UNPACKING

You pack.  You feed the cat.  You set the thermostat.  You leave for the weekend.  Everything’s nice and orderly.  Then you come home.

Dreading unpacking, you think about chocolate.  But first you have to wash the Milky Ways.  They are in that plastic bag where you stashed your almost-finished milkshake. 

Is there a logical way to unpack?  Should you tackle the biggest suitcase first?  No, maybe it’s best to get all the little ones out of the way.  Nothing is going to be simple.  You’ve stuffed things into numerous cavities, and very few of those things belong in the same part of the house.  Maybe you should just cook supper now and unpack tomorrow.

 

You decide to organize everything into piles.  You open a suitcase in the bedroom only to find that most of the stuff belongs in the bathroom.  You open one in the bathroom and most of it belongs in the bedroom.  You pile the clean clothes into the laundry basket and hang up the dirty ones.  You get the darn suitcase empty and see pills scattered everywhere. 

After every suitcase is put away, the laundry is started, and supper is finished, you sit down to read and can’t find your book.  Eventually you find it in one of the pockets of one of the suitcases that you pull off the shelf - along with a bottle of shampoo, one earring, a notepad, and a handkerchief.

You fall asleep while reading your book and telling yourself the trip was worth it.

CONCRETE PLANTER

Oh this was good.  One of my better flips.

I found a concrete planter on Craigslist and George drove with me to pick it up.  Back at home, I quickly saw that the narrow base of the planter would fall through the doughnut hole of our small dolly.  I found  a large storage container that could straddle the dolly crosswise.  This created a tall platform onto which we slid the three-ton concrete planter.

I started rolling this contraption toward the walkway.  George said, “Watch that turn.”  I knew that.  I took the curve slowly with a smirk on my face.  What came next, George didn’t warn me about because he could never have anticipated it.  I sped up with the intention of getting the dolly to roll beyond the sidewalk into the garden.  It didn’t.  I did.

In one nanosecond the dolly, the storage container, the three-ton concrete planter, and I detonated.  Most of me landed in the hole of the dolly with parts hanging off on the sidewalk and in the garden.  After George pulled me up and saw that I was OK, he laughed his tail off while I looked around the neighborhood to make sure no one saw this. 

To add insult to injury, George suggested I review Newton’s law – Things in motion tend to stay in motion. 

CONSERVATORS’ CENTER

I went with a friend to see some lions and tigers in a conservatory.  Beautiful animals!   I learned things about cats that Mojo (the master of our house) hadn’t taught me yet.  For instance, when he opens his mouth slightly and inhales, he’s smelling things.  I thought he was just making a face at me.

Before we started, our fearless leader warned us not to run, whatever we do.  I almost ran right then.  But she quickly assured us that the only reason we might even think about running was if a cat sprayed us.  Lovely.  She said the reason we weren’t to run was that it makes cats think humans are food - and she is the human who feeds them every day.  This woman knows what’s important.

She walked us past some non-cat type animals, like singing dogs and Kinkajous and other such critters that I can’t remember (you can look at the website if you want to:  http://www.conservatorscenter.org/animals.cfm).  When we stopped to look at the friendly wolves, she said, “Our wolves love children.  But not the creepy way the cats love children.”

At one of the lion cages, our leader “oofed.”  That’s when you cup your hands around your mouth and make a ridiculous sound real loud, and a lion oofs back from off in the distance.  Then a lion beside you oofs back at him.  Then they all start oofing to each other and you get surround sound.  As the oofing continued, one lion remained sprawled out on her back trying to catch a few rays.  My friend observed, “Obviously, life is tough here!”

CUTTING UP A CHICKEN

A steak knife with a serrated blade is very useful sometimes, but I started married life thinking it was a one-size-fits-all kitchen knife.  Never having used a sharp knife in my life, I thought serrated blades were God’s gift to the world.  They cut through anything.  And if they didn’t cut it, I made them tear through it.

About a week before I got married, my mother taught me how to cut up a chicken.  I did not pay attention to the knife. 

A chicken has a strange shape and it’s slippery.  There is not a flat side.  My technique for cutting it in half was to anchor it in the sink drain, parson’s nose down, and brutally force that steak knife down through the ribs/backbone.  After splitting it in two, I put it on a cutting board and proceeded to prove that it is not impossible to saw through slimy, stretchy chicken skin with a steak knife. 

A few years ago I asked my father-in-law to teach me how to sharpen a knife with a sharpening steel.  He tried his best, but I never got it.  That Christmas my mother-in-law gave me a rolling wheel knife sharpener.  I highly recommend them.