If I Had a Fire Extinguisher...

OPA!

Did I tell you the one where I was briefly on fire? Well, it's short. I was standing over a grill with my wife's second cousin, Mark. Now that given the tenuous nature of our familial relationship is not at all sufficient to describe our fondness for each other, we just refer to each other as 'Cousin', or by nothing at all.

Cousin Mark and his awesome family live in New Jersey, north of where Em and I lived for a few years in the go-go aughts to the first decade of the new (last?) millennium. They gladly invited us for Thanksgiving our first year there and we continued that tradition for all our Thanksgivings until we moved from New Jersey, or rather were run out by the failed policies and rampant runaway taxes of too many democratic administrations. But I digress.

Mark and I were standing over the grill. He likes to grill his turkey. Slow, over coals. It's a nice change from the normal, giving a distinct taste without the fat of a deep fried turkey. One would think without the incendiary nature of the former as well, but I was about to learn otherwise.

We needed to shift the turkey, or something. I don't remember what, but I was hunched over the grill with oven mitts on, moving the turkey. Apparently some of the juices got below the foil barrier and were atomized in just such a way to make them powerfully flammable and in a wooooooosh(!) I was on fire.

Just for a second, not a big deal. I was actually laughing. So, my one arm was a totally hairless and a little burnt. My eyebrows were well trimmed... I still had some, but they were quite literally shadows of their former glorious selves. I came inside and was washing my arm and face when Em's MANDAR went off. You know, MANDAR is the thing married women develop that lets them know when something stupid is about to, or just did happen.

"Whatcha doin'?" she asked probing, while somewhere in the near distance there emitted a quiet ping each time her MANDAR made a full revolution. It wasn't my appearance that tipped her off as I sheepishly said "nothing", it was the smell of burning hair, which lingers a bit. Now the entire family is in the kitchen, even people I didn't know or at least didn't know well, and I had to regale them with my story.

That's all. That's the whole story. No attorneys or doctors or emotional distress. I put some burn cream on my arm and sat and ate dinner and drove the 2 hours home in perfect happiness and contentment with the only real victim being my beautiful Andy Rooney eyebrows which have never been the same. Can I sue for that?

Scrabble

I think I am ready to retire for awhile. I was getting tired and instead of tailing off, I added more games. I am speaking of Scrabble on Facebook. It is more than a pass time and has been good to me lo these many months, but I need a break.

So for all you with whom I enjoy a game of Scrabble, after our current game is done, I will be vacationing until after the first of the year. Merry Christmas.

I Had a Dream

I had a dream last night that my dad was in town and riding with me in my squeaky worn out car with the broken door lock and the whacked out electrical system and he said "We're gonna get this taken care of," which in dad parlance meant he was going to buy me a new car. I was so excited until I realized that I am 35 years old, gainfully (or is that painfully?) employed and it would be odd for my daddy to have to buy me a car.

But as it is, if I were to get a new car now, it would only be due to someone's benevolence as I certainly can't afford it. Since I am not booked on Wheel of Fortune or anything like that, I can rule out blind stinking luck. It was just a dream. A simple bout of wishful thinking. My last dream of the night was my old HR person (who no longer works there) warning me the company had been sold and I was not on the 'Bring Forward' list.

Dreams come in many forms. Some entertain, some scare, some make you wonder and some are just wonderful.

Sweet Dreams, dear readers... may all yours come true.