gas and vomit and other reasons to not cook

sunday, my husband steve and i were both in kitchen, oddly enough, throwing together a spaghetti dinner at the gas cooktop when i noticed the strong odor of gas. i didn't think much about it since we did have one of the eyes on. but then later, i noticed the smell again and saw that one of the burners was turned to low, was not in use and had no flame. i turned it off. i came back about an hour later and saw that the burner right beside the one that had been on, was now turned to low, was not in use and had no flame. i turned it off. then i went outside and watered my withering plants that i stupidly planted during a heat wave. it took probably an hour before i was satisfied that everything was either dead or drenched. when i went back in the house, the smell of gas was unmistakeable. when i called the company that had delivered gas to us in the past, i was told the number was not valid. so i called georgia natural gas, even though i knew i was not a customer, in the hope that they could tell me who to call. well, they did even better - they told me they were sending someone to our house to check it out. in the meantime, they asked us to wait outside and to not turn on or off any electrical appliances. they also asked for my cell number - not my home - presumably because the home phone would likely be destroyed in the explosion. so we waited outside, for over an hour. we played with the dogs for a while and then my son mac decided he would kill time by spinning violently around the yard. not surprisingly, he felt sick after that and because it was still over 90 degrees out, despite being nearly 10pm, steve thought he might be more comfortable in the car with some air conditioning. and this seemed to be a great idea, right up until the point where mac vomited spaghetti all over the back seat. in the meantime, the gas guy arrived (from a not-so-nearby town, he pointed out) and was apparently not excited to be at our house. he was even less excited when he informed us that we weren't on natural gas, we had LP gas. he said this as if he were explaining the difference between the floor and the ceiling. he also had detected no gas in our house - at all. and so, we thanked him, he grumbled and then drove away. and so we took our dogs, our daughter and our vomited-covered son back inside and called it a night. and i think we all learned a valuable lesson. i learned that cooking is dangerous and should be avoided and mac learned that violent spinning should only be done at a friend's house.

perfectly polished

recently an acquaintance gave me a brochure for an extra curricular activity for my children. this may sound harmless, perhaps even thoughtful, until i tell you that the brochure was for an etiquette class called "perfectly polished." i tried not to take this personally - as a suggestion that my children needed an etiquette class - although admittedly, they are neither perfect nor polished in any sense of the words.

but i decided i would look online anyway and see what this class was all about. on the home page, i saw that the classes included social education, covering topics like handshakes, table and telephone manners, and a cotillion class concentrating on host/hostess duties, napkins, the dos and donts of dining as well as several dance classes instructing kids on the fox trot, waltz and shag. a lot of words like "grace," "foundation for success," "poise," and "higher standards" were thrown about to the point of making me uncomfortable. it was then that i realized that not only did my children not know the proper use of utensils at a formal 13-piece dinner setting or the caribbean hustle, but i didn't either. how had i made it this far in life and how dare i send my kids off in the world to suffer the same fate - or worse, subject those of higher standards to my unsophisticated clan?

not too long ago, i saw the acquaintance's daughter and asked her how the class was going and she replied with something like "really well, thank you for asking." of course, i couldn't hear her very well because my daughter was screaming at her brother to stop making farting noises.

straw man

i live in the south where pine straw is used to fill flower beds. our beds were in need of filling and i found a guy who would deliver and lay the straw in my yard. i watch a lot of law and order svu, so i was pretty sure he was coming over under the pretense of delivering and laying pine straw, but with a well thought out plan to rape/torture/murder me and deposit my lifeless and potentially dismembered body in a ravine only to be discovered days later by an unsuspecting couple searching for the cell phone that the wife had tossed out the window of their car during an argument. but as it turned out, he came over to torture me in a different way - by talking to me about long-needle pine straw. here is an excerpt from that conversation (and i use the term "conversation" loosely):

straw man: this here's my dad. he works with me. we got long-needle pine straw. lot of places'll tell you they got long-needle pine straw but it ain't. they'll say it's long-needle, but it ain't long-needle. see this here - this is long-needle. see how long them needles are. an look, it bends first and then it breaks, that's long needle. it holds up a lot longer than straw that ain't long needle. and i got long-needle. now i got a hundred bales of it that i bought this morning for $3.50 a bale and i charge you $4 a bale. that's 50 cents a bale i make. cause i work for sweat. i'm out here working. you can ask my daddy [points at dad, who is actually laying pine straw]. he knows i'm honest with my work cause if i wat'n, i'd have to answer to him. now i'm going to have enough of this long-needle to do those two beds right there and those are the two you want me to do, right? cause if i have any left, i will do that one right there too but i'm gon do these two right here first to start with because those are the ones you told me that you wanted done first and then if i have any left over, i will do that one. now i can do more cause i got a hundred bales and it's all long-needle. an it's hard to find the long-needle. lot a places will say it's long needle.....

me: well it looks great. thank you.

straw man: that's cause the long needle just has a better color. now my brother does the same thing i do [and i am thinking, talks too much? repeats himself?]. he sells pine straw and he lays and rolls it just like i do. and my dad, he does masonry but he's helping me today. he's laying it around that bed now. the long-needle just looks better. and it lasts about 6 months. the other stuff falls apart and breaks up a lot sooner than that. but the long-needle is hard to find. i was excited when i found that truck this morning. i paid $3.50 a bale for it. but he only had a hundred bales. it's hard to find.

i nodded along, with the straw man still talking. and walked backwards for several steps while he continued to talk. and then i just turned away from him and walked into my house. within minutes, he was at the door asking if his dad could have some water - i am sure that having done most of the work himself, he was indeed thirsty. i obliged and as i gave the water to the straw man to give to his father, he started the entire conversation again. eventually, the straw man and his quiet, hard-working, hydrated dad packed up their things and left. finally, i was free to go outside and admire my long-needle pine straw. and i do think it looks nice. it's not surprising that it is so hard to find, because it looks nice. and it cost me $4 a bale. and i like it. because it's long-needle.

online rejection

because i am new in my town and through a series of unfortunate events ended up homeschooling my son, i haven't made a lot of friends. well, i tell myself those are the reasons for my lack of friends. and as a pathetic attempt to remedy this, i decided to join an online but local homeschooling group. as i perused the posts from other women in my area unfortunate enough to homeschool, i realized why i have such difficulty finding friends. i had ruled out several of the group members as potential friends based solely on their children's names. i know, this seems harsh. but seriously, i don't see my son mac getting together to obsess over video games with aspen and cedar. similarly, i ruled out several members based solely on their usernames, including cooksfromscratch, myhighercalling, birthchic (this one just grossed me out a little) and faith41jesus. i rejected another member because she was selling a book called "baking with whole grains," which she described as emphasizing "a biblical creation perspective." seriously? a book on baking with whole grains managed to squeeze in some biblical creation? i almost bought the book from her just to see how one might accomplish such a daunting writing task. but this is the problem with trying to find friends online - you don't see the whole package. in person, despite baking with whole grains, this person may actually dislike her kids, drink too much, and possess all of the other qualities i am looking for in a friend. i mean, afterall, she is selling the book. or maybe she bought the book to torture her children by feeding them whole grains and simultaneously emphasizing biblical creation. or maybe the book was a gift from a friend she met online, perhaps faith41jesus. so as i went down the list of group members, rejecting them one-by-one for their virtual flaws, i realized, i need to get out more. i am much more confident in my ability to reject people in person.

foreign distractions

today i decided to call myself a writer. and not just because i got this cool leather-bound journal that makes me look like a writer. i decided to call myself a writer because i have officially set myself up for rejection by a real literary agent. i emailed this agent that recently spoke at a writers conference in my area. i guess though if i were a real writer, i would have attended the conference. and if i were a real writer, i wouldn't be sitting here at starbucks, trying to write in my new fancy journal but completely distracted by the people beside me speaking a foreign language. sadly, i am not worldly enough to recognize the language - perhaps french? and really, they aren't bad looking people. but i believe that speaking another language, or speaking english with a heavy accent of almost any kind, automatically makes you more attractive. for instance, we recently went skiing and my son's ski instructor was very nice and not unattractive, although he did have a substantial gap between his front teeth. when he spoke, however, it was with a fantastic british accent. it occurred to me then that with an accent, you really can get away with more physical flaws than you can without an accent. had andy, the gap-toothed instructor, been from south georgia, he would have been nothing short of hideous. okay, that may be an exaggeration but you get my point - that if you are unattractive, you should move to another country where you might be more appreciated. and speaking of appreciated, i need to go and check my email for rejection, something that if i am going to be a real writer, i should get used to.

green with irritation

i went for a run the other day in my new town. the run ended in 5-points, an area of town that thinks a lot of itself. because there is an earth fare (over-priced specialty grocery store) in 5-points, i decided on the spur of the moment to pick up my kids' organic gummy vitamins. but on the way to the vitamins, i picked up some fancy cheese, some special crackers, a bottled water (because i was thirsty) and a few other items. well, because it was on the spur of the moment, i did not bring my own grocery bags despite that i am an avid recycler and reuser - and by avid, i mean obsessive. so i put my items on the belt and the cashier rang them up and pushed them on down the line. i swiped my card and the transaction was complete. only my groceries were still sitting there on the giant silver tray. the tray that up to this point i had considered to be a holding area until the cashier or i placed the grocery items into a receptacle that i would then transport to my vehicle. however, no such receptacle presented itself. and the cashier looked at me and i at him until finally, the silence was broken by his statement that i could pay five cents for a bag or i could carry my groceries out without one. trying to explain to him that i usually brought bags was like trying to explain to the guy at the liquor store that all three six-packs were not for me. futile. we ended up compromising - apparently the cashier could provide me with a box to carry my purchased items in and then we would be reusing a box and the store would not charge me for that. so i took my box of organic and special things to my car and everyone was happy. well, happy might be an overstatement.

college kids

my husband steve and i had a date tonight. our plan was to go downtown and have dinner and then go to this bar and see a band that we have been wanting to see. unfortunately though, steve was on call for our date. we left our house at 6:30 and in the 15-minute drive to downtown athens, his phone rang no less than seven times. and as it turns out, someone had broken or severed or dislocated something or other and he had to go in and deal with it. rather than wait at his office, i decided i could better spend my time downtown. so he dropped me off.

spring break is over and the college kids are in abundance at all of the downtown bars at 7pm on a friday night. i stopped by the globe, a bar that has been on the corner of clayton and lumpkin for a million years and has beers from around the world. i had a local pale ale. as a side note, i was sitting in front of a sign that said (and i am quoting exactly) "we go to jail if we fail to check your ID. please have IDs ready when ordering alcohol." i wasn't carded. so i finished my ale and i headed over to the restaurant where we were planning to eat dinner, the last resort. i managed to secure a spot at the bar alone and immediately thereafter, a swarm of college girls descended on the bar, completely surrounding me. i didn't intend to eavesdrop, but i couldn't help myself, i was alone at the bar, surrounded by beautiful young girls chattering away - about nothing. the conversations were so stupid and meaningless that it made me quickly try to remember whether i, too, had had such stupid and meaningless conversations at bars while seated beside real people, desperate for a night out away from their children. i decided that my conversations may have only been slightly more meaningful. but it made me realize that i didn't want to be that young and stupid again. and that it is totally overrated. i mean really, when you take away the freedom, the friends and parties, the total lack of responsibility, the tighter, firmer skin, the perkier breasts, the thicker hair, the better attitudes, the ability to drink more and stay out later, the flat stomach and the ability to recover from a hangover by having a mcdonald's cheeseburger and a large coke, there really wasn't anything that special about it.

eventually steve arrived and after checking with the hostess and realizing we still had an hour and a half wait for our table and a babysitter on the clock, we decided to head on home. we picked up some pizza on the way and headed back to our more responsible and important lives.