I decided that I would make him breakfast so that he would go to work with a healthy meal in him. Before long, I started to really enjoy looking for recipes I thought he would like, and I even installed a fold-up tray in the hall so that he could eat his breakfast while standing by the heater. 

Now I plan his breakfasts a week ahead, and though I have some favorites on repeat, I love finding new recipes to try, or I will look up how to use leftovers. 

On this day he starts working in trauma, which he is nervous about, understandably. As a therapist, I work with trauma, though on a different level--my clients' lives are not usually in danger when they come in. In the therapy world, we define trauma as what happen inside of you in response to what happens on the outside. So whether or not something is traumatic depends on how it is experienced, processed, and stored in our brains. Keshav will be working more with physical trauma due to injury or illness. 

We are both caregivers. 

He told me, when I checked on him at work, that he nearly had a panic attack at one point. He got through it, but I will certainly hear the story when he gets home. It is raining today, and I have candles lit and Christmas tunes playing, which I will have to change when he gets home because I promised him that I will only play them after Thanksgiving when he is home. I, on the other hand, need to hear them right fucking now. 

When he comes home, I will see if he is hungry, and I will ask what he needs from me, which will likely include a long hug. A small price to pay for the gift of him coming home to me.