It looks like a perfectly innocuous little corner, don’t you think? The edge of the dining room table, some of the rug, Chappy’s chair with its (crooked) slipcover … Yet, earlier today, it was the site of mayhem!
Because, um, while I was carrying in the baking dish full of manicotti this afternoon, it sort of jumped out of my hands.
No, seriously. I did NOT drop it. It was, however, not as secure in its holder as it might have been, so even though I was carrying it very carefully, and I had my hands (in their oven mitts) on the edge of the pan, as I leaned toward the table to put it down … the baking dish literally somersaulted out of the carrier and landed on the floor with a big splash of tomato sauce.
Um, you’d be surprised to know how very far that tomato sauce can go. Luckily, the dish–even though it somersaulted downward–stuck the landing, only losing one or two pieces of manicotti on the way down, while most of them stayed more or less in place. But, the resulting splash of sauce? Me. My shoes. My chair leg, the table leg. the side of Chappy’s chair. The drape. The window! We found tiny drops far up the window! The floor and the rug for miles around the crash site. Pretty much everywhere.
Chappy, naturally, immediately volunteered to help clean it up, but he got a mouthful of very hot cheese filling and promptly dropped it back on the floor–after which, his Grandpa came over to grab hold of him to keep him out of trouble. My brother-in-law and nephew stayed far out of the way, while my sister, niece and I tried to help Mom clean it up. Towels. Paper towels. Vacuum cleaner. The other vacuum cleaner. More paper towels … then we took a break, draped clean(ish) towels over the worst of the mess and ate dinner. What was left of it.
Then, more vacuuming, more scrubbing, and tons of Spot Shot–a no-doubt environmentally-corrosive cleanser, but one that does fantastic work on stains. Like, say, tomato sauce. (Or doggie diarrhea, like poor Jilly used to suffer from.) The worst part about Spot Shot is that it smells just terrible–not only is that smell mentally tagged in my brain with “Poor, Sick, Dying Jilly” but it’s STRONG and isn’t something I can sit near. So, I spent some time out on the deck, taking pictures of Chappy playing with his cousin. And with my sister! That almost never happens.
Um, after that, we ate dessert in the kitchen, away from the smell, and I was VERY careful carrying the bowl full of berries over to the table! Afterwards–even though by now I was pretty tired (as was everyone else because while we were scrubbing, my brother-in-law was doing yard work)–my nephew wanted to go for a walk, so Chappy and I went along. And, um, my nephew is over 6′ tall now and has long legs, so we walked rather faster than usual. We stopped, though, at Chappy’s favorite neighbor’s house–they had the whole family over and were sitting outside eating cake on the lawn–so we went and said a quick hello. And, while Chappy was saying hello to their 1-year old grandson Matz, he politely turned his head and threw up on the lawn.
Well, at least it was better than throwing up on their grandson! And we were walking kind of quickly on full stomachs. Anyway, we came home, the family left, and Chappy got a cool bath–right after he threw up in the bathtub, too. (Hey, at least that was easy to clean.)
Oh, and the visit to the LYS yesterday? That wasn’t actually my idea–my niece said she wanted to knit a sweater. Well! Far be it for me to stand in her way! I pulled out Custom Knits (since it was right on the top of my pile anyway) and she really liked Ingenue, and decided that we thought Cascade 220 would work for that and that it wasn’t that expensive, and so that’s why we went to Modern Yarns yesterday. It wasn’t for me. It was for HER. Because that’s the kind of aunt I am. (Hey, I let her get the 10%-off credit for hitting 5 miles on my yarn card.)
Um, but, naturally I couldn’t let her buy yarn and not buy some myself, right? AND what if she had questions on the pattern? Wouldn’t it be easier for me to answer if I were making it myself, also? So, that’s what that pretty blue yarn from yesterday is going to become. You know, in case you were wondering.
And, gosh, for some reason, I’m a little tired!
Now, I just need to figure out how to get tomato sauce off my favorite little blue Mary Jane shoes…
• Tags: Family, General • Permalink:Tomato Explosion // 4 Comments »
So, the negative about pulling out so many old, favorite knitting books to write reviews about them? My already-overflowing bookcase has started disintegrating into chaos. Because it’s overflowing to begin with, I’ve got horizontal piles of books, and piles of books balanced on the top … not to mention the knitting magazines overflowing their holders. The extra bags of yarn that have been piled there haven’t helped matters, either.
So–an hour or so of work later, at least I’ve got everything more or less tidy. The yarn is organized and all in the appropriate bins at the top of the closet and, for the moment at least, the books mostly all fit. (Um, we’ll see how long that lasts!)
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Tannenbaum.
House Calls
