Some Kind of Cosmic Balance Sheet.....

Karma should really consider getting a louder siren. It would be completely awesome if I had a heads up before they be knockin' on my door like they the dang police (cleaned up Friday reference changed a bit to suit just this instance). But nope. No siren, no heads up, not even a tap on the shoulder before BAM! there it is smackin' ya right up in your face. This time it really hit me where it hurts-----the kitchen. The kitchen is my sanctuary, my hidey hole if you will...

I rarely notice the good karma. If I find a penny on the street I should be all like, "Heck yes! Monies for me!!" But nope, I stick it in my pocket without a second thought...unless, of course, it's on tails. You never pick up a penny on tails. If you do you have to put it in your shoe. I did that once, it was annoying as crap. Don't put pennies in your shoes. Trust me.

So these days I'm madly in love with recipes. It started simple enough with a chicken and dumplings recipe that turned out to be nothing short of ambrosia-like. I ate them for days upon days and even whipped up another pot Tuesday. Then there was Japanese rice and teriyaki chicken. It was delicious, albeit a bit salty. Next time I'll do better. And the last night was the oven fried chicken.

The recipe was simple enough. I donned my iPod and sang away the moments (apparently a bit louder than Nathan liked) while prepping the chicken. Preheat oven, check. Stick this junk in a bowl, check. Crush these corn flakes, check. Viola! All ready to go into the oven. Oh wait...what's this? It's been 15 minutes and my oven isn't preheated. Somehow Adele in my ear didn't sound as sweet as it did just mere seconds before.

Okay. This can be handled. It has to be something simple. Maybe I didn't break the entire stove, just a small part of it. I turned on a burner. A minute amount of head wafted to my hand. No more than the equivalent of a pinprick where there should have been a horseshoe stake.

"Uh oh, Babe...there's something wrong with the stove."

Adam's used to me calling him in with problems. A lid won't come off a jar, I can't quite reach that can... This is one of the many reasons I got married. If you're short and have a tendency to fight tooth and nail with jars, get married. It makes life sooo much easier. Short weakling chicks will not survive alone.

It should be mentioned that this has happened before. There would be heat, but not nearly enough. The lights would come on, but it was obvious that no one was home. In that particular instance we found out much too late (after buying a new stove) that it was, in fact, the fuses. I know next to nothing about fuse boxes. I do know that breakers are easier and when they trip, it doesn't take a visit to Wal-Mart to fix it. Click--done. But, without the luxury of a simple click, Adam went to Wal-Mart.

Fuses in hand, he trekked down the basement steps. I wanted to be excited. I wanted to be optimistic. Heck, I would have settled for the glass having even a drop of water in it, but with the fuses only being a little over a year old, I was skeptical (especially since the ones we replaced before looked like they were probably replaced sometime before the combustible engine was debuted).

No luck. I could tell he was trying different things waiting for me to yell gleefully, "It works! It works! By Jove I think you've got it!" Lights went off, lights came on. The microwave blinked. The computers went off. At some point the clock in the bedroom went off and came back on. Nothing. Then...something...a tiny tendril of heat...but only for a stolen moment. Was it a dream? To much to hope for? A small ray of light in a horrible downpour? It was simply that; a short small burst of heat gone within moments; a wisp of heat and poof....... Surely I had imagined it.

So, Adam did what any red-blooded American male would do in such a situation. He took the stove apart. Not the fuses. Has to be a loose wire. Screws came out. So many screws. I'm still trying to be optimistic. Trying so hard to see a light at the end of the tunnel...wondering if perhaps it was a simple wire, a tiny problem in a sea of horrendous possibilities.

I'm not going to get into detail about the mouse. I'm just going to mumble the words old and crispy and move along. He was removed and parts were scrubbed. This was my stove. My STOVE. I nearly felt violated. I still shudder to think.... Gack.

No loose wires. Yup, it was a good idea, don't get me wrong, but I suspected as much. He put the stove back together.

McDonald's for dinner. Yes, I'm not to proud to admit that I lost my mind for a few minutes. This was my STOVE y'all. My stove! A source of comfort, sustenance and a part of my getaway. My stove was not working. I overreacted. I do that.

I pulled myself together and with a couple of cheeseburgers and some sweet tea in my belly I could think a bit more clearly. Adam suggested he climb up in the attic to see about wiring. That was the only idea that was really coming to mind. He had cleaned contacts on the fuse box part thingy, (the technical term, ladies and gentlemen) so the fuses were making contact. That couldn't really be the problem.

Then I remembered the dream of heat; the small puff of warmth that came from the burner for a mere nanosecond. I explained in my topsy-turvy detail how when it seemed like he was placing the fuse box part thingy back into the wall, it seemed to work for a split second. Hmmm... Yes...for a split second I believe it worked. So Adam trekked down the stairs once again to move the part thingy just a bit. A little jiggle basically....

It worked!!! Heat poured forth like rainbows full of love and laughter. Yes. We had fixed our problem....well...temporarily at least. Apparently we're going to have to clean the actual fuse box. I'm loathe to think of it.... No power while cleaning a fuse box. Sounds like a hoppin' good time to me!!

Maybe it's not karma really. Maybe it's just God's way of reminding me that things may be all jacked up; that they fall apart; that they get all mucked up, but in the end, it's all okay. The entire world may feel like it's coming apart at the seams, but you never really know when it'll turn around. It could be within the next moment, the next day, the next year...but it will turn around.

My cup runneth over.