"Why did I have the bowl???"

That question had my kids rolling with laughter this past weekend.  I didn’t understand why.  They explained.  If you’re familiar with the Simpson’s, you know Bart’s friend Milhouse.  In one episode Milhouse got fed-up with Bart lying to him.  He reminded Bart of the time Bart killed his goldfish and then tried to convince Milhouse he never had a goldfish.  To which Milhouse responded, “Then why did I have the bowl, Bart?  Why did I have the bowl???”

 

Why did I ask that same question this weekend?  Well, not long after I got married, my wife asked me to take her to a Pfaltzgraff outlet.  I was happy to—we had zero money, so we could shop all we wanted. :D 

 

During the trip she spotted French onion soup bowls she really wanted.  Despite that and the fact I love French onion soup, we couldn’t afford the bowls.  Over the next two years we visited the outlet several more times.  Eventually we bought two of the bowls and my wife committed to making the soup.  I was so happy.

 

Fast forward to this past weekend…I threw out the lone remaining bowl.  The handle had broken off years ago, but I’d kept the bowl in hopes of someday actually getting French onion soup made at home.  I finally gave up on that.  This weekend I reminded my wife about when we bought the bowls and that she had promised to make the soup.  She didn’t remember any of that.

 

To which I said, “Then why did I have the bowl, K?  Why did I have the bowl???”

 

It was funny to the two of us, but hysterical to the kids.  The lesson here is that good intentions are nice, but they don't get you soup!  :)

September Bees

I have a Labor Day Bee story to share, but I need help making it not suck.  Rooth kindly agreed to help with a few suggestions and I'm going to edit it.  But in the meantime I thought I'd repeat another bee story.  It's my "A" bee story.  :)

I stay calm around bees because my grandpa assured me bees don’t want to sting us. If you stay calm and leave them alone, they will leave you alone. It works pretty well. I was good at the “calm” part, but once in a while I seemed to have trouble leaving them alone.

One painful encounter was made worse by who witnessed it (yes, it was a girl, sort of--you'll see).  Anyway, weeds were growing out of sandstones piled on the side of the dirt road leading to our house--along the portion of road on the other side of the hill.  The weeds scratched against cars as they went by, so my dad wanted me to trim them (using our whip—you swing it like a golf club, it has a blade on the end).

I started the job after school. As I walked up the hill, I noticed the very pretty young mom next door was on her porch. She waved and said hi, I tried to look cool--I had a little crush on her (I was 15). I started cutting weeds at the bottom of the hill on the other side and worked my way back towards my house (and neighbor). Soon I was half-way up the hill. I could see the top of her house, but I couldn’t see the porch yet because of the hill. I was distracted, so I didn’t think anything of the few bees I saw—bees are common in that area. I didn’t notice they were ground bees (yellow jackets). It never occurred to me there might be a nest in the rocks. I just kept swinging and cutting. 

Before I knew it, I heard the unmistakable sound of MANY bees taking flight. One stung my arm and a few got under my shirt. Here's how my neighbor described (the next day) what she saw happen.

Her: What happened to you yesterday? I heard you yell and then I saw your whip fly up in the air over the top of the hill. Then your shirt flew up in the air…next you came running up over the hill waving your arms around your head. It looked like you'd gone crazy!!!
Me: Umm, I found a bee’s nest and they found me.
Her: ahahahahahaha!!!! Oh, I’m sorry, I hope you’re okay. But you just looked ridiculous!
Me: {dejected}

What hurt more, getting stung many times or looking like an idiot in front of miss cute (well, mrs. cute)? Definitely getting stung hurt more!!! But both were caused by stupid bees. BEES!!!  *shakes fist*

That actually wasn't my worst encounter with bees and it may not have been my most embarrassing.  Hopefully with Rooth's help I'll be able to share my "B" bee story someday.

Do you remember your first bee sting???

Fire and Flood

Recently my weekends have revolved around dealing with the unexpected.  That's life.  But it gets to be a little much when things bunch together.  The water heater went bad, the refrigerator croaked, my car died, a car window got stuck open, a toilet developed a horrible leak and we had a kitchen fire.  Each one took a different weekend.  The fire was the scariest, but the leak was the most work.

Late one Friday night my son mentioned his toilet was flushing "funny".  He couldn't really describe it.  I checked and it was flushing slowly, like it was partially blocked.  I worked on it, but it wasn't getting better.  Finally I moved a towel that had fallen on the floor from the tub.  It was soaked--every time I flushed, water came running out of the bottom of the toilet onto the floor.  I spent a good part of Saturday taking the toilet apart to replace the wax ring that seals the connection between the toilet and the drain.  I don't know what plumbers charge for that job, but they deserve it.  It's gross doing your own toilet.  I wouldn't want to do someone else's!

The fire was on a Sunday.  It was too hot to cook, so I bought rotisserie chickens--one for us and two for Bandit.  We make his food on weekends and freeze it for the week.  I finished a handful of chores (including boning two chickens) and decided to take a nap* (something I never do).  Before heading to bed I asked my daughter to make Minute Rice for Bandit.  Fifteen minutes later she called me--she sounded scared (I thought someone broke in).  When I ran into the kitchen, I saw a good sized fire (18 inch flames) under the pot of water--our stove is electric!!!  I turned off the stove, moved the pot and put the fire out (ruining a good pot holder in the process).  Somehow there was oil on the cooktop and in the burner pan...the burner had ignited it.  I spent the next hour taking the stovetop apart and washing everything.   No one knows how the oil got there, but I suspect my daughter had a spill.  She HAD a bad habit of using the stovetop as if it were counter space.  This taught her that's not a good idea. 

That's the only lesson in this post (a stovetop is not a work surface).  Well, that and the fact that fate really doesn't want me taking naps.  :)

I'm hoping the change of seasons brings a change of luck. 


* A few days later I found out I had pneumonia.