RecipeMuncher

To paraphrase Eunice Burns,

"What more can they do to us?"

Yesterday morning I woke up with a harsh, sharp headache across the front of my forehead and I was congested, too, which is strange because, well, it's July and I don't tend to get colds in July, and I don't have allergies either.

So the day - THE DAY - our relatives were due to arrive, we still had the upstairs hallway to paint and a bunch of stuff to bring either upstairs or downstairs, depending on whether it was destined for a bedroom or for my sewing/jewelry-making/artsy-craftsy corner of the basement.  And then, we also needed to vacuum and clean the bathrooms and run to the grocery store.

Somewhere around ten or so, I was just about to wash some of the dishes that had piled up over the previous couple of days.  I had already had my pain-and-stress-induced meltdown, went around throwing old sketch books from art classes in college into the recycle bin because WHAT AM I SAVING THEM FOR? IT'S NOT LIKE I'M ANY GOOD AT ANYTHING ANYWAY!! sob, sob, sob.  I was slicing the heavy cardboard portfolio cover with a razor while tears dripped on it.  Such a pretty sight.

Anyway, the tears had stopped, for the most part, my head still hurt, I'd taken some Excedrin, and was hoping that would help. 

Bill came into the kitchen and asked if I was running hot water, and I said not yet, and then switched the faucet handle over to the "hot" side, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

No hot water.

Odd.

Bill went downstairs to check the hot water heater, and lo and behold - the pilot light had gone out.

So he shut it off or whatever you do, and then waited the recommended ten minutes so you don't accidentally blow up your house, and then he tried to get it lit again.

And again.

And again.

No dice.

Lovely.  There are dishes and bathrooms to clean, and we've got four people arriving in five hours.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

So he called Roto Rooter, the folks who had installed the water heater a couple of years ago, and they said they'd have someone out within the hour.  Thank goodness.

And sure enough, within the hour, the guy arrived, took a look, told us it was one of two things, checked it out, and discovered that a little bit of rust had covered up the thingy where the flame comes out or something, and so the flame was shooting out in the wrong place, and some other thingy was therefore getting all black, and the thing had finally gotten black enough that it told the hot water heater not to work any more.

So fortunately it turned out to be fixable. 

And eventually family arrived, and life was good again.

I'm sure you can figure out the melody on your own.  I am not a musician and I can't write music.  I've just got an English degree, and so I CAN write some mean lyrics when I've a mind to.

Ready?

The……blade all full of joint compound goes slap slap slap/slap slap slap/slap slap slap/the blade all full of joint compound goes slap slap slap/all 'cross the drywall.

The……..sander on the hardened joint compound goes scrape scrape scrape/scrape scrape scrape/scrape scrape scrape/the sander on the hardened joint compound goes scrape scrape scrape/all 'cross the hardened joint compound to make it nice and smooth.

The……particles of dust go ev-ry-where/ev-ry-where/ev-ry-where/the particles of dust go ev-ry-where, especially in your mouth and lungs and on the lenses of your glasses and in your hair.  And on your feet.

The…..person doing the sanding goes cough cough cough/cough cough cough/cough cough cough/the person doing the sanding goes cough cough cough/and then she vacuums it all up and decides enough's enough, it's time for a shower.

Thank you.

For a predominantly vegetarian population in India, very few protein sources are available, lentils being most important one. The lentils form a very important role in every meal and Dals form part both in North as well as Southern part of India.

Tadka / Tarka / Baghar / Chonk(meaning "tempering") Dal (lentil) is the most simplest dal which involves practically no effort. Delicious,

Still busy, still knackered and still training for that bloody 10k.  As a result of all this, I’m also still eating a lot of pasta.  That’s no hardship for this girl though, I love the stuff and have a trillion tried, tested and adored recipes using it.  The following recipe for Pasta Puttanesca is one of my all time favourites [...]