A close call

This morning around 5 AM, I opened our windows wide to let in the cool air before the day heated up (high in the mid 80s today, completely wonderful if a bit warm). I'd just sat down to drink my coffee when I heard an odd noise. I knew it wasn't Kent and suspected a cat had gotten into something or other.

Well, it was Eddie in the window of the pink bathroom. Actually he was only half in the window since his other half was starting to hang out of the window. Yes, he'd managed to dislodge the pin that held in the screen on the left side. Being a large, 17 pound cat, he didn't have to do much to move the screen at that point.

Thankfully I got him back in the house, although he dug in his front paws on the outside of the window with his long, agile paws. He wasn't pleased and grumped at me to let me know how thoroughly disgusted he was.

We made sure all the windows were open only a couple of inches before leaving for the day.

Glorious weather

And the cats are loving the doors and windows being open. They don't often congregate together like this; usually they are more solitary in their outdoor viewing.

A tale of two dinners

About 11 years ago, my brother and his wife came over for dinner. Because Kent and I like to cook and experiment with new recipes, we’d decided to try a Food & Wine barbecued chicken recipe that sounded different and intriguing.

The recipe called for the chicken to be baked at 500°F, which is pretty freaking hot. In fact. it was so hot that the glass baking dishes were smoking like crazy and the house was starting to smell smoky. So I thought hey, I’ll just put a little water in the pans so maybe it won’t smoke so much.

You see where this is going, right?

As the water left the measuring cup I belatedly realized that room temperature water in a glass pan that was 500°F was probably not a good idea. Fortunately, the oven door was mostly closed because that pan just exploded. I mean it blew up. And of course the oven got even smokier, and so did the house.

Kent and I started throwing open doors and windows to let the smoke out, and pulled out the non-exploded pan to see if the glass had gotten into it (somehow it had not). In the middle of picking glass out of the bottom of the still incredibly hot oven, the doorbell rang. Doug and Barb had arrived. Barb took a look around and said, “Well I think it’s time to open the wine.” And we did.

Last weekend we had them over again for dinner with my parents, who were visiting us from Idaho. We made chicken again, a dish we’ve made before – only this time we doubled it.

Our pan wasn’t quite large enough to contain all the sauce and chicken, so as it baked (at just 350°F this time), the liquid bubbled up under the edges of the lid and fell to the bottom of the oven where it smoked like crazy. Once again, we had windows open trying to clear the kitchen and the house of all the smoke.

I think the moral of this story is that we should never again make chicken for my brother and his wife.

You are getting very sleepy

Nighty-night . . .

Like peas in a pod

Or rather, cats on a cushion

These cushions are left over from our first POÄNG chair from Ikea. While I liked the fabric cushions a lot, I didn't like how much cat fur they collected. So we got new leather cushions instead. But I felt kind of bad taking away a much-loved cat seat. We've had them in various places around the apartment in Boston, the rental apartment in Overland Park and now here in the Little Yellow House.

Everything will be OK

Last night after I got home, I watched the video of the first explosion in Boston on Boylston Street, especially those first responders who ran toward the explosion.

That’s Boston. That’s the way people are there.

Seeing that video last night reminded me of the night we flooded. I thought I’d written this story down then, but I guess not. At least I can’t find it in my posts.

That night, we had only been able to find a room at what can best be charitably described as a crack house hotel. It’s in Dorchester and not any of the nice sections, and backs onto I 93. There’s a bowling alley right by it with a snack bar and also a semi-decent restaurant about a 3 minute walk away. That night there were also tweekers walking the halls and I could smell that unforgettable odor of crack. But it was the only place that would accept the cats. I guess the cats weren’t any messier than the tweekers.

Kent had gone back to the apartment, trying to save some things and I was with the cats in this nasty hotel. We’d agreed he would do what he could there and I would find us something to eat for dinner. I walked to the bowling alley first because it was closer but couldn’t bring myself to order anything there. So I headed over to the other, slightly nicer restaurant.

I ordered a hamburger for me and a pizza for Kent (he loves pizza even if it’s room temperature). It only took about 15 minutes until the lady brought out the bag with our food in it. Right as I started to pay, Kent called me and told me that the jewelry box my grandfather had made for me, which I was pretty sure was below the water line, was OK and that he had it. I’m not sure why that news made me tear up but it did.

So I stood at the counter trying to pay for the food while telling Kent thank you and blubbering over the news. The lady working there, a true Southie and probably my age although she seemed older, was clearly puzzled and alarmed on my behalf. I told her our apartment had flooded with most of our furniture etc destroyed, and that my husband had found and saved this jewelry box.

She came around the counter to give me the bag of food. To my surprise, she pulled me in and kissed my forehead – the way you’d kiss a small child to offer comfort – and told me everything would be OK.

That’s Boston, too.

When bad things happen in Boston, you won’t get warm fuzzy words. You won’t get casseroles either (although you might get wine). But someone will tell or show you that it will be OK.

He likes the tub

What the pictures don't show is that he zoomed from one end to the other. Usually he'll roll around and around with the length of his body lined up exactly as you'd line up to take a bath. But not today. Today he could clearly see things I couldn't see and tried his hardest to catch them.