Roasted Rodent, Phone Interview, and Burnt Toast

Believe it or not, this three things do go together. All three things were part of my day yesterday.


It all started when I decided to make a nice dinner for my husband and myself. {Are you beginning to see why I don't cook that often?} I put a pot of water on the stove to boil. I checked on my husband and son as they were fixing the leaking tub faucet. When I went back to check on my unwatched pot, sure that it would be boiling, I smelled something strange. I looked around the kitchen and stared at my newest jenga-tower of old leftovers discovered in the refrigerator the day before. Certain those leftovers couldn't smell good, I still wasn't convinced that was the source of this particular stench. I walked up to my boiling pot of water and the smell got much stronger. It was just water. In a pot. Why the smell?? I shrugged, thinking maybe my sense of smell was just {really} off. I opened the package of tortelloni, but I couldn't bring myself to put it in the smelly boiling water.


Finally, I called my husband into the kitchen as the smell just seemed to get worse and worse. He immediately detected the malodor now permeating throughout the house. He exclaimed, "It smells dead!" Not exactly the reaction I was looking for in regards to my nice dinner. However, it did confirm that my skyscraper of leftovers was not the source.


My husband sniffed and snooped, moving things around in the kitchen to pinpoint the epicenter. He moved the pot of boiling water, unplugged the burner, and groaned and he turned away from the stove. "That's what I was afraid of," he moaned. "You've been roasting a dead mouse!"


I'll spare you the gory details that followed. All I can say is that the next twenty minutes involved a lot of nose-pinching, gagging, and candle-lighting. Men always wonder why a woman needs to buy five candles every time she goes to one of those parties. Well men, now I can tell you why. It's for the day that your wife tries to make you a nice, Italian dinner and instead roasts a {dead} mouse. In fact, we would have appreciated having MORE candles on hand. And some air freshener.


Not two seconds after we--err, my husband--finished cleaning up the mess, my phone rang. "Oh that's her!" I told my husband as I tossed my son into his unexpectant arms and ran to the dining room.


Our local magazine is doing an article on Army wives and my mother-in-law (who'd just interviewed with them about her mom for an article on war brides) gave them my name and number as a resource. So, yesterday afternoon, with the reek of roasted rodent still burning my nostrils, I gave my very first interview. I was nervous, but I think it went well. I'm looking forward to seeing the article. It'll be weird to see my family's names in print, but how cool!


An hour later, when the interview was finished and the candles were the only aroma in the kitchen, I re-boiled my water. I cheated by microwaving the {canned} green beans and I burnt the garlic bread, but nonetheless, our meal turned out quite well.