The Great Pizza Debacle...

started off as the great pizza lunch. Last week Food Lion  had an excellent sale on Tombstone pizzas-- 4 for $10--so of course I bought four. Today as we drove home from church my daughter asked me the question, "What's for lunch?" A question, I might add, that I dread every single time. Why? Because the entire extent of my lunch planning generally goes something like this: Lunch time. What do we have? Peanut butter. Jelly. Bread. Ugh.

But wait! Down in the freezer a Tombstone pizza is just sitting around, waiting to be cooked. I know! We'll have pizza!

And so we did. Well, sort of. I slapped that bad boy in the oven thinking about how great it was that we could have a lunch for $2.50 and still have food left over. I pulled the bubbling pie out while congratulating myself on buying such a good deal. I continued to be happy about my cheap Tombstone pizza as I proceeded to slice it with my pizza cutter, until....

I created a pizza catapult. That's right, I flipped the darned thing! In my rental home I have almost no counter space and the counter top I do have is currently warped. My shiny pizza pan was resting on an uneven counter surface. When I enthusiastically rolled the cutter over the pizza, I was pushing down hard, and the pizza pan obeyed the laws of Newton and Murphy.  The pan rocked and freshly-cut hot steaming slices of pizza flew everywhere. On the counter. On the floor. On me.

At that point, I wasn't too concerned about the pizza on the counter or the floor because of the pizza on me. The 400 degree cheese and sauce splatted on bare skin and remained plastered there, burning, burning, burning.....

The skin on my left hand was being toasted! I needed to immediately run cold water on the burn.   Fortunately for me I was standing adjacent to the kitchen sink.Unfortunately for me, our dogs had heard the sound of food hitting the floor and, with Superman-like speed (faster than a speeding bullet, remember?) they had converged on the food/floor location.Normally I appreciate their enthusiasm and focus when it comes to cleaning up organic messes in my kitchen, but today wasn't a normal day. My hand was sizzling and I needed to get to the sink right then.  A Dane the size of a pony stood between me and cold watery relief while two little terriers scrabbled around my feet, threatening to trip me if I moved. So I resorted to that time-tested canine training technique---I bellowed.

I screeched, I hollered, I cursed. I howled invective at all my canines as I lunged for the sink, shoving dog bodies out of my way. Of course, faithful and sensitive companions that they are, the dogs just kept hoovering the pizza scraps, mostly oblivious to my pain and suffering.

So that is how my great pizza delight turned into the great pizza debacle. The dogs enjoyed their unexpected bounty, my daughter was able to salvage a couple slices for lunch, and I limped off to the bathroom to de-pizza pie pizzafy myself.

All that for only $2.50!

Peaceful Porch

The house that we rent is set into a  small hillside, so the back side of our basement is exposed. That means we have a sort of downstairs porch, and then a upstairs porch attached to the back of the house and over the downstairs porch. The upper porch is not screened and we have a clothesline strung across it, but on pretty days it is heaven to go out there with a good book and a cool drink. You can sit in the sunshine that hits part of the porch, or catch a gentle breeze, and listen to the birds sing and the squirrels fuss. You can even curl up on an old sleeping bag and take a nap; just ask my daughter! The dogs might join you, with the little ones trying to find space on your blanket and the big one stretching out in a patch of sun. At the right time of day it is indeed a little slice of heaven.