Captain Monkeypants and the Art of the Calamity

I'm very sleepy this morning. It was one of those mornings where I debated staying in bed for another half-hour and going in late, making up the time this evening. Yet I got up anyway. I never get much benefit out of lying in bed for another half-hour unless I'm actually sleeping. Mostly, it's spent hiding my head under the covers and thinking about how much I don't want to get up which leads me to constantly check the clock to see how much time I have left rather than actually sleeping. If I actually do get up, it's just easier.

It's freezing out this morning. The snow patches are still clustered in the shadows and my car was iced-over. I'm too lazy to scrape: I've taken to starting my car ten minutes before I want to leave. It's SO much easier and, I find, actually safer because even when you scrape, you never clear your windows completely. I saw a girl driving an identical car to mine this morning but she'd only managed to scrape a little hole on her windshield. She practically had her nose against the glass, trying to see out. The rest of her car was so frozen that there was no way she could see out of her windows. This is why I start my car early. Also, having just got my car fixed from my last accident, I do not want another one, thank you very much.

So, now I'm at work. It's quiet in the office. I'm sipping vile coffee again because I cannot get my act together enough to make a pot at home. I'm really only capable in the mornings of getting ready for work, starting my car early and then a maximum of one non-routine task. Often, it involves putting things in my crockpot to cook for dinner. I do the preparation for this the night before. Other times, if I'm REALLY ambitious, it involves making toast. I adore toast. It's a joy in my life. I do not, however, really enjoy my toaster. It was one of those $7 deals from Walmart. It's a two-slot toaster but it's not deep enough to toast the very top of the bread so by the time it pops up, the top of the bread is still soft and untoasted while the rest is fine. Also, it does not have one of those nifty buttons to hit to make the toast pop up on your command. You have to turn the dial to the lowest setting and then it pops up. This is great except I like my toast dark and I inevitably forget I turned the dial to low until my toast pops up and it's still white. I need a new toaster.

This morning, I decided to try my new bread maker. It was actually my parent's but it's new to me. There was no instruction book. My mother provided instructions on how to put the ingredients in which was very helpful. There's a lot of buttons though. I like hitting buttons. I think I might have set the timer right on it since it was counting down as I left the apartment. If all goes well, I should be greeted with the scent of fresh baked, yeasty bread when I get home from work. Either that or it's The Breadmaker of Doom and is counting down for more ominous reasons. I prefer to think positively, however.

Aside from adoring fresh bread, I decided it might be a good idea to introduce a new smell to my apartment other than rather-cheap-wine-covered-up-by-Christmas-candle. You see, last night, I had a rather large accident. I have this wine rack that is very pretty but the bottles aren't terribly secure. They sit on a rather thin ledge and are easily dislodged. I bumped the rack last night causing the top layer of bottles to fall onto the ones below. You wouldn't think this had much effect but I am Captain Monkeypants, Mistress of the Calamity. No, this top level bottle shattered the bottle beneath which lead to a nasty mess. I try to keep my good wine on the top rack, the Two Buck Chuck on the bottom. I should probably explain that the difference between the Two Buck Chuck and the Top Level wine is about $3. I like good wine. If I had a nice fat income, I'd probably splurge. However, for now, Sutter Home is my friend. Not that it isn't good wine. It's just not good wine, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, so, I stood there, taking in the sudden and unexpected calamity, I realized I had to Act Now or Forever Lose The Newness of my Carpet. So I flew into action, sopping up the worst of the spill and reading on the internet the best way to remove wine stains. Did you know everyone says white wine works as a stain lifter? I did not. I also prefer red wine and so I lacked white wine. Also, I would have felt rather cross if I'd hate to waste more wine like that. So I ran to the store, purchased some Oxy Deep Cleaner and went back to work on the carpet. Fortunately, I managed to remove the stain, I think. The carpet looked ok in the pretty lights of my Christmas tree and my not-so-bright lamp. I'm hoping that in the light of day, it'll look fine too.

So, by the time my scrubbing was done, my apartment smelled a bit more like Oxy Clean and a little less like Two Buck Chuck. I lit my Glade Gingerbread candle. It seemed to help except somehow the smells seemed to combine and now my flat smells like a Christmas pudding. For all you non-Brits, a Christmas pudding is a very dark, raisin-y, rum-my, fruity concoction that is steamed and served with brandy butter. I just like the brandy butter, truth be told. Though when I was little, the tradition was to hide money in the Christmas pudding for the children so that when you'd get your piece, you'd find a nice 5 pence piece, usually when you'd bite into the pudding. Yes, that was back before people were quite so germaphobic. Which was probably not a good thing, now that I think about it. I didn't realize that my parents were the one putting the money into the pudding until I was quite old. Yes, I really thought it came that way, ok?

Anyway, once more, I digress. Back to my point: Fresh Bread. I'm hoping that the bread maker works and that I have nice crusty bread waiting for me and that my apartment smells just like fresh bread rather than Christmas pudding flavoured bread because that would be a bit vile. I'll keep you posted on that.

So, the moral of this story is really Don't Spill Wine on the Carpet. It is a bad thing. However, if you do, may I recommend Oxy Clean and Glade Candles to alleviate the disaster a little. As long as you don't mind the smell of Christmas pudding. Also, as an added side bonus, Sutter Home crushes Two Buck Chuck. Literally.

Happy Wednesday