Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Jonah Day

Is there any other household in the universe where a hapless chicken is in danger of getting applesauce dumped on her head?

I didn't think so.

Today was a Jonah day, as Anne of Green Gables used to say, beginning with a long list of things I was determined to get done that progressed about as fast as running from a charging bull in a dream.

The phone kept ringing every time I turned around, yet by evening every one of our four cordless phones was lost. And a few hapless people called and never got an answer. Oh, yeah, the answering machine is messed up too.

I thought I would quickly whip out Jenny's dress for Keith and JoNell's wedding this Saturday, so I pinned a cute but easy pattern onto the green fabric and had the length all marked in pink chalk all around the circle skirt, when I discovered that I didn't have enough fabric left for the bodice. So I had to start all over with a different pattern.

Meanwhile, I started hosing off the porch and was boiling with resentment at Hansie the huge dog who makes my lovely porch so filthy and muddy all winter and spring it nearly makes me cry and I don't know what to do because getting rid of him is not an option and roping off the porch isn't either and neither is hosing it off when it's cold and nasty outside, not that I'm wimpy or anything.

Meanwhile the phone kept ringing.

Then we had a moms' meeting to discuss graduation details and I panicked at how much is left to do and also realized again how planning a big event is not my thing, because so little matters to me, and it matters to other people. The color of posterboard for the seniors' photo collage, how the chairs should be arranged, the color of the tablecloths. My theory is throw something together. Other women do not operate on this premise and actually want things to look coordinated and nice.

I came home from the meeting and the house reeked of fish because Steven had fried up his recent catch and the fishy bucket was left on the dishwasher and a plate of fishbones was left on the counter and the skillet was still gloppy and fishy and the drain smelled fishy and there were fishbones littered on top of the stove. Oh how a fishy smell and mess improves a Jonah day. Pun intended. Yes, Steven cleaned it up, but the smell still lingers.

Then my wonderful neighbor lady, She Who Teaches Parenting Classes About How to Teach Kids to Respect Adults, came over and Jenny kept interrupting our conversation with inane chatter about how many events she won last year at the school picnic, and oh yeah, she was second place in this one race but everything else she was first.

The crowning touch came after supper when I was cleaning a few things out of the fridge and sent Jenny out to give them to the chickens. She came back in distraught because she had, yes, dumped a container of applesauce right on top of a chicken. "I wasn't looking right then and I accidentally got it on her head and her wing and her back and I DIDN'T MEAN TO."

Well Ben was helping me and he and I paused for about two seconds and then reeled all over the kitchen howling with laughter. Jenny, who normally would laugh at this but I think suddenly has hormones now that she's nine, went out on the porch and cried. She came back in sniffing and I said, "Now listen. You have got to admit that that was funny." And she started giggling.

So Ben and Jenny went out to the chicken yard with a handful of napkins to wipe applesauce off the chicken.

I hope the whale spits me onto dry land tomorrow.

12 comments:

  1. HAW HAW HAW!!!
    your day may feel like the belly of a whale but it sure was funny. thanks for the laugh. :-)

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  2. Why does it all have to happen in the same day? Not that it's any better spread out over a week either:) Hope you hit dry land soon! SuEllen

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  3. love it. i read your blog every-once-in-a-while . . . and always enjoy the visit.

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  4. HAHAHAHAHA! Sounds like some of our days.

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  5. If you're in the belly of a whale that explains the fishy smell! Honestly, I lived for years with fish guts & crab bits left lingering smellily in my sink. I don't do seafood. I'd yell & scream & threaten annihilation & my boys would promise me the whole world gift wrapped in gilt & sunshine & the very next day, there it would be! Fish scales, crab shell, crab guts, fish entrails & the most disgusting odour in the whole wide world! They are lucky they lived to tell about it.

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  6. Ahhh Dorcas, I am wiping laughter tears. This sounds like my house, too. Dear Jenny! -g

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  7. just want you to know, not that it will probably make you feel any better, but i'm with you. as long as it doesn't clash too bad, i could care less what color the posterboard is, it's going to be mostly covered with pictures anyway. i don't care one way or another how the chairs are arranged. and i don't care much what the tablecloth looks like because it's supposed to be covered with gifts. :):)
    bethany

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  8. Those of us that really care (as in have STRONG opinions)are glad that some people don't! :-D

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  9. Well...no, I never dumped applesauce on a chicken. But, I personally know some boys who gave the chickens some of their grandfather's homemade cherry wine, and then wondered why all the chickens were roosting at 3:00 in the afternoon. They (the chickens) didn't seem to be able to stand up or walk very well either. I won't mention any names, but you know one of them.

    Merle

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  10. Wiping applesauce off a chicken has made me laugh a number of times in the last few days. Thanks for sharing your life with us, and inspiring me in mine. Angela

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  11. The open windows must of disguised the smell of paint or the fish smell just finished it off!!=) Hope things improve!!

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  12. Whale vomit is in perfume, you sweet thing!

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