The Flames Almost Rose to My Roman Nose

It seems like lately all I have been doing is putting out fires…mostly at work, mind you, but tonight it followed me home.

I was attempting to make pork chops in the toaster oven, and almost set my kitchen ablaze.

Now, before you go and gaffaw about my cooking abilities, I am going to arrogantly say that I have been told I am a decent cook (or so my husband says, and he was raised by the best cook I know – my mother-in-law…and he is brutally honest, so there you go). The cause of the blaze was due to using parchment paper instead of foil as a liner to the baking sheet, and a corner of it brushed against the hot element located on the roof of the oven, setting a tiny fire in my Proctor Silex just a couple of minutes after I had put the chops in. Thankfully, I was in the room preparing the baked potatoes when I caught a glimpse of an orange flame inside the toaster oven.

Surprisingly, I didn’t panic (which is not my M.O.). I calmly, but quickly grabbed the corner of the baking sheet with some tongs and dropped the whole thing in the sink. I moved the meat off the tray and placed it on a plate I had nearby as the flames extinguished. The pork chops were salvaged, by the way. I moved the whole operation to my main oven.

Them chops were delicious!

If one smoldering fire wasn’t enough for one evening, I found another fire burning a hole in my mailbox when I got home from work tonight…and no, it wasn’t a burning bag of crap. 😉 It was a big surprise, since my husband has been receiving parcels in the mail almost daily, and now I get one! Instantly, I could tell who it was from – the address written in black capitals, and an aroma of java wafting from the box. Aaron from KeepsMeAlive sent over a surprise parcel to me!…Totally unexpected…and totally came at a great time.

Inside was a card of Season’s Greetings from Aaron, along with a pound of Moonbean coffee (the man stopped in to his favourite coffee joint when he and Mike were in Toronto!). Not a stranger to Moonbean, Aaron has sent me their coffee before, each time a different type of brew. This time, the roast is called “Awakenings” and from its aroma, it smells like the kind of coffee that could kick my butt into high gear in the morning! No doubt, it will be highly praised by this coffee-lover!

Another surprise appeared with the coffee – a CD…Zappacosta’s “Quick!…Don’t Ask Questions…” I was surprised to see that! I have yet to listen to this album in its entirety, but no doubt it’s classic Zappacosta, with recognizable-to-me songs as “Letter Back” and “the Only One.” Considering I was asking for ANY Zappacosta on my grail list, this was quite a shock to receive, and it was in great condition, to boot!

One BIG THANK YOU to Aaron for sending this package along to me!! It was a big surprise to me that means so much! 🙂

Visiting and Reminiscing Over a Box of Stuff

Greetings from Sudbury: The frozen snow-covered Nickel Belt of Northeastern Ontario!

Visiting family and friends feeds and recharges the soul. There was plenty of reminiscing about the “good ol’ days” which included visiting with my sis. Alot of laughs. Good times! Going home and receiving boomerang gifts also keeps visits interesting… You know, the stuff you left behind when you moved out, but that now that you are out of the house and established in your own place, the parents seem to find tchotchkies and wimwams that were once yours, and BOOMerang! they hand you a box full of random crap to take home with you so you can pitch it. It had been awhile since I got one of these from my parents…I haven’t lived at home in 21 years. I’ve been married 14 years. What could possibly be left? Dust bunnies from 1991?

Visiting my parents is always a good time. They’re elderly, and have been retired for years. My mom looks great and is in generally good health in comparison to other women her age. My Step-Dad is near-deaf and has an infectious sense of humour. Between the two of them, it’s fun to engage in an innocent story with them, that easily degrades into a yelling match because my Step-Dad can’t hear you. Hilarious! We always have a good time with them. I’ve known him most of my life and sometimes I think he still sees me as a 10 year old. He was present pretty much during the awkward formative and gawky teen years. He always takes an opportunity to remind my older sis and I of some of the old times we had as kids. Embarrassing and not. This visit, he was full of surprises.

To start, I used to have a huge Archie comic collection. When my Step-Dad heard that Archie Andrews was going to die in a up-and-coming comic book, he presented me at Christmas with the Death of Archie comic edition! He made a point of going to the local comic book store to pick up that edition for me. What a surprise; I’ll be cherishing it!

He then found my sister’s Game and Watch handheld Mario Bros. game in a random drawer. My sister bought the little video game in France in 1984 when she was on an exchange, so its instructions are in French. This arcade game has Mario and Luigi in a bottle factory, and I remember it being a ton of fun. My sister gave her blessing to gift the game to the hubs, the big retro game collector, which was generous and awesome! Thank you, Sis!

Then, my Step-Dad surprised me with a box full of my 21-plus year old crap. BOOMerang!

Here – he said. You’ll want to take this home.

It was a shoebox full of cassettes – full albums and cassette singles, to be exact! 22 in total.

Paula Abdul’s Straight Up, Milli Vanilli’s Girl, You Know It’s True, even Zappacosta’s Letter Back, a song I have no memory what it sounds like, nor do I recall buying. I know some of these are my sister’s. Some albums include my sister’s copy of Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual, Canadian 80s sensation Candi’s album and Power Station’s self-titled album (that wound up being sans cassette, liner notes only).

I also got returned to me Linda Ronstadt’s Lush Life, a BeeGees cassette, and the soundtrack to the Travolta / Newton-John classic film, Two of a Kind. Runner up for greatest cassette re-gift goes to Hooked On Classics! which was my mom’s go-to jazzercise musack in the 80s. Some of these albums were obvious re-gifts to us as unsuspecting kids by adults who didn’t want The Merrymen of Barbados stinking up their collections. Most of those were never listened to, or maybe my kid self made it past the first song; otherwise rotting away in our cassette case rack.  I don’t know what I’ll do with any of these (except some gems). I honestly thought I had thrown these away. I mean, Milli Vanilli? Eh.

I also was gifted a sh*te photie of myself swimming in 1991. In panorama. Eh.

Included was a couple of keychains – one emblazened with my real name, and one that says, “This girl really knows how to party!” (Not). Hello, Sudbury landfill.

Anyway, the shoebox ensued a lot of laughs and reminiscing which is never a bad thing. Thanks, Step-Dad! Some good times spent with family on Christmas.

Hope you all had a great Christmas Day with your family!

Merry Christmas, Sarca!

Christmas came early to the house of Sim…my Christmas Amazon order came in today!

The hubs and I did something a little different and unconventional this year. We decided to allow ourselves to buy our own Christmas presents. We had a price limit imposed, and we each went to town…virtually-speaking – he on eBay, me on my wish list on Amazon. I know it doesn’t sound very romantic to some people, but the hubs wanted retro video games and knows what he wants and where to get them from…and I knew what I wanted, so there. The holidays can be so stressful, and this is the perfect solution to the spousal gift-giving problem. Seriously, it was perfect for us!

And look at all the loot!

Corner Gas Full Tank (Complete Series)
NYPD Blue Seasons 6 and 7 (YES!!)
Graphic novels, New York Drawings and Sleepwalk and Other Stories by Adrian Tomine
As well, I added Quebecois graphic novelist Michel Rabagliati’s Paul Joins the Scouts (from the “Paul Got a Summer Job” series)
Last, but not least, The Tragically Hip’s Fully Completely Limited Edition CD, DVD and booklet! (Drool!)

So good!

One little snafu, though. My copy of New York Drawings arrived damaged, so now I get to exchange it. Looks like I have a bit of a procedure to go through with Amazon. Wish me luck on that adventure!

And on a different note, I would be remiss if I didn’t thank a couple of peeps from my WP email circle that graciously gifted me some great stuff:

Thank you to Brian Z for sending me Ray Lyell’s Desert Winds on CD. It was very nice of him to think of me when he found it. He sent it to me without wanting anything in return. Thank you so much!

Then, a couple of weeks ago I got a package in the mail – full of smurfs!

Aaron from keepsmealive caught wind that I have a smurf figurine collection from the 80s…and found me a whole box full of more smurf figurines! These are Happy Meal Smurfs released to promote the new Smurf movie that came out a few years ago, so they are bigger in size than my vintage smurf figurines. Some of the smurfs Aaron sent are pretty rough looking, and we joked between us how he sent me dirty smurfs, haha! (I’ve since washed some of them). A big thank you to Aaron for this surprising and thoughtful gift.

At any rate, I am officially on my Christmas vacation. I will be doing some traveling up to Sudbury and hopefully get to spend some quality time with my Mom, Step-Dad and the rest of my fam whom I haven’t seen in a year. That said, I am going to take much needed time off to recharge and renew for the New Year.

To my good WP friends: Mike, Aaron, Heavy Metal Overlord, 1537, Deke, Geoff, and Brian – it’s been fun (and hilarious!) getting to know you guys. Best wishes to you and your families this Christmas! Give ‘Er x-mas-style! \m/ \m/

To the gamer guys on YouTube: The Cartridge Bros, Ram Vox, Duke and his kidlets from Retro Nonsense, Dean Lasagna, JRock, Lo, and anyone else I missed…Merry Christmas!! See you on Twitter!

And to my followers and faithful readers of Caught Me Gaming: Janna, Donna P, Jen, Gretchen, Angie, Bradley, Yvonne and anyone else I missed – thanks for your support. Merry Christmas!

See you all soon! Now I’m off to drink some coffee and Baileys!