This’ll Only Take a Minute (Ha Ha)

Arlene Blackman Yolles ♦ June 16, 2019 ♦ 4 Comments

D’ja ever set off to do a 5-minute task and it turned into a 3-hour chore?  Like, you went to find something in your closet and there it was … on a shelf but as soon as you pulled it off, the shelf came with it and everything fell including a mouse trap you had forgotten about … with a dead mouse in it!  After the initial clean-up, you see that the mouse had begun (but obviously, due to its untimely death, never finished) a nest.  You get cleaning equipment, disinfectant, etc. and of course have to shower after that and discover you have no hot water …..

I’ve had a few days like that with my husband only our chores were lengthy because of our ages (old). In other words, what would have taken 15 minutes 20 years ago now took 3 hours!

It began innocently enough with me using a compressor attached to an outlet in my car to pump up the air in my bike tires (finally! It was warm enough to ride outdoors).  The compressor blew the fuse.  (This had happened to me in the previous car and when we replaced the fuse, we used 30 amp instead of 20 and it was fine ever since, don’t tell the Fuse Police.)  So now, I used the manual to locate the fuse boxes (there are 2 of them; the one we needed was about 6 inches recessed in from the dashboard) and my husband determined it was Fuse #2 (12V).  Being the more limber of the 2 of us, I got down on my butt to pull it out with the eensy weensy tweezers they supply.  Of course, I couldn’t do it so my husband brought me a needle nose pliers.  Still unsuccessful – couldn’t get a grip on it.  Finally, he succumbed to getting on the ground (not easy for him) and pulled it

out.  Guess what? It wasn’t blown … wrong fuse!  We consulted the diagram again and decided it must have been #7 fuse (cigarette lighter, now there’s an anachronism!).  After about 2 hours, chore completed, tires inflated and I took a well-deserved bike ride.

Once a year, we combine our talents to make a large number of Parmagian piles including eggplant and/or chicken.  After shopping one day for all the ingredients, we put

Ingredients

aside the next day to do the job.  My husband is the fry cook; I make the sauce, assemble the piles, and – here’s where my organizational skills come in – code each pile as to its ingredients.  Yes, I have family members who only desire chicken, some who will not mix dairy (mozzarella cheese) with meat and so want only eggplant, and some, like me, who eat all! My colored toothpick note took care of that.  Into the freezer went 3 trays – a total of about 25 piles.  BTW, if you never read my son’s poetic tribute to my Parmagian, click here: An Ode to My Best Dish

Toothpick Note

The Beginning of the Piles

What used to take us a total of about 6 hours took us all day.

Two days later, it was time to vacuum them.  We have a Foodsaver vaccum machine which, even I have to admit, keeps things fresh in the freezer for at least 6 months.  No freezer burn and the item comes out just the way it went in.  Some of the piles needed reservation names on them so we wouldn’t accidentally eat them ourselves.  Oh, yes, my family and friends look forward to this event.  (And if you don’t see your name on the photos, GP and DP, don’t worry, there’s a batch with your names on them as well!)

In the middle of this frenzy of vacuuming, the vacuum stopped working.  My husband (the fixer) determined it needed cleaning so clean we did.   After working with a small vacuum, a toothbrush and a sponge, we cleared the surfaces of all the shmutz (look it up) and lo and behold!  It worked again.

Fast forward 7 hours.  We decided to reward ourselves with a pile each.  My husband had a white toothpick pile; I had a blue.  Yummmmmm!