The last 24 hours in FairyChatEstates have been, to say the least, trying. Things seemed to have mellowed for the moment <looking around nervously> so I thought I’d share a portion of the goings-on as a cautionary tale. The first sound of doo-doo hitting the fan came about 9 PM on Friday – I don’t want to go into the specifics, but the resolution was fairly swift and satisfactory. Doo-doo splat the second came as hubby and I were finishing a late evening, pre-cuddle shower – the phone rang. Again, not something I’ll share here, tho by mid-day today (Saturday) the crisis was wrangled down to an inconvenience, and it’s manageable.
So we doused the light about midnight and had a very bad night – not sleeping well and generally reacting to the stress of the preceding evening. We had to rise early to get our Perfect Child[sup]TM[/sup] to school for her PSATs. While my beloved spouse was taking her to the high school, I started some laundry and put some eggs on to boil. Once the water came up to a slow boil, I turned the heat to “5”, with 10 being “High”, set the timer, and turned on the TV. Hubby got home and suggested we go to breakfast, so I dressed, tossed the wet laundry in the dryer, put the dogs in the yard, and we took off.
Two hours later, we returned home with some lattice and 1X2s to try again to doggy-proof the fence – those idiot mutts have been climbing over and escaping. I unlocked the house to toss my purse inside before helping to take the fence supplies to the workshop. Third time’s the charm, said the doo-doo.
The house was smoky and there was a definite smell of burning something. I’d forgotten about the eggs. Needless to say, the pan had boiled dry. Apparently, hard-boiled eggs explode when left beyond boiling. There was egg on the stove, behind the stove, on the microwave next to the stove, up in the hood over the stove, on the 10’ ceiling above the stove, on the island, on the light fixture over the island, on the floor, on the pantry door 10’ away, on the wall, on the shelf between the kitchen and the living room, and, of course, egg on top of the refrigerator. An eggs-travaganza in the worst sense of the word. Noticeably absent was the screaming of the smoke alarm, but we’d left the windows open because it was cool this morning – dunno if that was a factor.
We got a couple of fans set up at the patio door blowing out, and I opened all the windows fully. Oh, the smell!! The dogs came in when we opened the patio door and proceeded to eat egg morsels off the floor. Fine – less for me to pick up. The smoke cleared pretty fast and after I changed into grubby shorts and T, I started de-egging.
The good news is my sweet husband was able to save the saucepan – it’s a little bit discolored, but it’ll work fine. The better news is I have a clean kitchen and without the bother of company coming over! Yes, I confess - I only do deep cleaning when someone is due to visit. Except for this time. I disassembled the stove and cleaned it and its components. I pulled it away from the wall to clean the wall, the cabinets beside, and the exhaust hood. I cleaned the top of the fridge. I mopped the floor!!
Unfortunately, there’s still an odor lingering. I’ve tried air freshener and Febreeze, but something still stinks – I think it might be the throw rugs in the kitchen. They’ll be in the laundry next.
Lest ye believe that bad things come in threes, doo-doo-to-fan numero 4 was right behind.
One of the methods we tried to keep the evil doggies from running away involved running a bare wire along the fence, hooked to a transformer that fed 800+ volts to the wire. In theory, if a beastie touches the wire while standing on the ground, she’d get zapped and learn not to get close to the wire. We put the wires at the bottom of the fence, thinking they’d try to dig out. But they climb out, so when their bottom feet hit the wire, their top feet are on the wooden fence, ungrounded. No zap. They escape. Stupid dogs.
We discovered that they were climbing at the single gate on the back corner of the house, so we decided to move the wire to the top of the fence. That way, when they start to climb, their back legs will be grounded and they’ll get zapped and they’ll learn not to climb. In theory. Unfortunately, while we were in the basement looking for the wire and the insulators, the idiot dogs snuck down the deck and went over the fence. We didn’t even realize they were gone until a neighbor girl came and told us the dogs headed over to the trailers one street south. Stupid dogs.
We’ve got the wire in place and working. We’ll be adding the lattice anyway, just for aesthetics. Daughter and I drove thru the neighborhood looking for the idiot dogs, but they were not to be seen. We went back home to grab some lunch, then I took off on foot with leashes in hand. At the end of our road, I turned left and wound up in a patch of sandspurs. I just finished picking them off my socks when I saw the idiot dogs, panting and walking toward me, blocking traffic. I leashed ‘em up, took ‘em home, and they both collapsed on the floor. They’ve been sleeping ever since – it’s been 4 hours now. Stupid dogs.
The house is now closed up – it got too warm out and I wanted to get the AC on. I’m doing laundry, surfing, and writing this.
The moral of the story is: Don’t leave the house without checking that the stove is off.
This is your FairyChatLesson of the day. Thank you for your attention.
