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Tuesday
Sep152009
She's already smarter than me
September 15, 2009
I had just finished cooking when the boys showed up. The rajma was bubbling away, and everything else was ready. They brought a drum, a violin, a guitar, and Oshan with a fistful of flyers. "All right, kids!" he shouted when he had some breath back in him, after they tackled him. "Time to color flyers!" We sat down around the table and started in on the concert flyers.
"You color very neatly, Oshan," I said.
"Yes," he said. "I'm the best colorer in the whole world, pretty much." I love British hippies, because they may look wild, but their accents give them away. When I was having juice with Oshan and Darius last week, they used the words "mollycoddle" and "persnickety" in a ten minute span of time. Not to mention that when I walked up, Darius was eating baked beans on toast; a food that is utterly mysterious to me.
"Well," I said, feeling that he'd better be brought down a peg or two, "you're not very creative at coloring, are you?" He held out his work and looked at it. "No, no I'm not, am I? I'm more simple, really."
The boys and Chinua discussed where they would practice for the upcoming concert, and the rest of us sat at the table with our crayons. When they decided to go to the nearby restaurant with the Nepali cooks, Darius asked if the art entourage could please accompany them. I hemmed and hawed, since I had just finished dinner, but in the end, decided that time spent with these friends was time well spent, and we could eat the food I'd made tomorrow. So we all rounded up jackets and left.
And we colored more flyers, and we ate. And there was a hailstorm, and it grew increasingly cold, and you can sense the impending doom, can't you?
On the way back, Chinua lovingly hiked back up the hill with me, so I wouldn't have to do it alone in the dark, and we all shivered (when we leave in three days we won't shiver again until perhaps next April) and I thought thankfully about the fact that our house had been warming up all day in the sun, and would be pretty warm, compared with how frigid it was outside.
And then we reached our door, and we smelled the smoke. Chinua and I looked at each other, wide-eyed. "I didn't... I'm not... I thought," I said, cleverly, and dashed into a huge cloud of smoke which escaped when I opened the door, pursuing the children around the deck. First I turned off the stove. Then we began to open every window, every door, to let the horrific smell out. Not only the smell of burnt beans, but the smell of burnt pan. We gathered around outside, glumly, looking into the pot which Chinua illuminated with his flashlight. Nasty black bubbly beans, all charred and stuck to the bottom of the once-pan.
Bummer.
Now our house is refreshingly chilly, and still smells of something you'd rather not be close to. YaYa said, very distraught, "We should check all of those things, before we leave, shouldn't we?"
"I did check, I looked a few times. I didn't realize it was still on."
"What about looking under the pot, to see if the fire is going?"
"Yes, that would be the best thing, wouldn't it." Yes, yes it would.
"You color very neatly, Oshan," I said.
"Yes," he said. "I'm the best colorer in the whole world, pretty much." I love British hippies, because they may look wild, but their accents give them away. When I was having juice with Oshan and Darius last week, they used the words "mollycoddle" and "persnickety" in a ten minute span of time. Not to mention that when I walked up, Darius was eating baked beans on toast; a food that is utterly mysterious to me.
"Well," I said, feeling that he'd better be brought down a peg or two, "you're not very creative at coloring, are you?" He held out his work and looked at it. "No, no I'm not, am I? I'm more simple, really."
The boys and Chinua discussed where they would practice for the upcoming concert, and the rest of us sat at the table with our crayons. When they decided to go to the nearby restaurant with the Nepali cooks, Darius asked if the art entourage could please accompany them. I hemmed and hawed, since I had just finished dinner, but in the end, decided that time spent with these friends was time well spent, and we could eat the food I'd made tomorrow. So we all rounded up jackets and left.
And we colored more flyers, and we ate. And there was a hailstorm, and it grew increasingly cold, and you can sense the impending doom, can't you?
On the way back, Chinua lovingly hiked back up the hill with me, so I wouldn't have to do it alone in the dark, and we all shivered (when we leave in three days we won't shiver again until perhaps next April) and I thought thankfully about the fact that our house had been warming up all day in the sun, and would be pretty warm, compared with how frigid it was outside.
And then we reached our door, and we smelled the smoke. Chinua and I looked at each other, wide-eyed. "I didn't... I'm not... I thought," I said, cleverly, and dashed into a huge cloud of smoke which escaped when I opened the door, pursuing the children around the deck. First I turned off the stove. Then we began to open every window, every door, to let the horrific smell out. Not only the smell of burnt beans, but the smell of burnt pan. We gathered around outside, glumly, looking into the pot which Chinua illuminated with his flashlight. Nasty black bubbly beans, all charred and stuck to the bottom of the once-pan.
Bummer.
Now our house is refreshingly chilly, and still smells of something you'd rather not be close to. YaYa said, very distraught, "We should check all of those things, before we leave, shouldn't we?"
"I did check, I looked a few times. I didn't realize it was still on."
"What about looking under the pot, to see if the fire is going?"
"Yes, that would be the best thing, wouldn't it." Yes, yes it would.
Reader Comments (10)
would if make you feel better to know I left the key ON in my vehicle last night and this morning, surprise!, I had a dead battery? It makes ME feel better having told someone.
Maybe YaYa could make me a checklist too.
sorry to hear about the ruined food and the smelly, chilly house.
Hey Laura I did that too lately, did not really switch it off and it was parked in the garage to make it hard to boost.
Rae, that is a good story and a smelly lesson for sure. That happened in our house a little while ago, and there were fans at the back door for blowing the smoke out, and smoke detectors had been going off, lots of fun, but I wasn't home through all of it, and only found out later. Burnt beans though are one of the worse smells.
Hope you can shut the windows and doors soon.
My dear, sooner or later this will happen to ANYONE.
But kudos to Yaya for having the guts to reprise her mom!
Just glad that only the pot was ruined...
We have all done that a time or two. Me, three or four or five.....
put a bag of cashews on the hot plate - off but still hot and 1) cashews my favourite and a treat as not cheap here and 2) were in a plastic bag that of course melted and burnt to the stovetop (of a rental! with an anal OCD landlord) and stank the place out for days
All been there! : )
All right. You are forcing my hand here. You see, I'm dying to tell you the story of what I burnt on my stovetop, but doing so necessitates outing myself as a mother who bottle-fed her baby.
All right.
I burnt my nipples.
The plastic ones, which I was sterilizing in boiling water.
Bet you can't beat that one ;)
Oh no, I'm already regretting having outed myself.
I'm glad no serious damage was done!
But I have to tell you, baked beans contain no mystery whatsoever. They are an entirely prosaic and pedestrian dinner one dishes up when one has arrived home at 6pm and there is only a limp stick of celery and half a litre of slightly suspicious milk in the fridge, and everyone is hungry.
Eleanor,
You certainly have me beat, I can honestly say of all the things that I have burnt on my stovetop, NOTHING compares to your experience. Thank you for the laugh today!