Desperate Women and Tricky Men

This morning at 8:50 someone with small children called me.  You know there were small children involved because only people who have small children call in the wee hours of the morning like that.  8:50!   Crack of dawn!

Don’t these people know that I homeschool?  We start our school day around 10:00 after a nice leisurely morning involving chocolate chip pancakes and leftover tuna noodle casserole.  We live the good life, people.

I told you all that just to let you know that Brandi made 177 cookies this morning before I was even out of bed.

177 cookies!  Before I was out of bed! Amazing!  She runs a daycare—small children, you know.

But here it is at 11:09 p.m. and I’m just sitting down to write because I just finished making my 210 squares of chocolate bolacha.

Tomorrow is the annual Cookie Exchange.  All day long there have been Facebook updates; Katie ran out of flour and Wendy dropped one of her pumpkin rolls.  (No—not that!  Anything but that! )  She was sad and distressed because now she’d have to make a whole new roll to replace it. Twelve rolls is a lotta rolls.  I’d be distressed, too, if I had to make an extra roll to replace a dropped roll.

Brandi, in the same way that someone gets caught up in the moment at an auction and clears out their lifetime savings, was quick to respond, “Wendy!  I can take the dropped pumpkin roll!”  The idea of that pumpkin roll going to waste was just too much for Brandi to bear.  A desperate situation called for desperate measures.

Of course, Brandi’s been a little loopy lately, what with all those small children.   The other day she  fell asleep while drying her hair…standing up!  That’s some serious sleep deprivation.

Because, really, Brandi?  You really want the pumpkin roll that’s covered with cat hair and bits of fuzz from the kitchen floor?  (I’m not sure why cat hair and fuzz are part of the picture because Wendy has a very clean house…but that’s what I’m picturing.)

Luckily for Brandi, it turns out the pumpkin roll simply fell on the stove and cracked open and all that’s wrong with it is that it isn’t pretty.

Unluckily for Brandi, Wendy’s keeping that one.  I kinda wonder if maybe Mr. Wendy didn’t nudge her elbow at an opportune moment.  “Whoops!  Sorry dear.  Oh, look!  The pumpkin roll cracked open!  Guess we’ll have to keep that one…”

Men are tricky like that.

Speaking of men and their tricks, I have a new assignment for next year.  Darling Husband was puttering around the house testing the gas heaters today:  “What’s the state capitol of Omaha?”  “What’s six times seven?”  Those poor heaters.  You give them a summer vacation and when the testing starts in the fall they’ve forgotten everything they learned.

But it got me to thinking: I wouldn’t have thought to test the gas heater ahead of time.  Darling Husband is always fiddling around checking car fluids or replacing faucet washers.  I didn’t even know what a washer was until I was 35 years old.  Yes, I’m serious.

So…my new assignment for next year.  I’m going to learn Man Things.  Today I was stuck doing boring woman things and you know how I feel about boring woman things.  Not only did I do the boring chore of baking 210 squares of chocolate bolacha but I sewed up a hole in our couch pillow.  Yuck.   I can actually feel my blood pressure shooting up the moment I start to sew.

Today was better than most days, because I took a picture of the holey pillow as I sewed it.  The brush with soothing photography offset the agony of the sewing long enough to get the hole fixed.

Darling Husband has always been very supportive of my photography and writing addictions hobbies, but he did murmur the other day, “I’ll be glad in January when your evenings are more free and we have more time together.”

Awww.  It’s a good thing he feels this way.  Because my first January Man Thing project is to take apart the washer and dryer and clean the drums.  And I’m sure I’ll need lots and lots of his manly help with that.  It’ll be both quality time and quantity time.  Ooo!  Bet he can’t wait!