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.