Thursday, September 20, 2007

Fire Prevention and Kickball Musings

Today I cleaned my oven before it caught fire. I've never done that before. An ounce of prevention, you know....

At Target today we bought a kickball. Again. I believe that makes 10 thousand kickballs we have purchased there. I also bought one of those little pumps that adds air to the kickball so that you don't have to go out and buy a new ball all the time. I think it's our tenth pump. I have no idea where all the other kickballs and ball pumps are. The balls must disintegrate after a certain amount of time (one and a half days, say). And then the pump needles are programmed to disappear, so you can't use the pump on the new kickball which manages to deflate itself on the ride home from the store.

This evening I attempted to have the kitchen clean, dinner on the table, and children scrubbed and smiling before Larry's return from his trip (occasionally I start channeling my inner 50's housewife, only without the cute dress and apron) - but the gods were against me. Susie was screaming (no nap), the kitchen was trashed, and assorted young ones were whining about all and sundry. Larry, to his credit, acted glad to be home anyway; and he was able to maintain his cheery facade until Brian and Rachel reported a major ant invasion in the family room. The evening sort of deteriorated from there. So I don't think I succeeded in convincing Larry that he doesn't want to leave his family for yet another management retreat next week. That's 3 management retreats so far this year; but, hey, who's counting? Not me - I like being left to fend for myself.

Is "sundry" a word? It looks funny.

10 comments:

  1. Yup. Ant invasions have a way of spoiling an evening. Especially when the ants bite. Or if they just act like ants. Either way, they're annoying.

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  2. Yes, sundry means miscellaneous or various. (Stores back in the old days would sell "sundries" but now we have Walmart.)Give up on the kickballs - buy 5 or 6 ahead. And, forgive me, but you can clean an oven? My hubby has been a traveling salesman for many years and I use his time away constructively. (That's when I bleach my mustache.)

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  3. Well, I turned on the oven and billows of gray smoke filled the kitchen; so I figured it was time to try out that "self-clean" function. I don't think I did it right though - all the gunk is still there. You didn't think I actually scrubbed it, do you?

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  4. I do the same thing with swim goggles. Now I just try to buy a million of them at the end of the season when they go on sale. (End of the season in other parts of the country, I mean. According to my husband we live in Texas because here, summer never ends. He's got a point. you only have to go Christmas caroling in shorts once to know that.)

    My self-clean funtion turns everything into chalky white stuff that I can wipe out. There is still wiping, just no scrubbing. I was sort of hoping for a car wash like effect but this is what I got.

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  5. Yup, familiar with the smoking oven. I do love my baked sweet potatoes, but they do this weird dripping goo thing that looks a little like .. urmm...burnt poo? Which grosses me out so I don't clean it up then and there like I should. So yes, the next time I use my oven...pretty, pretty billowy smoke!!!

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  6. I just spent a nice evening reading your blog from beginning to end. You are so funny and you really tell it like it is. I'll definitely be following your blog!
    Leeann

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  7. We are most definitely living parellel lives. Ethan just got home tonight from 3 days away and same story. I felt like I should apologize for the house, but then I remembered he just had three days to himself. Business, shmisiness!

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  8. Oh my god - I laughed from start to finish! If you ever find out where the kickballs go to die, let me know, because I'll look there for our swim goggles...

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  9. I have a unique skill - I detonate baking potatoes. The first time, I blamed myself; didn't prick them. Since them, hmmm. It's been like four separate instances.

    Andy's terrified of fire - his mom lit a dishwasher on fire once(WTF??). I used the self-cleaning feature on our oven for the first time in 4 years - did a hell of a job - who knew??

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  10. Oh, yeah - dishwasher on fire, totally possible. Once a wooden chopstick slid through the holes in the silverware basket and touched the heating element during the dry cycle, and we almost had catastrophe. I've done the energy-saver cycle (air-dry) ever since.

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