Wrong turns, evil stoves, & "adulthood"

*written 2/26/08*

Ok....so this has not been the best of days. We were supposed to have a Brown Bag Luncheon today. Unfortunately, on her way from the nearish by town where she was staying, the author took a wrong turn and ended up over an hour away from the library (at the time the program was supposed to start). It is difficult getting a group to actually come to the program and when there was a decent group there....the author didn't make it. :( Such is life. I handled that, IMHO, quite well though perhaps not a swiftly as I will next time (forbid that it should happen again ). The majority of the people who had come to hear her were quite kind about it and spent the time chatting and visiting with one another. Even though it turned out ok it was still quite draining.

In other news, for the last week and half (at least) my arms have been aching for no apparent reason...this is quite annoying and interferes with daily functioning to a slight degree. (I mean, who wants to take tylenol all day just so they are not driven crazy by the constant awareness of their arms. I know, sounds weird).

Anyhoo....the work day was over and I went home. Having depleted my stockpile of easily nuked frozen dinners, I pulled out some dry soup mix and began to heat it up (ON THE STOVE!!!! WOW!!!!) (ok....it didn't have microwave instructions or I would have done that) The water came to a boil and I "gently whisked" in the mix as the package directed. The soup began to boil over so, as I kept stirring, I reached to turn down the eye....ZZZAPPP! A shock ran up my left arm. Ok.....apparently I built up a slight electric charge. The soup was still boiling over as my zapped attempt did not get the stovetop turned down enough. I reached back to turn it down and got an even longer and quite QUITE painful shock (this is what it would look like if I were in a comic strip: ZZZZZZZAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!! OWEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!). Not static electricity apparently. I grabbed the pot holder and used it as a buffer while I turned down the eye. I WAS JUST TRYING TO COOK MYSELF SOME SOUP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK!!!!!!!!!! Because I am such an adult and handle things like this extremely well, (see previous sentence ;o) ) I take my frustrations out on the counter (all I did was hit the counter with the pot holder resulting in a series of loud and quite stress relieving "POP"s.) This however is not enough and I break down....ever so slightly.....it's been a long day and crying for a minute always seems to help...or it at least ensures that you don't break down crying sometime within the next day over something not even remotely upsetting.

I then called my wonderful Dad who answered the phone right before his play practice. :) (Hero points) He assured me that my stove was not supposed to zap me. (Something I had begun to question)

So here I am at the end of the day and even though I have related this story to the few people I know I can call and they have to listen to me...I still do not feel relieved. I choose to harbour a grudge against my stove. :) The oven part I hold completely without fault. It baked some very nice lasagna. The stove top, however, has some making up to do if it is to be welcomed again. It's not quite a "my good opinion, once lost, is lost forever" situation, but it has a way to go. I now feel as though there is an enemy in my house (though I am the only breathing thing in here). There is a slightly more intense pain in (as opposed to the constant awareness of) my left elbow now which I choose to blame on the stove.

On the up side, the soup was absolutely wonderful....I jazzed it up with some bacon bits and an amount of garlic salt which I am sure will protect me from vampires for at least the next week.

BTW, if you haven't noticed (which I think you probably have), I absolutely LOVE parenthesis. :)

P.S. apparently I was not totally cried out because I teared up at "Your Song" from Moulin Rouge. :)