February 25 – “A series of unfortunate events”

Yesterday was spattered with a collection of mini-catastrophes.  At least for me.  I guess catastrophe may be a little strong in  the grand scheme of things, but they were certainly annoyances that I for one would have been happy to do without.    First, Chris was heating up some water in the microwave to steep some tea.  That sweet tea she makes is awesome.  Ask Cory.  Or Allen.  Legendary.  So I decided to help out by taking the glass, two-cup, measuring cup full of nearly boiling water out of the microwave for Chris.  What a great helper I am, huh?  As I set the cup down on the grate of the stove top, it toppled a bit.  Not a problem.  I jumped to the rescue to straighten it out, which in turn caused it to tip the other direction, spilling a few drops onto my hand.  Like any good human being with reflexes not yet tainted by age or disease, I felt it right awy.  And reacted.  And my ensuing jump caused the whole thing to spill, some on my hand and the rest onto the stove.  Seeing I had no hope of rescuing the precious liquid, I did what any other semi-normal human being would have done.  I danced a jig and shook my poor affected hand as hard as I could to generate coolness from the breeze.  As Chris realized what I had done, she stepped in as the incredible nurse that she is and calmly ordered through clenched teeth (not clenched in anger or worry, mind you.  That was definitely an effort to maintain composure and keep from laughing out loud), "Go stick it under some cold water."  I finally complied and a burn crisis was narrowly averted.    Chris then determined to get my mind off the horror-that-could-have-been by suggesting we have some supper.  I selected leftover bean soup.  She makes the world's best of that, too.  I got a bowl and scooped some of the prized delicacy into it.  And I approached the scene of the earlier debacle.  Carefully, I raised the full receptacle into position.  The microwave sits on a shelf about chest high over our counter.  Upon achieving adequate height, I began the forward motion that would place it into the heating mechanism.  Unfortunately, I miscalculated.  The bottom of the bowl hit against the bottom of the microweave and tipped, spilling the contents everywhere.  Was it me or that evil microwave?  But it could have been worse.  At least I didn't drop the bowl and break it.  And at least the soup was still cold.  Chris heard my muttering and turned to see what was the problem.  Now to her immense credit, she didn't explode with laughter (which, by the way is almost certainly what I would have done).  Instead she joined me in my efforts to eradicate all evidence of the mishap and restore the kitchen to its cleaned and pristine state (that state, by the way had only just been accomplished by an afternoon of Chris' house cleaning).  When the cleaning was completed, she stood at the sink, and in a voice choked with emotion (OK, but that sounds better than saying she was about to spew with laughter), she suggested, "How about we order pizza?"  Great idea.  PapaJohn's it is.   The pizza finally arrived, but something wasn't right.  The tags on the boxes read correctly: meat lovers on one and pepperoni and sausage on the other.  We always order two at a time and freeze what is left for future consumption.  We do have six grandchildren, five of whom are boys.  When I opened the first box, labeled pepperoni and sausage, I found myself staring at an array of … vegetables, most notable of which were bell peppers (not that bad) and black olives (Chris' all-time least favorite).  I hastened to check the other box, the one marked meat lovers, and was relieved to find the pepperoni and sausage pizza intact.  We could eat.  I called Papa John and he promised to send us out the right one.    My final catastrophe came when I was putting ice into cups for supper.  Great husband, right?  Helping out with setting the table, right?  Great points for the old marriage account, right?  Until I knocked over one of the cups full of ice.  At least it stayed on the counter.  And no one else saw it except maybe Cailyn, and she wasn't talking.  We have an agreement about things like that.  She lets me get away with stuff and I do the same.  Kind of a mutual admiration and spoiling society.  I scooped it quietly back into the cup (my cup, OK?) and – carefully – placed the cups on the table.  The pizza tasted great.  I even tried one of the offending pieces.  Not too bad.  We freezed it up with the rest of the leftovers for another day.    Isaiah 44:3-4 says, "For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.  They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees by flowing streams."   Fatehr, thank you for protecting us from ourselves.  Amen.