Tiara Revoked

I love my imaginary friends! You always have nice things to say, even when I'm a doof. Thanks for all the validation yesterday. I started dusting off my Homecoming tiara, which of course is imaginary, being as I never actually had a Homecoming tiara, or anything like it, really. And then I remembered why I never had one. Because I'm such a doof.

Seriously -

So yesterday afternoon, I got a phone call from the Relief Society President to let me know that someone's mother had a heart attack the day before. The reason she was calling me is that one of the girls, Crystal, (who would be the granddaughter of the heart attackee) was having quite a difficult time with the situation, and since I'm in charge of the young women right now, she thought I should know. I was listening to her. I really was.

But I was also doing about eleventy seven other things. So I'm saying,

"ok, yes. Grandmother died of a heart attack. We'll get on it and take care of her. Is there anything else we can do? "

In the meantime, the stove is boiling over, Mimi is doing a little pantomime to ask if she can walk to the park, and The Brain is calling me from the basement. I was distracted, OK? She said there wasn't really anything else to be done, so I hung up and immediately called the leader for the 14-15 year olds, told her about the situation, and asked her to give Crystal a call to check on her and figure out what would be appropriate. Problem handled, right?

Wrong.

15 minutes later I got a call back from a very flustered leader, who told me about the conversation that went something like this:

Hey Crystal. How are you?

I'm OK.

Well, I was so sorry to hear that your grandma died.

...little pause...

WHAT?! WHEN DID SHE DIE? I JUST TALKED TO HER ABOUT 2 HOURS AGO!

Oh, wait, maybe I'm wrong!

OH MY GOSH! OH MY GOSH!

Wait, Crystal! I thought she died yesterday! I'm probably wrong! Let's find out before we panic!

OH MY GOSH! OH MY GOSH!

Oh Cheeze Whiz! Upon further investigation, well, pretty much I'm an idiot.

It's so funny, but it's so not funny. (If it hadn't happened to me, I'd think it was hilarious.)



At least Crystal did feel better by the time we got it straightened out. So as it turns out, we got the job done.


Sheeze.

Follow-up

I don't know if you'll find this as amusing as we did, but in light of my post yesterday, and Mimi's comment on that post - which was true AND hilarious- I thought you might enjoy knowing that while making breakfast this morning at 5:45 I burned the toast.

The smoke alarms started before the bread was even warm, I'm telling you!

No one even batted an eye.


(That's either really scary, or really funny. I have no idea what to do about it. I guess I could take out the kitchen smoke alarm... )

Turkey Trot

About a week ago, while rummaging around in my basement freezer, I counted three turkeys.

I guess every year at Thanksgiving when turkeys are $5 each, I buy an extra one. So with a couple of new turkeys for this year looming on the horizon, I decided that an old turkey would have to be used this week.
The 24 pound beast sat in my fridge until Friday, when I decided that it could wait no longer, and must be cooked.

So I slid it into an oven bag, and pushed it into my oven to cook for the required 3 hours the box had specified. I got the table set - fancier than usual because, well, it's a turkey. I started a pie, peeled potatoes, and laid out some better-than-usual green salads on little salad plates, because I refer you again to the fact that it's a turkey. Also apparently I'm an overachiever. But if you were cooking a turkey tonight, what would you have with it?

See what I mean?



The timer finally rang, so I pulled that baby out of the oven, which isn't really as easy as it sounds. I have one of those double ovens that's the same size as a regular oven, but instead of the storage drawer on the bottom it's the second oven. (does that make any sense?) Anyway, my big oven is on the bottom, so the turkey pan is literally about 3 inches off the floor when it's in there baking. Anyway, I practically had to kneel down to get enough leverage on the thing to bring it out of the oven, but I wrestled it out of there and set it on the stove.

The thermometer actually laughed at me, that turkey was so not done, so back into the oven it went.

Apparently, when they tell you to tuck the bag in around the turkey, they really know what they're talking about.

I forgot to do that part.

So about 10 minutes later, I started smelling this kind of burning smell, which I attributed to something on the pan or burner that was now boiling the potatoes.

Five minutes later, I noticed some smoke coming from the oven. It occurred to me that that was not a good sign, but before I opened the oven, I ran upstairs to turn on the attic fan, so that the smoke would be sucked out before it hit our ubersensitive smoke alarm.

Naturally during the 20 seconds that took, the smoke alarms started going off.

Can I just pause here to tell you about our smoke alarms? All the alarms in the house are wired together, so if one goes off, they all go off. They are the loudest things I have ever... and then they don't go off for a good minute after the smoke is cleared.

Anyway, The Brain made it to the kitchen about the same time I did. I yelled above the din

Get the turkey out of the oven!

He grabbed the hot pads, I opened the oven, and as we were staring in amazement at the sheer amount of smoke pouring out of there, the bottom of the oven burst into flames.

Big flames!

So he went to grab the turkey, and I ran (about 3 feet) for the fire extinguisher.

And then apparently, as The Brain pulled the turkey from the inferno, the pan tipped slightly, dumping more grease out of the hole in the turkey bag and into the oven, and then the flames started coming out of the oven and licking the stove top.

For the love of all that is holy, I could NOT get the fire extinguisher out of it's holder.

I'm screaming

I can't get it! I can't do it!

And The Brain was frantically looking for a place to put the turkey down. Every single surface was covered. But it didn't stop him from running all the way around the island in the kitchen, looking desperately for a place to put that thing down, grease pouring out of the hole in the bag with every step he took.

In the meantime, the flames coming out of the oven were -and I swear by heaven and swiss cheese - they were 4 feet tall.

I finally managed to get the fire extinguisher off the wall. I aimed. I fired. Nothing happened.
At this point I'm screaming

"It won't work! It won't work! Put that thing in the sink and HELP ME!"

Remember the world's loudest smoke alarms are still screeching at full volume.

To his credit, The Brain did not just DUMP that whole pan of turkey into the sink like I would have, but quickly balanced it on the side of the sink and came to rescue me from the flames and the stupid fire extinguisher. WHICH WAS EMPTY.

The flames were still huge and getting bigger, so I went to at least close the door to the oven, but once my forward momentum was started, found myself sliding through the grease and couldn't stop.
You know how things sort of go into slow motion at critical times in your life? I was in perfect slow motion, flailing toward the fire pit as if I were on roller skates, clutching at anything that might stop me, when I felt The Brain grab the back of my my pants and in one wedgiefying movement saved me from a fiery death.

I slammed the door closed as long as I was over there, and also managed to turn off the gas to the oven.

We stood there watching the fire smother to death, and turned to survey the kitchen. There was layer of smoke at the ceiling, the floor was covered - and I mean covered - in turkey grease, but we sighed in relief as we couldn't see any signs of serious damage. Well, I sighed. I'm assuming the Brain sighed, too, but since the smoke alarms were still broadcasting the news to our neighbors, I didn't actually hear it.

That was about the time Mimi and Lizzie came moseying into the kitchen saying

Hey! Can you turn off that stupid noise?

Oh yeah. Yeah, sure girls. Is that bothering you? I'll get right on it. AS SOON AS I PUT OUT THE HOUSE FIRE AND CLEAN THE SINGED HAIR OFF MY ARMS AND SEE IF DAD STILL HAS EYEBROWS. I'll get right on that for ya.



Anyway... How was YOUR weekend?



*edited to add that we're all fine, and we're all still laughing about it!

Hide and Seek

In our house, teenage cell phones are a reward for good grades. (Let's try not to call it bribery, k?) Every Friday, we go over the grades in the school's online program, and if the grades are meeting the standards, phone privileges are granted for another week.

So last April, Mimi had a little trouble in the grade/cell phone dept.

See, Mimi's grades would bounce around between the acceptable and not acceptable, but every Friday when we did the official checking, they were, well, not quite up to par.

Some would call that an incredible stream of bad luck. Others might say that it's karma coming around when you're willing to utter the phrase

"Hey, I don't have to turn in extra credit, because I'm 1/100th of a point above the cut-off,"

right in front of your parents.


But either way, the phone privileges were lost for several weeks.

I hid the phone in the normal spot. Which I didn't really think of as HIDING, per se... More like putting it in a spot where we weren't going to see it all the time, thus initiating more (continual) discussions about why she couldn't have the phone again until next Friday, even though her grades were back up and it was only Tuesday.

About 3 weeks into the "situation", I came across the phone - - - not in it's normal position in it's new little home. Confessions were made, and even though she really really REALLY needed to get some numbers out of the directory in her phone, it was agreed that she should NOT have been on the phone for any reason with out prior permission.

So I took that phone. And I hid it in a really really great hiding place. I mean, I was really thinking out of the box, here. (you know where this is going, right?)

Summer phone privileges were non-existent because of the end of year grade slippage. But here we are 3 weeks into school and she still has straight A's. ((( Yay Mimi! ))) She's been really responsible with her homework every night, and I would love to reward that with the thing she most wants in All the Universe.

Yeah, I've been looking for that stupid phone for a week and a half now, and I can NOT find it anywhere. Last week I told her that it was the natural consequence for making me hide her phone really super hard, and she would just have to wait another week or until whenever I find it. But friends, it isn't looking good.

Replacing that phone is not really in my budget. Nor is a cleaning/decluttering service. (Though it would be a pretty creative solution, now that I think about it...)

Times like these make me think I might have been better off without taking all those "creative thinking" classes in college. Seriously.

Welcome to Motherhood

I can't decide if this is more like a 9 year old birthday party, or a Beehive/Deacon activity.

Take your pick.

(OK - That was really bizarre! Remember when I was trying to post that Discovery Channel commercial about 2 weeks ago? And I said I was having trouble with youtube? Everything I tried that day just came flooding in tonight. Hope I didn't put anybody's subscription service on overload!)

QUICK! SAY HI!

So my internet service is going in and out like Br*tney Spears' custody privileges.

I don't think I've had an hour of uninterrupted service in the past 2 days. There's a reason I call it "Con"castic!

It's My Party and I"ll Cry if I Want To

Welcome to my life.
This week was Lizzie's birthday. In celebration, we wanted to go out to dinner.
"Ok" she cautiously agreed. "As long as you don't tell the waiter it's my birthday."
"Sure," The Brain agrees, " I won't tell the waiter it's your birthday."
But Lizzie, being the smart little cookie she is (and having lived with her dad for a loooong time), didn't let it end there.
"Or the waitress, any of the serving staff, or any hostess or employee or customer in the restaurant."

He finally broke down and agreed to all her terms and we were on our way.

As we drove to the appointed place, she detailed how she had lived the day in fear of anyone mentioning her birthday. I mean, the mortification of having a whole class LOOKING at her and possibly even singing to her was more than she could bear. She was so happy to have escaped any embarrassment.

Mimi mentioned that she had heard the restaurant had a brand new birthday song they were making the servers sing, and she would kind of like to hear it.

You see where this is going, right? We couldn't resist the practical jokeness of telling the server that it was MIMI's birthday. We did it in a note, and The Brain was very very sure to point at Mimi. I saw him. He pointed at the blonde.

As we finished our food, the server came out with a little dessert and the accompanying parade of servers following behind.

We snickered.

Then to my utter HORROR, she walked around the table and set the dessert in front of LIZZIE, and started the loudest and longest birthday song I have ever heard. All 4 of us went sheer white. Lizzie and Mimi because they could not BELIEVE that we had broken our promises. The Brain and I because WE HADN'T!!

Lizzie bravely smiled and said thanks, then once Satan's Choir turned and left, the tears slid down her cheeks, as The Brain and I, both talking at the same time, tried to convince her that we hadn't done it! It was supposed to have been a joke on Mimi!

We tried to apologize. We tried to change the subject. Still the tears slid slowly down her cheeks.

Just send the "Britn*y Spears Mother of the Year" award to:

Horrible Mother JustRandi
Colorado, USA

It'll get to me, no problem. They know me here.