Saturday, June 4, 2011

The Oven Exploded and Other Things

I blow out lightbulbs like birthday candles.  Microwaves, video players and other small appliances too.  Sometimes room fuses, once the whole house.  Once the cul de sac went out but they never pinned that one on me officially.  Anyway, today I blew out the oven.

See, I've been meaning to make Oatmeal Raisin cookies for a week or two just because I forget why.  And today in a  fit of prehistoric hormonal imperative, cookies got made.  I was kvelling on the phone with Audrey while the second tray of cookies were in the oven.  And...PHZZZT!  POW!  WTF?!

It sounded like a combination of ice maker and garbage disposal, but it came from my oven.

"Um, hey, can you hold on a minute?  I think my oven just exploded."
"What?  You're joking, right?  Are you kidding?  You have to be kidding."
"Um...I...uh..." *spies something glowing and possibly on fire inside the oven* "What the...I need to call you back."

I opened the oven and tried to figure out what the hell I was looking at.  It wasn't a flame.  It looked like it could maybe turn into one, but at the time it was just...this glowy thing in the back of the oven.

I took the cookies out.
Took the wire racks out.
Poured baking soda on it just in case it was grease.
The glowing didn't stop.

I kind of wished I had a fire extinguisher?  but after the baking soda I realized there was no flame to put out so I just stood there and stared at the glowing and realized the open oven door was letting air get to it and if there's any truth to science, that was probably not an ideal situation for avoiding a fire.  *put racks back in place*  *close oven door*

Huh.

Meanwhile, I have two 9 year old boys, Thing 2 and friend, standing in the kitchen sucking on popsicles and staring into the oven with me wondering what we might be supposed to do next.

So I flipped off the oven at the fuse box and the glowy part of the heating element went dark.   And the best I can come up with is that the oven is staying off until further notice.

Thank god I replaced the fuel line on the grill.

Anyway, that was a brief moment this afternoon.  The rest of the week has had me doing other things.

Like...

I applied for my passport on Tuesday.
I'm okay with the picture.  Although I wish I'd contemplated a hairbrush.

So you don't think I'm totally uncivilized, I did have a passport before but that was in my married name and I've not only gone back to my maiden name since but also I changed my first name and middle name too which makes for lots of paperwork and WHEE! but also, I lost my first passport a million years ago anyway so I HAD to get a new one because I have an international vacation coming up in a little while that I'll tell you about later.  In a surprising and totally coincidental turn of events, it's going to take place near a teen beauty pageant scholarship competition.  Thusly, Thing 1 will always remember that puberty started mid July 2011. *shakes head*

Random kite surfer
What else?  Oh, I took the kids to the beach the other afternoon.  For no reason other than Thing 2 was bored and I needed something else to do besides be in the house.  Sometimes even though it feels like I should be chained to a radiator for the safety of the villagers, getting my feet in the sand is more calming.








Thing 1 & 2 just digging in the sand
I remember afternoons like that when I was their age.  Doing Spelling homework in front of the ocean.  Pretty outstanding memory to have.  *wistful sigh.  Anyway...







And this weekend is the big church carnival.  Not my church obvs.  My church can be found in the previous two pictures.  But it's the neighborhood Catholic church and we go every year because they have awesome rides and creepy carnies and a not at all bad flea market section.










And sometimes you see stuff like this.

And it triangulates you exactly at "*gasp!*  Precious!", "It feels like just yesterday..." and "...holy christ Thing 1 is starting middle school in three months."

So there's just all kinds of interesting things going on here lately.  





1 comment:

TwoBusy said...

"Because I forget why" is the best reason to do EVERYTHING.