Fresh Milk and Talasha and a Garden Full of Sweet Peas

Have you ever eaten fresh sweet peas straight from the garden? I don't mean cooked. I mean like candy. You snap off the pod, and then you pry it open and let the peas fall into your hand like a handful of m&m's from the bag. And then you pop 'em all (like 5) into your mouth at once. And they are SO YUMMY, that you just want to have some more!

When we lived in Michigan, one of the things my parents got to dig their interests into was gardening. Over the time that we were there, we had lettuce (in garbage bags to give away- there was so much of it) and green beens and corn and ... we planted a lot of stuff.

It was July 4, 1982 or 1983 or maybe 1984. I was very much looking forward to spending the evening with some neighborhood friends who invited me to watch fireworks with them. I don't know if i had ever really done the fireworks thing before. We had done the sparklers thing and all, but i was very excited about real fire works.

Well, my mom was at work, and sometime during the day, my dad decided that he was going to go out to his cousin's farm and get some milk. AND he decided that he would trust me to stay home by myself while he was gone since it wouldn't be very long.

Dad left, and it wasn't very long before Talasha was over, and she and i were playing in my back yard. And i don't remember whose idea it was, but we decided to try some of the sweet peas. mmmmmmmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM they were good! And perfectly ripe for harvesting. We enjoyed them so much, that we decided to have some more. And then we wanted some more. I remember at some point, knowing that we'd done more than sample the peas. And i DO remember whose idea it was to keep eating them, and Talashia was apparently very convincing because we kept eating more peas....and more peas.....and more peas. And they were still really good! Yummmy!

Soon, my dad's car pulled up - in perfect view of the garden of course - and we got caught. My cohort Talashia disappeared pretty quickly - across the street and down two doors and in her room like nothing ever happened. And there i was to wait while my dad surveyed the damage...which must've been substantial...because i was INNN TROUBLE!

I don't remember any yelling or anger, but i do remember that i was grounded, which meant no fire works on the 4th of July AND i got a spankin'. I didn't get spankings very often, and this is the last one i remember. My dad used a paint stirring stick, which he named "the rod." I didn't like the rod too much. It stung!!! And it stung special on this day. I got my spanking, and i was grounded to my room while everyone else watched fireworks.

Sometime after it started getting dark, and we could hear the sound of fireworks nearby, my parents started feeling my punishment, and i got to play in the back yard with consolation sparklers in my night gown. And we didn't have anything to light them with, so my dad had to light them on the burners on the stove and then run them outside really really fast.

Pretty cool memory for me.

Oh, and if i'm not mixing up my memories, Dad made a phone call across the street to Talashia's mom sometime that afternoon. We could hear the sound of Talashia's mom's voice all the way from our house, yelling, "Talashia!"

I did not suffer alone.

And i'm pretty sure Talashia didn't get consolation sparklers either. =)

Fire #4 - Prevented

Last evening, August 7, 2007, i was lying on my bed around 9 pm when i thought i heard my husband come in the house. He had been visiting a friend who lives in our apartment complex.

I dosed off briefly and then woke back up to some popping noises in the other room. I assumed it was my husband, and i called out to him, but i didn't get an answer. So i got up and started looking for him. The popping noise was coming from the bathroom, but the door was closed. I stood at the bathroom door and called to him, but he still didn't answer, and since he didn't answer, and i saw flashing lights from inside, i kicked the door open, not knowing what was going on.

When i opened the door, i saw small flames/really big sparks falling from the ceiling. I looked up and saw a very small fire contained (for now) in the fan in the ceiling.

You know the fan i'm talking about, right? The one you turn on to help eliminate unpleasant odors from your bathroom... Well, ours hasn't been working for some time, and we simply don't turn it on. However, one of our hands apparently did not consult with one of our brains before turning it on and leaving it on sometime yesterday evening.

The next part of the story is a little bit blurry. At first, i wanted some way to smother the fire and realized that wasn't going to work - nevermind that fact that i couldn't reach that high. I ran back and forth for a little bit - looking for something to put the fire out with and then immediately going back to make sure the fire wasn't getting bigger. And it wasn't.

I'm sure you can imagine the images that flashed through my mind when i saw those flames. You might also imagine how absolutely determined i was to NOT have Fire #4! I'm against Fire #4.

In my running back and forth, i remembered that several months or a year ago, the apartment complex installed some fire extinguishers on the outside of the building. I ran out onto my porch (in my night clothes) to find that none of those extinguishers were planted by my apartment (if only they knew, they'd put three right outside my door).

My mind was arguing with itself about whether to call my husband or 911. I opted for my husband.

J: Hey what's up?
B: Where are you?
J: Over at Jason's. Why? What's up?
B: Get a fire extinguisher off the wall and get here RIGHT NOW!
J: What the....

I continued to give directions and information to a dead line. My husband is wonderful in fast action and was in our aparment immediately. Jason's apartment is kind of across the complex, so i know he ran fast.

During all of this, somehow it seemed like a good idea to catch the giant sparks/small flames with a towel. I think this stemmed from my desire to smother the fire that i couldn't reach. I also wanted to make sure that none of those little flames reached something more ignitable than the toilet seat. So i was catching them on the floor with the towel and smothering them with the same towel. The flames were dropping like thick candle wax. It was a little bit like someone put a candle up there and got it really hot. While i was catching the flames, one of them caught me on that place on the outside of your thumb, right where the bone is that connects it to the rest of your hand.

After James got there and put out he fire, i was standing on my porch (escaping the oxygen killing dust of the fire extinguisher) when i looked down and saw two little black char marks on my hand. So... i picked 'em right off. Now there's no skin there...but it was only the outside layer of skin. It didn't even bleed, which is good and bad because the open spot is very sensitive, so i have to keep a bandaid on the place that doesn't hold bandaids very well. =)

I spent a large portion of the evening attempting to clean up the yellow, life-saving, fire-preventing, thick powder off of everything in my bathroom. But the whole time, i was kind of jubilant inside. I kept saying to myself, "Fire #4, prevented." It's a weird kind of victory for me. When you've seen as many fires in as short a time as i have, you kind of begin to assume that it has some kind of spirtual significance (you do if you're me anyway). And this one was prevented.

**Many thanks to our good friends Meredith and Jeremy who seem always to be available when we have some crazy crisis. This time, they let us borrow their vacuum cleaner to suck up the crazy dust. God always shows us His love through Meredith and Jeremy. =) **

Thank You, Lord! Thank You so very much!