HalfAsstic.com

Hello gang!

I would like to report that on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, my SIL called me and said that she had gotten the ham she had agreed to bring and it was a nice big spiral cut.  She made a point of saying that it was already cooked and mentioned it a couple of times.  Ok, great.  I’ve gotten spiral cut hams before and yes, that’s the way they come.  Cooked.

I guess I wasn’t too worried since I was doing a huge turkey and I was sure there was going to be enough for everyone.

The following morning, Thanksgiving Day, she called to say that she was going to bring it over to my house to heat up.  OK, fine.  She then told me that she was going over to her ex-husbands house for a meal at noon with her kids since we were going to eat in the evening when John got home.  I told her to be sure and bring a pan to heat the ham in since all my sheet cake pans were being used for cakes and casseroles and what not.  She said she’d buy one and I told her not to bother, I’d wash it, just use a pan from her house.  She told me that she doesn’t own a sheet cake pan, or any other pan other than a skillet and pot.

She is 55 years old.  How can this be?

It gets better.  I asked her what time she was coming over and she indicated not until shortly before we were going to eat.  I told her the ham would have to heat for longer than that and asked her to read the directions on it.  She insisted that the ham only needed about 20 minutes to heat and went over to it and told me it was 10 lbs, would only require about 20 minutes to heat.

I said “Millie, read the directions to me.”

Millie: deep sigh, “Heat for 15 minutes per pound…  hum…”

“That’s two and a half hours, Millie.”

She said she’d take care of it and I assumed she was going to heat it at her ex-husband’s house, at least partially.  No.  She showed up with a cold ham and we hacked off a bunch of slices, put them in the microwave with a little bit of water and heated them up.  It worked out fine, but, man! how could anyone grow to be 55 years old and know so little about something so simple?

And the question of the day is, what made her so sure it only took 20 minutes to heat the ten pound ham?

Well, I am pulling out all the stops.  I have, in fact, NOT been memed.  I am stealing it anyway.  Dear Ree over at Hotfessional did a meme today that I NEED to do just to have something to say.  While she did not meme me, she did not meme anybody.  She’s spreading the love anyway, cause I’m taking it.

It’s a random thoughts Meme and she got it from Marylin at A Little Space For Me.

So here goes!

• Word for the week in my head…

Emotion.  Keelan is being so emotional and, consequently, making everyone else emotional. There’s no escaping it.

• Thoughts for the week in my head…

I hope, for all our sakes, that this medication works or one of us will surely die.

• Thing for the week in my life…

Henrietta wants to wear bras now and I’ve got to go out somewhere, sometime and find her some.  32 A bras.  Not because she is worried about anything sagging, her boobs are now getting irritated by the tops of her diapers.  No.  I know what you’re thinking.  Her A cup boobs are not hanging that far.  Her spine has deteriorated so far that her torso is the length of a four year old’s.  Literally.

• Song for the week in my head… For days now Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad by Meatloaf has been in my head and I CAN NOT make it stop!

• Food for the week in my belly…

Chicken and dumplings.  Made a huge pot of it tonight and it is soooo good.  I will have to give up my recipe here soon.

• Color for the week in my life…

No idea.  What the hell does that mean?

• Smile for the week on my face…

John doesn’t have to drive to and from Pearland everyday!  Hooray!

• Blessing for the week in my heart…

That John is driving to and from work here close by and has work to drive to, period.

Free toes everybody!

Well… not really.  But he could have!  And the important thing is… that that’s the story I’m going with!

It was, after all, John who caught the cabinets on fire.  He did!  NO!  REALLY!

A couple of months ago he decided he was going to make himself a tostada with some left over taco meat we hand and he popped a couple of tostada shells in the little toaster oven we have on the counter top.  I guess he set it to “Incinerate” and walked off.  Well, pretty much immediately the fire was pouring out of the toaster oven and the varnish on the cabinets was aflame.

It was exciting!

The strange thing is that the only emotion I can come up with is relief that it was him and not me who did it.

I wasn’t around when it happened, but he told me that he threw water on it.  INSIDE THE TOASTER OVEN.  I indicated that it wasn’t the brightest thing he had ever done as he could have electrocuted himself…but, then again he did torch some innocent tostadas…

I explained the theory of using baking soda to extinguish flames from an electrical source. (Assuming he didn’t want to go and get the FIRE EXTINGUISHER from the utility room.)  He informed me that he doesn’t know where in our kitchen the baking soda lives.  I showed him.  I am CERTAIN, within an inch of my life, that he will never need to know the whereabouts of the baking soda.

Unless there’s another fire.

As I said in the last post, John is on vacation this week.  We have managed to get a few things knocked off the list of “Stuffs to Do”.

*Make a new Financial Plan.

That, right there, just makes me want to giggle when I consider how misleading the whole statement looks.  But, yeah.  It’s done.

*Track down and attack the person in charge of getting H a new wheelchair.

Done.  It’s all shiny new and she’s got her bony ass in it right now.  I was somewhat disappointed, but there was no bloodshed.  The lady seemed fully cooperative and got on the ball as I indicated she needed to.  The wheelchair was delivered within 24 hours of hanging up the phone with her.  If only everything were that easy…

In addition to these things there were some others that never got put on the list that we did and I wish we had put them on there just so they could be crossed off.  We:

*Cleaned the garage

We threw away a butt-load of old crap that was, mostly…OK, entirely Henrietta’s.  She was safely ensconced inside or none of it would have gone to the curb and actually, the boxes o’crap would have spontaneously reproduced themselves and made more to clean up.  This is a phenomenon particular only to H as far as I can tell.  She cannot be turned loose with any amount of stuff to “Go through it and throw away the trash, Henrietta.”.  The pile o’shit will grow and grow and I swear she has a wicked kind of black magic that she uses and produces more old greeting cards, plastic plants, (complete with plastic flowers), broken jewelry boxes and picture frames, (with and without torn pictures that don’t fit the frame), glued together coffee cups, moth eaten clothes that she hasn’t worn since 1958, thousands of ancient books on Catholicism, (I mean we’re talking copyrighted in the 50’s and 60’s), and an assortment of shit that defies description.

*Got John a new bluetooth that will work with his new phone.

Tomorrow we compare insurance rates and caulk the shingles.  Or, rather, I should say, I will caulk the shingles.  While John’s not scared of heights, it just goes without saying that any work being done on a ladder is going to be done by me.  I don’t know why this is, it just is.  DO NOT FEEL SORRY FOR ME.  Any grocery shopping that gets done, is done by him.  Well, almost all.  I feel like this is a fair trade, and what I think is what’s important.

We had fajita papas tonight, (beef fajita meat with cheese, salsa, chives, sour cream, etc. piled into a baked potato),  and the SIL and her guy friend were here and they stayed and ate.  They were very good and I highly recommend that everyone show up at our house the next time we have them and partake.  I guess I really should give a heads up when we are about to do them again.  I will.

OH!  Tomorrow I hope to have the garage finished, also!

Free toes, everyone!