Fridge Follies

Okay, so I went a bit crazy on Tuesday. It all started with my trip to Costco, where I spotted this: 

Lifechanging...maybe

Readers, I bought it. My years-long struggle with lots of tiny little jars in my refrigerator continues unabated (I blame my condiment-loving family), and I felt that maybe - just maybe - these storage bins might provide a less expensive solution than, say, buying a custom-designed fridge with specific places for 4 jars of salsa, umpteen jars of various types of jam, and 3 opened cream cheese containers. Seriously, it had gotten to the point where I no longer bothered to clean out my fridge - I just waited until stuff fell out and broke.

 You'd think I would have learned from that unfortunate vinaigrette incident of years past, but no...

 So! Armed with the renewed hope engendered by these 4 plastic refrigerator bins, I dove into my fridge and discovered that I had a Noah's Ark thing going on in there:

Two of every sort shall come unto thee...

After I took that picture, I discovered even more pairs of condiments: cream cheese, ground ginger, etc.  Look - the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one, right?

Yes, we DO have a jam problem

I managed to fit all the open jam jars (5, if you must know) in one container and all the cream cheese (only 3!) into another.  I devoted the biggest container to our mustard/ketchup collection, and the fourth was reserved for salad dressings, because it was tall enough to keep a bottle of vinaigrette from toppling over.  Hope springs eternal, people; and I closed that fridge door serene in the knowledge that I finally had control over my condiment issues.

I opened that door a mere 2 hours later to find a large jar of roasted red peppers on its side in the middle of the ketchups and mustards. Aghast, I snatched it up, only to discover that it had disgorged its liquid-y marinade all over my pristine plastic bin.  Later, when I checked again, some member of my family (who shall remain nameless, LARRY) had shoved the entire bin the WRONG WAY into the back of the fridge, so it couldn't be pulled out like a handy little drawer, the way God and the manufacturer intended it should be.

Am I wrong to believe that my family is intentionally sabotaging my efforts to restore some order to our icebox?  Do you think that perhaps they resent my getting rid of the months-old bag of pepperoni minis I found in there?

Yes, these DID used to be red.  No, I don't know exactly how old they were.  But I posted this photo on Facebook and a friend immediately dubbed them the Michael Jackson of foodstuffs.

Too soon?

HELP!

David is turning 17 on Wednesday, and I have NO IDEA what to do for his birthday.  NONE.  He says he doesn't want anything.  I know - annoying.  I already gave him movie tickets for Christmas.  Should I do that again?  It's the only thing I can think of.

Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  GREATLY.

Pointless

Larry brought home that free stove last night, meaning that - after a long day at work - he had to drive an extra 20 minutes for the privilege of hauling a heavy appliance into his van in the pouring rain.  And then another 20 minutes home.  I didn't see/talk with him until I sashayed in from my yoga class around 9:30 to find him standing in our living room with TWO stoves - our old, half-working one and the "new" one he had brought home.

Our living room...both stoves...

He just stood there, looking at me.  And right there I knew, I KNEW, that he had just earned an untold number of marriage points.

"So, it's...uh...not okay?" I asked, knowing darn well that if it were okay, that new-to-us stove would already be installed in its proper place in our kitchen.

The poor man couldn't even answer right away.  He just shook his head for a minute, and I watched as water dripped off his still-wet hair.  A LOT of marriage points, I thought.  Then he said, "There's no plug."

No plug.  Our old stove (from 1983) had been hardwired into the wall, and when we replaced it a few years ago with our CraigsList acquisition, we had paid an electrician good money to transform those wires hanging out of the wall into a nice shiny outlet for the stove plug.

"That doesn't make sense.  ALL stoves have plugs now," I insisted.  "Maybe it's tucked away somewhere."

Larry gestured at the plugless behemoth sitting on a 2-wheeled handcart in our living room.  "Be my guest," he said.  "I already looked."

"But...but...how OLD is this thing?" I sputtered.  (Truly, that's what I did - I sputtered.)

"Looks like it's from 1996," he said.

1996 - I had sent my husband out in the rain for an 18-year-old stove that could kick the bucket at any time, particularly if we should have the temerity to install an expensive plug to fit into that nice outlet we paid for 3 years ago.  I swear, I could hear those marriage points racking up in Larry's brain, like a one-armed bandit when you pull the lever.

"Whaddaya want to do?" he asked, knowing full well we didn't have a choice.  He just wanted to hear me say it.

"Just move the CraigsList stove back into its spot," I sighed.  "I was wrong.  I was very wrong.  I shouldn't have sent you after that stove.  I'm sorry.  I'm really, really sorry."

About those marriage points, that is...

Logical Consequences

So, last night a post appeared on one of my homeschooling email lists: FREE STOVE, glass cooktop, works great.  When Larry came home, I told him, "You need to pick up a free stove tomorrow evening."

"What's wrong with it?" asked my ever-optimistic spouse.

"Nothing! They're selling the townhouse and they are upgrading the stove so it matches the refrigerator."

"She SAYS nothing is wrong with it. I'm going to drag that thing all the way home and we'll be stuck with TWO broken stoves, instead of one," Larry insisted.

"Look," I said, "if this stove works, it will save us about $30,000."

"What?"

"If I have to go out and buy a new stove instead, I'm going to end up deciding to get a gas one.  Which means that we'll need to pay for extending the gas line from the furnace room to the kitchen."

"Okay," said Larry, "that gets us to about $1200 total, what with the cost of the stove plus the gas line. Where's the other $28,800 I'm supposed to save?"

"If I'm going to spend all that money on extending the gas line, we have to think about whether we really want the stove where it is now.  And then, if I am going to move the stove, I want to move the sink so that I can do dishes and look out the window at the same time.  And if I am going to move the sink and get a new counter, I want to extend the counter a little further out, so that we can have a larger work area.  And if we extend the counter, we're going to need new cabinets.  And if we buy new cabinets, I want them to be a natural wood color, instead of painted white, because those are too hard to keep clean and I'm tired of repainting them.  And if we change the cabinets to a natural wood color, they won't go with our gray-tiled floor, so we need to change that, too."

Really, I don't know why Larry couldn't figure all that out himself.  Maybe he was just tired.  He sure LOOKED tired by the time I finished explaining things.  Getting older, I guess, poor guy...

Near Death Experience

People, I bicycled 56 miles yesterday in the Tour de Cure.  But only after I lay awake for 4 hours Saturday night fretting over having signed up for that distance and worrying about being able to do it.  4 HOURS.  I finally had to take myself firmly in hand and say, "How about reframing this inner monologue a bit?  How about thinking, Gee, tomorrow I get to go on a bike ride!  instead of OMG, I AM GOING TO DIE!?"

So that helped a little.  During the ordeal I kept saying to myself, "Wow, what a nice bicycle ride!  Just a pleasant day for a little ride!"  Well, until the last 3 miles when I was convinced I was breathing my last.  And then, right before the last 100 yards or so, my totally fit friend said, "Okay, I don't care how you are feeling, you are going to sit up tall and SMILE when we cross that finish line.  SMILE! Or you may end up in a really horrible-looking picture on their website."

Say what you like, she has her priorities straight.

This is not me.  I didn't have the strength to do anything like this.

So, as I hobbled around after the ride, picking up my free food (smoothies! BBQ! Chipotle!) and attempting to look rested and refreshed (those damn photographers again), my friend had the nerve to say, "That wasn't too bad.  We should definitely do the full 68 miles next year!" Apparently, exercise-induced endorphins can have a detrimental effect on some people's grasp of reality.


[Bicycle image: Stewie Bicycles]