Adventures in Phone Chats and Fire Alarms

I was chatting with a friend from New York, a former co-worker, who is an awesome editor at the beginning of her career. I was also making dinner - a beautiful, tasty, smaller portion of macaroni and cheese, one of my favorite comfort foods. In the middle of the conversation, I had to say, "I'm going to have to let you go. There's smoke coming out my oven."

I opened the oven to remove the mac and cheese (which was not burnt, by the way), and the chemical laden smoke blew into my eyes and made them water.

Then I

1) opened windows
2) opened door
3) turned on vents
4) winced, because Fire Alarm started beeping
5) wandered around the house wondering where my shoes were, envisioning myself outside, shivering in snow, while fire trunk honked and swerved up mountain
6) stopped covering my ears, daring to hope, because Fire Alarm had turned itself off
7) opened doors and windows wider
8) called my parents to make sure I shouldn't go find myself an igloo for the evening
9) closed door and locked it, because Mom reminded me that there are moose (only in the mountains would my mom worry about strange animals before strange people)
10) remembered that there are also coyotes (found tracks this morning) and looked outside suspiciously for scary canines that could claw through window screen
11) listened as Mom instructed me on how to start the self-cleaning on the oven
12) hung up and wrote this.

Very exciting times.

I can't smell the smoke anymore, and it's not very visible. My eyes still sting, so I might need to rinse them out.

First though, I must close the windows, because 20 degree air is blowing in. I have been shivering for several paragraphs...

The First Week

The bad news: in the six days since I've arrived, I've only left the cabin once. I know. It's shocking. Especially since I didn't actually count the days until a few sentences ago. :-/

In my defense, it's been ridiculously cold. The mountain temperature hasn't gotten up to zero in days. Yesterday, I brushed the snow off my car yesterday and drove down to the grocery store. The temperature read negative eight at the cabin. I lost feeling in my fingertips, even though I wore gloves and had the heat blasting. To make sure I kept all of them, I bought some handwarmers at the grocery store before driving up.

Apparently, last night, it got down to negative 20. Getting out of bed was tough. I made a fire, which started out really well.



Ten minutes later, it didn't look so hot. :-(


The good news: I made an awesome chicken pot pie.

This is a sure sign that I have too much time on my hands.