October 2008: I move into my house. March 2010: I discover a button on my stove that says "Automatic Clean". I have pressed it. This is an addendum to January 2010: I discover that my microwave has fancy settings for defrosting meat, poultry, and fish. I wonder what other kinds of excruciatingly obvious things I have missed...
I did know that self-cleaning ovens existed, I just didn’t know I had one. The button is in no way hidden—it’s located right below the “Cook” button. My house smelled like it was on fire for a while, but voila! My oven was clean! The grime of the last 18 months was reduced to wipeable ash. Brilliant, I say. I did miss the very prominent sticker telling me to remove the wire racks… but they needed to be cleaned too so it all worked out.
I overslept and caused Jake to miss the bus for the second day in a row. This morning I was having a dream that Prince William took me on a hot date-- to the Burger King.
This was Wills before he started to lose his hair, if that matters to you (not to me, I’d still get to be the Queen). He did seem rather demanding as he asked me to recite the value meals… but then we sat on the same side of the booth. Very romantic.
I burned my face with a Magic Eraser. How? Why? It doesn't matter. I'm old enough to know better.
Seriously. I’m going to provide an excerpt from an email I wrote to my friend Maria explaining the incident. Then, I will not mention it again. I look like a train wreck at this point, with the burns kind of scabbing over… it looks a lot like hickeys, or a rug burn. Sad.
“I dyed my hair again, and got hair dye all over my face and neck. Part of it was because the last time I dyed my hair, my eyebrows were still blond and my hair was reddish brown, and I hated using the eyebrow pencil because it reminds me of old ladies. So this time I just rubbed a little bit of hair dye in there... and ended up with giant Bert eyebrows because I got it all over my forehead. So then I used the Magic Eraser, which burned the heck out of my face. THEN this morning the kids had soccer and I looked like I had rugburn all over my face, so I tried to cover it up with makeup... and it ended up looking like bruises. I'm sure the other parents thought I was some sort of abuse victim. This story is so ridiculous, I'm laughing at myself. You'd think I would learn from these types of things, and think twice before I experiment. It wasn't that long ago that I gave myself a lovely chemical burn all over my face with Veet because I thought I was too fuzzy. I looked like a 15 year old in serious need of some Acutane. I have like a dozen sad stories, dating back to high school... well, another time, perhaps.”
I know I said I wouldn’t talk about it again, but I did write a beautiful Haiku about the experience:
What a sad mistake
Neosporin on my face
Tragic Eraser
Jacob's reading is improving so much! He still misses a few things though, which is why he declared to Brynn this afternoon that the name of "that restaurant there is Jack in the Butt".
Heh heh heh.
I had a superfun day today... I went to two libraries and gathered many books to answer the many questions in Jacob's head, as well as some new mysteries and a book on the Cold War for me. I also had a fun adventure with a 'personal shopper' in the garden section at Lowe's. Hopefully I will get some flowers planted in the next few weeks, and then not kill them like I do every year.
It was a beautiful day, I went by myself and was able to enjoy book browsing at my leisure. I was on a quest to find a couple of new mystery series, which I did (Laurie King’s Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell books, and Maisy Dobbs). I also searched out a number of books on natural history and world religion, since Jacob has an endless supply of questions on those topics and I do not have an endless supply of answers. Together we have been learning many things, although the scope of these topics is sometimes difficult to put into words a five-year-old can understand.
Anyway, the Lowe’s adventure was silly and fun. An employee asked me as I wandered around if I needed help, which I first declined. Then I asked a question about a shrubbery, which turned into a good hour of wandering around, choosing plants, discussing landscaping options, killing time, and generally helping him to not work at all. It was kind of goofy, but a fun way to spend my flower shopping afternoon.
Of course, when I got home, Norah picked all the petals off the Gerberas, and when I planted them outside Holly dug them out of the window box and Dexter ate my ruellia down to sticks… but I’m cool with making another trip to Lowe’s :)
0 comments:
Post a Comment