luminous

Last night I got home from work and plugged in the Christmas tree.

tada!

Then I lit every candle and oil lamp in the living room. Next it was off to the kitchen to start dinner before John got home. Hamburger Helper taco something-or-other. (Hey, he bought it, not me.) So I made dinner and we ate. John cleaned up the kitchen and started the dishwasher.

We needed to work on a photo project for Christmas, so we sat down at the table in the dining room where I had the laptop and scanner set up. So we were plugging away scanning photos... when what to my super sniffer did I smell?? (Mind you, in pregnancy, I can smell everything.)

FIRE!!!! "John, something's on fire. Check the candles." He looks in the living room.... nothing. Gives me the look like I'm crazy and paranoid. I keep sniffing. "No, something is definitely on fire. I smell burning." I sniff the dishwasher. It's suspect. The dry cycle is on. I open the door and smoke billows out. Aaaah... the smoke alarm is wired to notify the fire department.... open all the windows and turn up the fan!

Turns out the bamboo spatula had fallen from the top rack and was laying on the heating element. Kids, don't try this at home... it's very dangerous.

But what are the chances that this would happen when we are sitting RIGHT next to the dishwasher? On a normal day we would start the dishwasher and he'd go upstairs to play video games and I'd go downstairs to scrap. The dishwasher seals pretty tight, so we might not have figured it out for a while.

Oh, and the spatula happens to be one of my favorite kitchen items. It's for the wok. It was a set of two - for left and right hands. How would you like to tell the left hand bamboo spatula his brother died in a firey accident in the dishwasher? It wasn't pretty, I tell you.

And about that super sniffer.... I got out of my car at the fitness center at work last week. It was the day that it snowed. I was getting my stuff out of the back seat of my car and thought, "I smell a chai latte from Starbucks." I start heading into the building and there he is across the parking lot with his holiday Starbucks cup. He's lucky chai has caffeine or I might have tackled him for it, it smelled so good.

Have a good weekend. And whatever you do... don't run your dishwasher unattended.