The Kitchen

A little while ago, I was asked a very reasonable question via Twitter:

@JimmyJames70

@Dad_O what is it that you do in that kitchen night after night to make it so messy? Wait. Maybe I don't want to know…

Innocent enough, but it got me thinking: why the hell is the kitchen so hard to keep clean?

Tonight, I decided to investigate.

Yesterday, Amy and I teamed up to clean everything. All the dishes were done, right down to the silly crap that you have to handwash. That meant that when we went to sleep there was literally not a single dirty dish in the house (and as it turns out, when that is the case, the cupboards don't really have room for all the clean stuff, but that doesn't come up much).

So tonight as I loaded the dishwasher, I took inventory of how many dirty dishes our little family of three managed to accumulate during the approximately 12 hours between when I leave for work and when we put the little one to bed.

Here's the list, again, keeping in mind that we are a household of two adults and one small child.

In no particular order, tonight's dirty dishes include:

• Two sauce pans (with lids)
• One large frying pan
• Two whisks
• A wooden spoon
• Two serving spoons
• One pinch bowl (I think that's what it is)
• Seven glasses
• One kid bowl
• Three kid spoons
• Eight forks
• Eight spoons
• Three steak knives
• A butter knife
• A measuring cup
• Two kid cups (with lids)
• Three Tupperware containers
• One measuring cup
• One snack cup
• Eleven plates
• Eleven bowls
• Eight forks
• Eight spoons
• Three steak knives
• One meat tenderizers

If you do the math, that works out to just over 30 dirty items per person per day. So, @JimmyJames70, to answer your question and mine, that is why the kitchen is so hard to clean.

Although we are, it seems, finally getting a grip on it and I think have managed to cobble together a system that at least gets us back to zero each night. And really, how can we ask for anything more than that?

Super Bowl XXLICCLI (or something like that)

This time last year I was watching the Steelers finish off a dicey fourth quarter with an 80 yard drive ending with Santonio Holmes in the end zone to beat Arizona. This year the Steelers were sidelined short of the playoffs and I could really have cared less who won the Super Bowl.

I spent the first half with the TV on, watching Babe-O burn off some energy chasing a beach ball around in circles and shouting goofy stuff at the top of her lungs. We were having eggs for dinner, so I sat with her and watched the game while she burned through every bite of two eggs and then started angling for some of Amy's soup.

She had been going strong all day so we didn't wait until halftime to get her in the bath. By the time we were done with that, we were just in time to catch The Who on stage, which Babe-O celebrated by dancing naked on the bed, flapping her arms and grinning ear to ear.

Then the game got interesting fast with New Orleans pulling off an onside kick to keep the ball after the half. I was impressed, but Babe-O was pooped so I shut the TV off and curled up with her to go to sleep.

She crashed out after about five minutes in the dark and I went downstairs and watched the Saints pull off the win. Sure next year I'm hoping to be at a party someplace watching Pittsburgh win a seventh Super Bowl ring, but I'm not going to lie...spending this one goofing off with Babe-O was a blast.

Slowplaying the Poop Card

Today we considered not taking Babe-O to her swim lesson, as she had been a little under the weather today. She said she was up to it, though, and seemed good when it was about time to leave, so I went for it.

She was a little subdued during the lesson, but all in all did pretty well, until we got to about the last two minutes. She started fussing more and more and then finally blurted out the universal battle cry of kids that need to get the hell out of the pool: "poooooop!"

I excused us from the somewhat maddening end-of-lesson song and bolted for the men's locker room (no toilet in the family changing area where we usually go).

That meant running Babe-O through the YMCA naked old man gauntlet, which I imagine was a little traumatizing for her (let alone me). And why is it that old guys feel the need to use such an unholy amount of soap when they shower? They always look like giant liver spotted Santa heads with their huge nipple eyes shooting you sideways glances as you go by.

Anyway, we made our way to the one toilet in the place and as soon as I opened the door, Babe-O started shouting "no, no, no!" Long story short: not happening.

So we made our way back through Saggy Alley, where I'm pretty sure we saw Fidel Castro, and back out to the pool area. The lesson was wrapping up and it was pretty clear that time could become a factor on the poop issue, so we grabbed our gear and headed right to the family changing rooms.

By the way, the family changing area is just a closet with a stall mat on the floor. There are chairs there about a third of the time, but people steal them to sit in and read, which I only just realized in the last thirty seconds as I type this. Bastards!

Once Babe-O was stripped down, we figured out that we'd forgotten to pack a dry diaper. It seemed we were doubling down on the urgency of the pending poop. Luckily, Babe-O Commando managed to make it home without incident.

Now she's sleeping. And come to think of it, that poop never did materialize.

Either the morning is going to be ugly or she was just slowplaying the poop card to get out of the swimming song.

Dad-O, God of Lightning

Static electricity is starting to affect my quality of life.

First it was just cute that the baby's hair would occasionally stand up on end when she wore hooded coats, but lately it's been out of control.

I blame my slippers, but whatever the cause, I get shocked every time I touch anything. One doorknob in particular HURTS.

When I pet the cat at night it looks like he's on fire. Luckily he's kind of a freak, likes it rough, and doesn't mind.

The dogs think I abuse them for fun and run away every time they get shocked.

Yesterday, I went to adjust the volume on the DVD player and it caused such a zap that the display scrambled and the external speakers crapped out instantaneously.

What the hell? Is there anything I can do about this? I'm afraid I'm going to touch off a grease fire in the kitchen or blow myself up at a gas pump. Little help?

Gross Riddle

How long does it take a Q-Tip to travel 18 inches?

If the route runs from my dog's mouth to my dog's butt, about four days.

Since the other day when our cocker spaniel Lola decided to eat about two dozen Q-Tips for lunch, we've been keeping an eye on her and bracing ourselves for a $1200 vet bill. She's actually done this before, but never with quite so many at one time, so while we're pretty sure she can handle one or two, this didn't look good.

But luckily, sure enough just yesterday we finally started to see the first couple of slimy brown competitors poke their once fluffy heads out into the daylight and stagger across the finish line.

Unfortunately, if the dog's digestive tract is, I dunno, twelve feet long, she is apparently only able to push a Q-Tip for about 11.92 feet. That last inch or so is where I come in.

So anyway, we aren't out of the woods yet on the vet bill, but it looks like we're making some progress. And on the plus side, the dog has been acting very fond of me since last night when I yanked that first handful out for her. I suppose when you've got a problem like that and can't really reach your own ass, you'd better make some really good friends in a hurry.