I try and live my life by a few basic principles. Treat others how you would like to be treated, sharing is caring, to each his own, yadda yadda. I am a realist but also a closet optimist and used to think that perhaps if I live my life trying to be a good person, I would recieve the same kind of karma in return in one form or another. I have given up all hope.
On Friday I helped celebrate Marsha's birthday with an evening of my specialty, Pad Thai. I had asked the ladies over for 6pm. I was using my prized electric wok - a beautiful piece of culinary equipment that was integral to my Pad Thai creation. I placed my wok on the stovetop to make use of the space and outlet. Well take a wild guess at what I did next!!! Yes ladies and gents, I then turned on the burner beneath the plastic wok base and burn baby burn it did! While I was rifling through my cupboards looking for essential ingredients, I suddenly smelled and saw thick black smoke clinging to the ceiling pouring from the HUGE FIRE on my stove.
I grabbed the wok with a tea towel as it quickly separated from the melting base, I had to save the chicken!! Chicken rescued, I turned my attention to the tall flames still bursting from the remaining plastic base and burner. I reached around and turned off the burner, ran to the cupboard for some tea towels and smothered the flames with the cloth. I would have used salt but that is expensive up here and I use it for homemade playdoh - clearly I have priorities.
It was once I smothered the flames that my guests arrived! Marsha was the first on the scene, running right into the kitchen, ready to fight fire! Carmen and Monika were quick to follow, all with mixed looks of horror and slight amusement on their faces. After we opened some windows, cleared out some smoke and dismantled all blaring fire alarms, I resumed cooking and managed to turn out a not-half-bad meal!
My dearest mother returned later that night after a social invitation of her own and saw the damage left behind by my careless actions! She rolled up her sleeves, asked for a butter knife, vim and whatever hardcore cleaning tools I owned. 3 Mr. Clean Magic Erasers later, my stovetop was as good as new! As Monika pointed out, mothers possess some kind of elbow grease that we mere mortals will never posses until we pop out a few of our own.
So after that jolly start to the weekend, I was busy with dinners and social events, leaving little time for prep but I managed to get some work done in the classroom! The weather was positively balmy hovering between -5 and -9 degrees. Today we had freezing rain which was a lovely departure from the FEET AND FEET of snow we have been receiving lately (did I mention someone stole my shovel?)
Aaaaaannnyywaaayyyyyyssss, a new week has begun and things are looking good productivity-wise. We are getting lots of practice writing short stories and doing tons of fun hands-on data management activities! The next few weeks are going to be busy with learning challenging concepts like inferencing and probability but I think my guys can handle it!
Stay tuned for tales of my next deadly adventure!
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