Monday, February 22, 2010

Week Twenty



This week lads was decidedly better than last week because we got a new oven in the house and.... what was the other thing? Oh yeah. The THREE Blog Award nominations! That's all like. Just the three. As in nominated not once, not twice, but thrice. Just to be clear. There are three.


Monday 15th Feb

Not much going on today during the day, but in the evening myseff and himseff decided to go to a carnevale party that was going on downstairs at the last minute. You have to go wearing a mask, and we had nary a mask between us so we had to do ourselves up with my Urban Decay eyeliners. He wanted a Maori mask yoke so I did that for him and then I had no time so I drew a shitty Zorro inspired black yoke over me eyes (see below). That'll do me grand says I and off we went. For about a half an hour and then we nearly died of boredom so we went back upstairs and washed each other's faces and watched a film. Party animals or wha?




Tuesday 16th Feb

Monday pales into insignificance when one considers that this particular Tuesday is the Most Wonderful Day of The Year. That's right - Pancake Tuesday! I nearly forgot though, until I logged onto Facebook because there is no Pancake Tuesday over here. I didn't have Mammy's magical recipe either, but my good friend Amy came to the rescue and gave me one.

I made the batter and left it aside to sit for a while and then I was just tidying up and whatnot when I went to throw away the egg box of the eggs that I used for the batter. On said eggbox it said "best before 13th Feb".

Ah bollix.

Ran down to the shop at top speed and got new eggs. Whipped up another thing of batter. When they were ready to roll I strode down to the kitchen with a confident swagger and flipped up a storm. There were "oohs" and "aahs" all over the place. That's right, people, stand aside! Professional at work here! BBB never had a pancake before in his long legged life, the poor child. Talk about a joyless existence. We had them with jam, doce de leite and lemon juice and sugar. Om nom nom.

Then we had to have a little lie down.

Wednesday 17th Feb

Today I noticed that something is definitely happening. Something is definitely going on here. I realised when I was sick in the night and went into BBB's room to hug the toilet bowl in peace. When I opened the door, I couldn't believe what I saw. His room was empty. Nothing in it like. A tumbleweed or two, maybe. I realised I hadn't been in there for quite some time. Neither had he, for that matter. That we were, in fact, living together in my room. Interesting. I went back into my room, and realised it was like a, dare I say it, it was like a home, rather than a rotten room in a fucking hovel of a building that I absolutely hate. No, there was something distinctly homely about it: my little shoes lined up next to his big shoes, our matching water glasses, his stuff neatly put away next to my stuff.

How the fuck did this happen? Where was I for all this...this...osmosis? Literally everything except his toothbrush is in here. Every morning and night he brushes his teeth in his own bathroom, though. When the toothbrush makes the journey in here, that's when we know it's serious.

Thursday 18th Feb

Nothing too exciting, I went to work and then met Laura, we went back to my place and watched several thousand episodes of Desperate Housewives and then I tailored the sleeves on her top.

Rock and roll!

Friday 21st Feb

Woke up delighted cos I just knew in my heart that today would be Pancake Friday, and I was right! Made a big feed for brunch and then went to supermarket to get ingredients for Obscenely Toothsome Steak Sandwiches for dinner. In the meantime, while I was away, a man came and put in a new oven in our kitchen! I couldn't believe it! Finally we have an oven! The steak sandwiches were breathtaking.

Today is a good day.

Saturday 20th Feb

Minded my own business today, just lurked around doing my Saturday things. Went onto my blog to answer my comments in the evening and here was one from Niamh:

"Haha have just come across your blog thanks to your Blog Award nomination - well done!
This post had me laughing several times, brilliant. Will be back to read more, looking forward to it "

Excuse me? What's that now? Blog Award nomination? I typed in the Blog Awards website so fast into the keyboard that there was smoke comin off the keys. I scanned down the nominees.

Jennifer Alice In Wonderland. There I was. Three times. I'm in the Best Newcomer, Best Personal Blog and Best Humour categories. Me nerves.

I had to sit down. Then I had to stand up. Then I had to sit down again. Then I had to do a little dance. Then I had to explain to BBB why I was doing a little dance.

It's just nice like, to know that people were nominating me. Anyway I was bustin to tell me Mam and Dad but I didn't have any credit. I went onto facebook where my knight in stalking armour Nigel came to my rescue by going to the shop and getting me credit. Thanks Nigel! (Can I have my knickers back now please?)

I rang my mother and father and sister and brother and anyone else who would care to listen. They all did a little dance for me. In fact I think my sister Hazel is going to Galway to "represent" me at the awards yoke. I seriously hope they have bidets at that hotel!

There are some deadly blogs nominated lads, so have a little lurk here and dirty them with your eyes.

Sunday 21st Feb

Now lads. Some of you may remember from reading Week Three that I have an absolute fear of fire and the house burning down and whatnot.

With that in mind, let me tell you what went down on Sunday.

BBB has a terrible habit that makes me very nervous and tonight he found out why. When he boils the water for the pasta, he takes the lid off the pot when the water is hot enough and puts it on one of the other cold hob rings. Now this always gives me the heebie jeebies but I never say anything I just take it off and put it on the counter instead. Tonight he was cooking pasta and I was down the room on the interweb. I went up to the kitchen to say hello to him and he goes:

"Do you get the terrible smell of gas?"

"I'm getting a bang of something alright. Open the window there."

"I hope that stupid fucker connected the oven up right."

"It's an electric oven love."

"Oh yeah."

So I went back down the room and the next thing BBB comes sprinting in through the door:

"Oh Christ! Oh fuck! The hob ring was on and the lid is after fusing to it!"

I booted it up to the kitchen - the glass lid was on the back ring and the plastic handle was after melting into a pile of molten plastic disgustingness. The fumes would knock a horse. I tried to push it off the ring and the next thing - didn't it fucking catch on fire!

Now lads. Lads.

The minute I saw the flames, several thousand episodes of Rescue 999 started flashing through my mind. Fire extinguishers were dancing with melting dolly's legs and the like. I'm not joking you, it struck terror into my very core. After the first terrified nanosecond, an eerie calm washed over me. I looked behind the door for a mini fire extinguisher. Nothing. I looked in the room where the fuse box is. Nothing. I ran out into the hall where there is the giant extinguisher that you have to smash the glass to get out. I scanned it. It wasn't the electrical fire one. Unbelievable. Every kitchen like ours should have one of those baby little ones for electrical fires that you can just pick up and give a quick blast and that's all there is to it.

Anyway I ran back into the kitchen where the flames were getting bigger and BBB was standing in front of them flapping the tea towel at them. I believe the correct term here is fanning the flames. There was no fire blanket or anything. I wasn't sure what to do. In the end I decided to wet the tea towel and put it over the burning lid.

"Gimme that tea towel til I wet it!" I goes.

BBB was in such a flap the words couldn't enter his brain, and he fanned the flames even more furiously.

"Love, give it to me."

More frantic tea towel flapping.

"Come on now I'll give it back."

"Ok," says he, and gave the tea towel one more furious flap which miraculously extinguished all the flames.

Sigh of relief!

BBB goes into combat mode.

"Open all the windows! These fumes are toxic!"

"Yes, Commander!"

The next thing he takes the glass top that was literally on fire until two seconds ago and picks it up with the tea towel and throws it into the bin. It should be worth mentioning here that the "bin" is a black sack.

"STOP!" I goes, but it was too late. It burned straight through the plastic and smashed into molten plastic-covered smithereens on the floor.

Sigh.

He is an engineer. He is a genius like. As I type this he is at the other side of the desk doing the world's most impossible sums.

It's so funny that when we panic we forget everything we ever knew about how to deal with these situations. Thankfully my formative years were spent watching mental health scarring telly programmes like Rescue 999.

After that ordeal we went down the room where we looked at each other with two big serious heads on us and promptly burst out laughing. Then just to make sure, we googled how long we had left to live after inhaling the fumes. A good while yet, it would seem.

He promised never to put the lid on the hob ring again. But only cos now we have no lid to put there!

17 comments:

Rosie said...

your story reminded me of this, which might well be my favourite blog post about a domestic catastrophe.

i'm glad you lived to tell your tale.

Jennikybooky said...

Oh my God Rosie - I just laughed my head off at that one! Dumbfuck the Fireman! I'm in the knots!

Aoife said...

Brilliant as always. Where can we vote for you Jen. You deserve an award woman, you make my Mondays bearable.

Jennikybooky said...

Ah thanks Aoife girl, but my fate lies in the hands of a panel of judges. Some of the other blogs are feckin deadly so I'm just buzzin off me head to be nominated!

Hazel said...

The mental pictures I have in my brain are hysterical. Like the look of panic on BBB's childlike eyes.....

Anonymous said...

How could he have never had a pancake....that's hideous!!!!!
Hilarious post again, Jen! You absolutely deserved your nominations! I would've mentioned you myself, only I'd sent my nominations in before I found your blog...do know that if I had a time machine....well I'd probably do really cool things like see dinosaurs and fix the lotto and become friends with Judy Garland....but after a really really long list of awesome time travelling stuff, I would then go an add your blog to my nominations! :D

Unknown said...

Wow, nice Maori design, I'm impressed! How many times did you have to sharpen your eyeliner before you'd finished that?

Caro said...

Congrats on the nominations you deserve them! Hope first prize is a saucepan lid. I suppose a pile of cash would work well too though.

We're practically neighbours by the way... I just live in a shitter end of the provincia...

Jennikybooky said...

Hazel you wouldn't believe it, and his feet doing the tippy toe dance! hahaha I love him!

Thanks Hermia! Congrats on your nominations too - your blog is like a lovely dream where you are running through a meadow on a lovely summers day. In a Topshop dress, obviously!

Caro - there's a shitter end? God help us all!

Kitty Catastrophe said...

Oh Jaysus I'd completely forgotten about Rescue 999! Scarring stuff indeed! Well done on the nominations missus, much deserved!

Andrew said...

I'm not much of a fan of the blog awards at all, partly due to a mistrust of pretty much any kind of awards at all, and partly due to my continuing belief that Damien Mulley is a jumped-up little prick of the highest order.

But yours is easily the best new blog I've read this year, so congratulations on the nomination and I genuinely hope you win.

Jennikybooky said...

Ailbhe - about a squillion! And my sharpener is CRAP. It kind of sucked the joy out of the face painting process, to be honest.

Thanks Kitty Cat! Well done on yours too - you shall surely scoop the best political blog - that Sweet Valley High piece was cutting edge! You've got your finger on the pulse girl!

Andrew. Just Andrew. C'mere til I run off with you. Meseff, yourseff and Rosie. We can make it work!

Rosie said...

i was afraid this might happen.

Jennikybooky said...

Rosie there is nothing to be afraid of!

That's a lie, by the way.

Andrew said...

She'll come round to the idea.

Emma said...

Oh no. Your sister? I'm sure she's lovely like (I am only saying 'like' so that you'll, well, like me) but we were hoping to meet the star of the show! (That's you like).

Jennikybooky said...

I know Emma girl! I am going MAD I can't go!