Details

It sounds like for some of you, the details won't be necessary. For you who have not had this icky thing happen, here is the run down of my Saturday afternoon.

The first bad thing that happened is that the Ducks lost in the last minute of the game. I'm a fair weather sports fan, it has to be admitted. I glom onto whatever local team is the best--when my brother-in-law played for the Y, I was a Zoobie every Saturday for a few hours. Then I was an Astros fan for a few years. The last two winters I've been an Aggie basketball fan. But now, we have a fabulous local football team to support. Anyway, they lost Saturday in a really big, nationally televised game.

After the game I started making pizza dough, about 4:30. Homemade pizza, though you don't have to hover at every step, seems to always take us about two hours from start to table. I was so organized and together, I thought, "Hey, I want to make some orange rolls too." So I started a second batch of dough. It must be noted here that the orange rolls are to die for; even the batter is fantastically fragrant.

We (Plantboy loves to help with this one) begin getting busy on the pizza, in earnest, about 5:30. One large crust and two small (each in a Pyrex baking dish). We bake each pizza twice. The two small crusts went into the oven just as Captain Tootypants wakes up from his nap. I nurse the baby, and when I'm done, the kitchen is filled with a horrible burning smell and the window is open. (No, no explosion yet.) Plantboy had burned some bacon he wanted on his pizza and was trying to air out the kitchen. He was just finishing the boys' all cheesy mini pizza. For lack of a better place to put the pizza while it waited its second cooking, he put it on the stove top.

I was standing there also, the second little pizza on the front of the stove. I was anticipating a fabulous all-my-own pizza in about ten minutes as I sprinkled red peppers, fresh basil, tomatoes and bacon (from the first unburnt batch) all over the top. I was just putting on the cheese when . . .

I am not sure if I saw the smoke or smelled the burning first. I looked up quickly to the back burner and saw billows of smoke coming from the BOTTOM of the boys' pizza. A quick glance told me the burner was on HIGH. Thankfully I had the presence of mind to grab a pot holder (as I tell me science kids--hot glass looks just like cold glass), and then I slid it to the front burner. Just as I was about to give Plantboy the lecture there was a huge explosion and a scream. (From me.)

I was grateful all weekend that the only person in the kitchen was me. I'm also very grateful to have come off completely unscathed except for a tiny cut incurred during clean up. I was probably less than a foot away from the exploding dish. Still, I was pretty shaken. A minute later, Scallywag tried to enter the kitchen and I screamed at him too. I had visions of his beautiful bare feet cut to ribbons. And Scallywag, being the temper boy that he is, lost it and went to his room furious and refusing to ever eat pizza again since I had ruined his. Poopy Pirate had to be shooed out of the kitchen every three minutes for the rest of the night, and by this point, the baby was wailing at full force.

The two little pizzas were covered with glass. We saved the large one. Dinner was about 45 minutes late. The bulk of the clean up took place after the kids went to bed. I finally started my orange rolls about 8:30, and then about 9:30 I started my posters for Enrichment Super Saturday. About 11:30, the last batch of orange rolls came out. Oh, and I made two major mistakes on the poster.

In the midst of all this, I realized I had halfway hoped to be organized enough to make it to the Relief Society meeting. Yeah, right.

So next time you think your life is under control, just blink. It can all spiral downhill very quickly. I'm only sorry I didn't have the presence of mind to take a picture. By the time I was able to chuckle over the experience and begin thinking, "This would make a great blog," the worst was cleaned up and the picture I could have taken would have been weak.

Plantboy was so apologetic and sweet about the whole thing and did most of the cleanup. He refrained from saying, "That was . . . awesome!" until he could see I was much calmer. He even helped to stick together part of my poster and pulled orange rolls in and out of the oven all night. Aren't hubbies cute when they help? (Check out the first 2 1/2 minutes of this clip.)

Despite the setbacks, it was a good food weekend all around--besides the eventual homemade pizza and the orange rolls, we made this really creamy, yummy corn chowder on our rainy Sunday night. Plantboy made my family's favorite "Louella's Lickity Split Brown Sugar Muffins" to go with. Oh, and we finished the evening with another family favorite: The Man From Snowy River.