Cajun Blackened Pizza
May. 11th, 2004 06:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rain_gryphonSomeone's Dog set the house on fire trying to get leftover pizza off the stovetop. http://www.wftv.com/family/3287687/detail.html
Many, many years ago, my Qat Alphonse did something similar. We had the washer and dryer positioned in a little alcove just off the kitchen. One Saturday my mom had done some clothes before leaving for the morning, and had stacked the folded clothes atop a little toaster oven. Alphonse apparently hopped up to sit on the warm clothes. Because the oven was a push-button type, with the buttons on top, he managed to activate it, which soon set the clothes to smouldering.
I was upstairs, still asleep. He was a smart little kitty, and came up and pestered me until I finally woke up enough to realize that the house was filling up with smoke. On the one hoof, he saved me when the house was (sort of) on fire, but on the other hoof, he started the fire himself, so it sort of evened out morally. For what it's worth, there's very little as pungently nasty as burned polyester.
*****
Okay - it's the New York that I've always believed was there. http://www.chooseyourownny.com/CYOA-1.htm
*****
This morning I went out to Rickenbacker ANGB to help clean and prepare the place for the 186th Engineering Battalion's homecoming from Iraq. When a battalion deploys overseas, they leave behind a first sergeant stateside to deal with administrative issues. As it happened, the stateside first SGT of the 186th is the father of our batallion's supply sergeant, so he arranged to get some of us to show up on a volunteer basis for the day to spiff up the place for the homecoming ceremony, since he was expected to get that done but hadn't been allotted any people to accomplish the task.
For some reason, I find cleaning satisfying, and the more so when I'm doing my part to support the Republic. The floor buffer was broken, so we ended up having to wet-mop and sweep out the entire maintenance hangar. Very 1947 :) We went through much of a big institutional jug of Pine-Sol in the process.
Wal-Mart donated a lot of party supplies, including 18 cases of bottled water, and 8 large cases of snacks (a pallet-load, basically). We had to go with a truck to claim that from the distribution warehouse partway through the morning, then we set up the 350 or so chairs, speaker's lectern, and so forth. It's all cool-looking now with patriotic bunting and flags hung from the catwalks. I remember seeing them on TV leaving for Iraq from that same hangar. It looks a lot more festive now.
*****
It's a cicada year, although looking at the map it looks like we won't have many in Columbus. They're designated by Roman numerals, and this is the X group.
Two visitations ago, in 1970, I was living in southern Indiana. We called them 'locusts' back then. That stays with me yet as a remarkably impressive occurence. They were just everywhere, and they made a zinging noise that just filled the world. Unless you've ever been in a large locust outbreak, it's difficult to imagine how overwhelming they can be.
We seemed to have a number of sequential outbreaks in the early 70s, 1970 through 1974, IIRC, we had locusts every year, to the point where we just accepted them as part of summer. It was actually weird when they stopped. You find the cast-off shells of the juveniles everywhere, by the hundreds. They attach themselves to trees (they grow down in the roots), then split their skin and the adult crawls out through the rent. For whatever reason, we kids had a fad of filling the crunchy discarded skins up with bubble solution. That was considered fun to do. I've never been quite sure why, but I did it along with everyone else :)
Many, many years ago, my Qat Alphonse did something similar. We had the washer and dryer positioned in a little alcove just off the kitchen. One Saturday my mom had done some clothes before leaving for the morning, and had stacked the folded clothes atop a little toaster oven. Alphonse apparently hopped up to sit on the warm clothes. Because the oven was a push-button type, with the buttons on top, he managed to activate it, which soon set the clothes to smouldering.
I was upstairs, still asleep. He was a smart little kitty, and came up and pestered me until I finally woke up enough to realize that the house was filling up with smoke. On the one hoof, he saved me when the house was (sort of) on fire, but on the other hoof, he started the fire himself, so it sort of evened out morally. For what it's worth, there's very little as pungently nasty as burned polyester.
*****
Okay - it's the New York that I've always believed was there. http://www.chooseyourownny.com/CYOA-1.htm
*****
This morning I went out to Rickenbacker ANGB to help clean and prepare the place for the 186th Engineering Battalion's homecoming from Iraq. When a battalion deploys overseas, they leave behind a first sergeant stateside to deal with administrative issues. As it happened, the stateside first SGT of the 186th is the father of our batallion's supply sergeant, so he arranged to get some of us to show up on a volunteer basis for the day to spiff up the place for the homecoming ceremony, since he was expected to get that done but hadn't been allotted any people to accomplish the task.
For some reason, I find cleaning satisfying, and the more so when I'm doing my part to support the Republic. The floor buffer was broken, so we ended up having to wet-mop and sweep out the entire maintenance hangar. Very 1947 :) We went through much of a big institutional jug of Pine-Sol in the process.
Wal-Mart donated a lot of party supplies, including 18 cases of bottled water, and 8 large cases of snacks (a pallet-load, basically). We had to go with a truck to claim that from the distribution warehouse partway through the morning, then we set up the 350 or so chairs, speaker's lectern, and so forth. It's all cool-looking now with patriotic bunting and flags hung from the catwalks. I remember seeing them on TV leaving for Iraq from that same hangar. It looks a lot more festive now.
*****
It's a cicada year, although looking at the map it looks like we won't have many in Columbus. They're designated by Roman numerals, and this is the X group.
Two visitations ago, in 1970, I was living in southern Indiana. We called them 'locusts' back then. That stays with me yet as a remarkably impressive occurence. They were just everywhere, and they made a zinging noise that just filled the world. Unless you've ever been in a large locust outbreak, it's difficult to imagine how overwhelming they can be.
We seemed to have a number of sequential outbreaks in the early 70s, 1970 through 1974, IIRC, we had locusts every year, to the point where we just accepted them as part of summer. It was actually weird when they stopped. You find the cast-off shells of the juveniles everywhere, by the hundreds. They attach themselves to trees (they grow down in the roots), then split their skin and the adult crawls out through the rent. For whatever reason, we kids had a fad of filling the crunchy discarded skins up with bubble solution. That was considered fun to do. I've never been quite sure why, but I did it along with everyone else :)
