DH and I are having a bit of a quiet away-time. It was just about a year ago, I was almost burning down the house!<\/strong> I wrote here<\/a>, that I would be recording a podcast of Vespers in \u2018about an hour.\u2019<\/p>\n Well, Vespers will be late. They\u2019re coming, just as soon as I write this and my hands stop shaking.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the deal: I\u2019m fasting. No eating between meals, only two meals a day, yadda yadda, by the time supper comes around, yer girl is pretty hungry, a little lightheaded and goofy.<\/p>\n My husband is having a \u201cguys night out\u201d which I encouraged. Elder Son is distracted. So, I decided I would order out \u2013 a pasta dish for the young man, and a salad for me. Then I thought\u2026wow\u2026there\u2019s this leftover stuff, all melty cheese and meat, that I like. I\u2019ll heat that up in the over as a wee \u201cappetizer\u201d to my salad.<\/p>\n For some reason, My son\u2019s pasta dish was delivered in a pizza box \u2013 I suppose to keep it warm. I put the pizza box on the stovetop, as usual, popped my little \u201cappetizer\u201d in the oven and turned it on. And walked away.<\/p>\n As I walked away, my Guardian Angel \u2013 who I know better than to ignore \u2013 said, \u201cpssst \u2013 you\u2019d better doublecheck that you turned the right knobs.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n My intellect \u2013 such as it is \u2013 said, \u201cnup, nup, nup, I\u2019m smart, don\u2019t need to check, dudduh-duh-dudduh\u2026gonna go read now, dudduh-duh-dudduhhhh\u2026.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n You see where this is going, right?<\/p>\n So, I sat down to read\u2026well\u2026garbage<\/em>. I admit it. I sat down to read this imagined conversation between Salma Hayak, her breasts and Karl Lagerfeld<\/a> and yes I giggled because I think the Fug girls are witty and because\u2026you know\u2026serious material is all well and good, but after reading it for a while, I do have to break out the brain candy.<\/p>\n The sad equation is this:<\/strong> for every 3 hours of news\/opinion reading, ten minutes of brain candy. For every 20 minutes<\/em> of Thomas Aquinas, two hours of the wildly entertaining<\/a>, terrifically funny<\/a> and wonderously frivolous<\/a>, Georgette Heyer<\/a>.<\/p>\n I never said I was anything but a savage, you know<\/strong>.<\/p>\n So, there I was, reading fluff, when the dog and the smoke detector both went off.<\/p>\n The pizza box! The pizza box I left on the stove. The electric<\/em> stove. The electric stove with the black knobs that are so easy to mix up!<\/p>\n I turned the corner to the kitchen and saw the bright flames merrily lighting up the far wall \u2013 the white smoke everywhere \u2013 and I yelled out, \u201coh, no, not again!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Yes, sadly\u2026this was an \u201cagain.\u201d<\/strong> Twenty-three years ago I set fire to the kitchen while sterilizing baby bottle nipples. Yes, I did breast feed, but you know\u2026juice\u2026water\u2026your first child you want to do everything perfectly, so you sterilize everything in sight. And then you fall asleep because you\u2019re so tired from sterilizing everything in sight. And then the water boils down and the nipples catch fire. And what black, black smoke comes out of those synthetic rubber nipples.<\/p>\n Well, they are petroleum-based products, after all.<\/p>\n Isn\u2019t it funny how, with your first child you disinfect everything the child might touch, and with the second, you recall Auntie Lillie\u2019s dictum that \u201cyou gotta eat a peck of dirt before you die<\/em>.\u201d Poor Buster. His brother got sterilized nipples. Buster\u2019s<\/em> pacifiers I\u2019d pick up from the floor, kiss up to God, and shove back into his mouth. No wonder he\u2019s always been so delicate<\/a>!<\/p>\n So I yell, \u201coh, no, not again! Fire! Help! Got a fire, here!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I don\u2019t remember doing so<\/strong>, but I must have reached through the flames to shut off the stove, because the forearm feels a little scorched. Elder Son appeared out of nowhere yelling, \u201cwhere do we keep the fire extinguisher?\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n I didn\u2019t know where the extinguisher was, but I\u2019m sure it wouldn\u2019t have mattered, as we have not had it charged in a good, long while. I began dousing flames with water from a pitcher and poor Elder Son raced to where the fire extinguisher might have been, maybe ten years ago, before I lost it. Seeing I had the flames under control, he began opening windows and doors, as the smoke was everywhere.<\/p>\n \u201cDamn,\u201d I said, picking saturated, burned corrugated pizza box<\/strong> off the stove, counter and floor. \u201cI think the pasta might be ruined. It was a very nice rigatoni bolognese\u2026\u201d Then I saw that the knobs on the firey side of the stove were melted out of shape. \u201cOhh\u2026yer dad\u2019s not going to like that\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Elder Son, fixing fans into windows, and mistaking my meaning, scolded, \u201cYou know\u2026the food doesn\u2019t really matter, just now.\u201d<\/p>\n Sigh. So, here we are on a rather chilly October night, every window open, the just-packed-away fans buzzing along. My lovely, tempting appetizer, forgotten in all of this, ended up overheated and inedible, although the dog thought otherwise, and my house smells like a campfire, which has never been my favorite indoor smell. I managed to salvage most of the bolognese and my kids both learned long ago not to be too fussy if they wanted to survive, so Elder Son is fed.<\/p>\n Me? I\u2019m really hungry because the salad is insufficient both in calories and in comfort-capabilities.<\/p>\n And I need comfort food.<\/strong> I need vanilla Carvel ice cream, with chocolate sprinkles. What I want is the \u201cGo Blind From Chocolate\u201d dessert from a local trattoria, but you know\u2026I\u2019m fasting<\/em>. So, all I can do is offer up the hunger, offer up the yearning, offer up the needful interior whimpering that thrums \u201cchocolate brownie with chocolate mousse.\u201d Offer it up, for the good of my country.<\/p>\n That may not sound like much to some. But I bet many women out there understand that this sacrifice is almost Nathan Hale-ine. I regret that I have but one appetizer and one \u201cGo Blind from Chocolate\u201d to give up for my country!<\/p>\n It is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done. <\/strong><\/p>\n But I want<\/em> it.<\/p>\n And I don\u2019t deserve the comfort-food, anyway, since I ignored my Guardian Angel.<\/p>\n Every time I do that, I end up regretting it. If you don\u2019t like the idea of a Guardian Angel, then think of it as your \u201cgut\u201d \u2013 it\u2019s there to be listened to. Except this wasn\u2019t<\/em> my gut. I distinctly heard, \u201cyou\u2019d better doublecheck that\u2026\u201d and ignored it.<\/p>\n Gad, I\u2019m such an idiot. But you already knew that!<\/p>\n Two chocolate brownies with chocolate mousse in between, and kahlua and chocolate fudge syrup\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n Okay\u2026I\u2019m not going to get any comfort out of food tonight \u2013 comfort will have to come from prayer.<\/p>\n Podcast coming up, as soon as I make myself some Royal Rum Pecan Coffee<\/a> \u2013 which is the nearest thing to dessert I\u2019ll be seeing. In the podcast, I believe I will read a brief snippet from this book<\/a>, because it is a wise and challenging snippet. And right now I need all the wise and challenging I can get.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll bet Ann Althouse<\/a> never had so much trouble getting a podcast done!<\/p>\n
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\nReposted from October 2008<\/strong><\/p>\n