To Plunge or Not to Plunge

Ahhhh birds are chirping and bright sunlight is peeking through the window blinds.  It's Sunday morning and I awaken feeling refreshed.  I gingerly step out of bed, ready to start another wonderful day.  There is no need to wash my face or brush my teeth because House Mom is unaffected by morning breath or facial oil.  I sing a quick song with the birds that are now perched on my fingers and feed the deer that are grazing near the front door.  Ha! Who are we kidding here!?  Let's rewind and I'll tell you how my day really started.  *cue the iPhone text message tone*  Nellie Gamble (names have been changed to protect the innocent ;) ) sent me a text.  "Hey House Mom, are you home?"  *cue ominous music*  Nothing good comes from that kind of text and trust me, I'm speaking from personal experience here.  House Mom:  "Yeah, what's up?"  Nellie:  "The upstairs toilet isn't flushing right."  Nnnnnnnooooooooo!!!!  Not flushing right = clogged.  So far we've been lucky and only had to deal with a couple clogged toilets and they were quick fixes.  I knew Doomsday was coming.  My House Mom intuition told me this was going to be a bad one.  Sh*t.  Literally and figuratively.  House Mom:  "Thanks, Nellie. I"ll be right over to take a look."

I grab a plunger from the Alpha Chi plunger collection (I swear there is two for every bathroom) and trudge upstairs.  I lift the lid and brace myself; luckily it's only water.  I give it a quick flush to check The Water Emptying status.  Water seems to be emptying rather slowly.  I allow enough water to fill back in the bowl and put the plunger in and get ready to do some work.  House Mom brute force is exerted.  I give it a couple quick plunges, careful not to splash water back on myself.  Suddenly I hear the tell tale water sloshing/sucking noise that means the clog is loose.  I. Am. Awesome.  *cue Tim The Toolman Taylor growling noise*  I wad up some toilet paper, throw it in the bowl and test The Water Emptying status again.  Success!  I pass Nellie on my way down the stairs and let her know the toilet is ok.

Fast forward several hours.  House Dad and I make our weekly trip to Costco to buy the massive amount of food that the housegirls manage to polish off each week.  On our way home I get a text from Bessie Grooms, "House Mom, the toilet is clogged."  Sh*t again.  Either I did a crappy job (pun intended) earlier or coincidence is a b*tch.  House Mom:  "Thanks Bessie.  I'll take a look after we put away the groceries."  House Dad just laughs.  Later on I grab the same plunger and head back up the stairs.  The lid is closed again, but I doubt I'll be as lucky as the last time.  Sure enough there is a mass of toilet paper and poop.  Yuck.  Like really, really yuck.  I roll up my sleeves and am determined to show this toilet who's boss.  I am House Mom after all.  If I don't have the answers, then they must not exist.  Period.  I give the toilet a flush to get some water back in the bowl so I can truly maximize the suction benefits of the plunger.  In goes the plunger and I work at it for five minutes with no results.  I would say I scratched my head to try and figure out why it wasn't working, but I try to make a conscious effort to NOT touch my face while plunging a toilet.  Common sense people.  I decide to try the Super Plunger.  I say Super because it's the oddest looking plunger, like it's supposed to be more effective due to the shape or something.  Whatevs.  Down the stairs I go and pass through the Exec Meeting to go the The Plunger Stash.  I feel like I have bits of poo particles on me and I stink, but the girls are too polite to say anything.  Plunger located, walk back through Exec and back up the stairs.  Use Super Plunger for another five minutes.  Perspiration has commenced.  *cue Dr. Dre "You can do it put your back into it..."  Still nothing.  What the eff!?  Back down the stairs to locate House Dad.  "Dude, House Dad can you come give this a try?  It's not working at all."  House Dad elicits a heavy sigh.  Walk back through Exec and up the stairs.  He proceeds to try both plungers.  It's bad once he starts cussing.  I try to make myself as small as possible and back into a corner.  He switches to double time plunging (picture plunging motion on fast forward) and still nothing.  Seriously!?  This calls for professional assistance.  I head down to the TV room and am greeted with hopeful eyes.  "Sorry, girls.  We failed.  I'll call the plumber in the morning."

Now, there is another chapter in this saga, but I'm not going to post it.  Just ask the next time you see me and I'll regale you with the details.  *wink*

So yes, there was a happy ending to this truly disgusting story.  I think the culprit was one of those "flushable" tampon applicators that got stuck sideways in the pipe.  Screw you Tampax and your filthy lies.

On another note, I realize it's been a long time since I posted.  Tax season (House Mom has a real job as a CPA) was brutal and I had some other things going on that prevented me from sharing my entertaining stories.  Hope you enjoyed this one!

A Life of Learning

One of the untold benefits of being housemom is all the things you learn...how much lemonade you'll need for 100+ girls on Monday night, the layout of the light bulb aisle at Lowe's, and how to unjam the copy machine.  However, the best lessons are things you would never guess.  For instance, did you know that chocolate syrup can be used as an adhesive?  It's quite effective too.  How do I know this you ask?  Because this past weekend I took on the terrible task of cleaning the refrigerator.  We actually have two in the kitchen, but it took me three hours to clean one and I was not about to devote six hours of my Sunday to cleaning refrigerators.  That's me being rebellious.  Yep, taking a stand against refrigerator cleaning.  I am so cool. 

Ok, so fridge cleaning.  Before you start imagining a black hole of Styrofoam containers growing green, furry things, let me stop you.  House Dad and I go through the fridge every week after we go grocery shopping so it's never that bad (although it would certainly make for an interesting blog post....hmmm).  The fridge was just in need of a good scrubbing...a seriously good scrubbing....like need some steel wool, an ice pick and some sort of chemical concoction that could melt concrete.  But having those would make my job easy and that's just not ok.  The first rule of the book How to Make a House Mom's Life Hell is never supply House Mom with anything that could make her life easy.  I guess I'll make do with a scrubby sponge and some 409. 

Step #1:  Remove all food items from shelves and drawers.  Most people would be able to get away with just wiping down the shelves with them still inside the fridge.  Again, please refer to rule number one.  I remove all the shelves and take them to the sink.  I scrub and scour and squeeze the sponge into every corner and scrub some more.  Flip shelf over and repeat.  Wipe down the sides.  Rinse.  One shelf complete.  Wait - did I miss a spot?  *Lean in for closer inspection*  Crap, I totally missed a whole side.  Scrub, wipe and rinse.  Crap!  Is that food in a corner?  Scrub, wipe, rinse again.  Perform a 360 degree rotation to fully inspect the shelf and verify that it's clean.  Aaaagggghhhh!!!  Seriously?!  I missed another crevice.  I swear, it took me fifteen minutes to wash one shelf.  For the life of me I can't figure out why there are so many nooks and crannies on a friggin fridge shelf.  It's just more places for little food bits to hide in.

Step #2:  Wipe down the inside of the now empty fridge.  There are more food bits in the bottom of the fridge than you would find in a toaster at Denny's.  Luckily none of them are affixed to the bottom with some sort of unknown sticky substance. 

Step #3:  Remove all five bottles of Chalula, three bottles of ketchup and the sixteen different varieties of salad dressing from the fridge door.  Remove the shelves from the door.  Attempt to remove the bottom shelf.  Hmmm....seems to be stuck....try again....still stuck....manage to dislodge one corner....get on hands and knees to inspect the bottom of the shelf....ugh!  what the eff is that!?...it's dark brown and kind of wet looking.  I finally manage to remove the shelf.  It looks like someone tried to use chocolate syrup like a caulking gun.  Seriously. 

Step #4:  Wipe down all exterior doors.  I am honestly not surprised that there is dried salsa on the side of the freezer door.  I am suddenly envisioning a drunken evening and someone literally sitting in the fridge eating chips and salsa.

Step #5:  Perform one final wipe down and.....DONE!

Well that was certainly exciting.  The fridge practically sparkles.  Get. Er. Done.  I feel accomplished.  My life is suddenly more organized, it has purpose and direction, my greatest aspirations now seem within reach....all because the fridge is clean.  I wonder how I would feel if I cleaned the microwave.

By the way, if you were curious as to the fate of the poor scrubby sponge that assisted me on my epic journey, he led a good life and served his purpose well.  It was a slow, painful and very dirty death that ended with Mr. Scrubby Sponge covered in food shrapnel.  Moment of silence for Mr. Scrubby Sponge.  May you rest in peace...at the bottom of a trash can. 

Breakfast for Dinner

The girls had their annual pancake breakfast fundraiser this weekend, which was quite successful by the way, and it reminded me of the time when House Dad and I cooked pancakes for Monday night dinner.  *Time out - (yes, Zach Morris style) if you weren't aware, part of our employment consists of cooking Monday night dinner for the entire chapter, which is a little over one hundred members.  And no, we can't just go to Subway and order sandwiches.  *Time in*  We called it Breakfast for Dinner Night.  (We name all of our dinners and I'm not sure why.  I guess it makes it easier when a girl asks what we're cooking, rather than give her the entire menu we just shout out Asian Night!  Mexican Night!  Italian Night!  It seems to work pretty well that way.)  So I guess our first mistake was our definition of breakfast.  Sunday breakfast was quite a spread at my house growing up and House Dad and I have continued the tradition since we started dating.  I guess in my parent's eyes they wanted us to have a good, hardy, stick-to-your-ribs breakfast so my sister and I could do more yard work.  Ugh, yard work.  But that's a whole other story of how I am scarred from childhood and will require hours of extensive therapy during my mid-30s. 

So now we contemplate the menu, considering what we know about the products that Costco and Smart and Final carry.  Of course, pancakes top the list and eggs are easy, sausage is delightful and a nice accent, what about bacon?  Sure!  Why not?  Costco carries the pre-cooked kind and all you have to do is microwave it for a minute.  Oooooh, what about some sort of hash brown item?  I heart potatoes...and salt...and a crispy exterior.  Let's even have orange juice instead of the usual mass-produced lemonade!  So the menu is settled.  Time to go shopping!  Unfortunately, Costco didn't carry the sausage we wanted.  Not that we are picky, just selective.  Costco also didn't have any sort of hash brown option.  Boo Costco.  But, they did carry two types of pancake mix - one which requires eggs and milk and another that only requires water.  Not only would the water one be fool-proof, but it saves me from having to bust out my phone calculator and do the math on how many eggs and how much milk we would need to make pancakes for a hundred people.  Score one Costco.  Now onto orange juice...Costco sells some pre-made, but it was kind of pricey and House Mom being the bargain hunter that she is decided that we might get a better deal at Smart and Final with the frozen cans.  *Insert witty story about trip to Smart and Final where we find everything we need, including browns that resemble the delicious potato cakes that Arby's sells* 

On to Monday afternoon and a sweltering kitchen.  By the time I get home from work, House Dad has already started the sausage.  I start in on the pancake mix and scrambling eggs.  We decided to try out a batter dispenser we had gotten as a wedding gift.  "The perfect amount of batter every time!"  It actually worked fairly well, but definitely is not for cooking mass quantities of pancakes.  A good ol' measuring cup would have been just as good and way easier to clean.  The layout of the kitchen isn't conducive to two people cooking on the stove at the same time, so House Dad mans the stove while I do all the prep work elsewhere.  He earns an A+ for multi-tasking.  At one point he had two pans of sausage sizzling, was scrambling a large skillet of eggs and flipping pancakes at the same time.  We are cooking the pancakes as fast as we can, but the skillet only fits four at a time and we didn't think to pull out the large skillets in storage.  The eggs don't take long, but a couple batches got burned so House Dad trashed them.  The sausage just takes forever to cook.  Oh and the hash browns.  I curse that oven.  It's seriously terrible.  It takes three times as long to cook anything if you are also using the stove.  So we've got one batch of hash browns ready and another one almost ready and three more that are still frozen.  Lovely.  Crap!  It's 5:55 and we don't have nearly enough food cooked yet.  The hashers set out the food that is ready and I tell them to let the girls know there is plenty more on its way.   I furiously mix more pancake batter and scramble eggs and give them to House Dad.  He empties his skillet of eggs into a foil chafing dish, checks his pancakes to make sure they are done and then empties those four into another dish.  I practically run outside.  They just started serving so they haven't run out of anything yet.  I empty my dishes and run back inside.  The next batch of eggs and pancakes aren't ready yet, but the hash browns and sausage are.  We put those in foil dishes and run those outside.  Line at buffet is still long.  Food supply is dwindling.  Cue anxiety attack.  Run back inside.  Eggs and pancakes still aren't ready yet.  Cue House Dad turning burner to high.  Stand and watch stuff cook.  Yes!  Eggs and pancakes are ready!  Put in foil dishes.  Run outside.  Line is still long, but now it's not moving because girls are waiting for pancakes and I only have four.  I reassure them that we have plenty, they are just taking forever to cook.  I silently pray they don't chuck their plastic forks at me.  The eggs and pancakes charade is repeated another ten times or so until finally we are out of eggs and pancake mix.  Luckily we had just enough to feed everyone. 

Dinner is done.  Now it's time to clean the kitchen.  I'm not sure what it is about batter, whether it be pancake, cookie, or cake, but it never fails to get everywhere no matter how hard you try.  It's like batter and counter tops are star-crossed lovers that always find a way to reunite.  Anyway, aside from the batter-spattered counter tops, the pile of dishes is bordering obscene and the entire kitchen has the lingering scent of sausage and bacon.  Ugh.  The funny thing about Monday night dinner is that even if you wash the dishes as you cook, there are still a ton of dishes outside on the buffet...chafing dishes, beverage dispensers, salad bowl, condiment bowls, the list goes for days.  It's seriously depressing because we got all the dishes washed and the counters clean and then the hashers brought in all the stuff from outside.  Within seconds all available counter space has been overcome.  *sigh* 

Despite the overwhelming success of Breakfast for Dinner Night, we have yet to attempt it again.  Perhaps the vivid memories of pancake batter everywhere has soured my disposition.  However, we've learned from our mistakes and definitely know that next time we need to cook more than four pancakes at a time on a temperamental stove. 

The Science of Shopping

The girls went back to school this week... *sigh*  That means our short vacation from grocery shopping is over.  You're probably thinking, "Oh, Sarah, stop being so dramatic.  It's just groceries."  Ha!  You think you know, but you have no idea!  We've definitely got it down to a science, but it's still rough.  It starts with printing The List.  The List contains just about everything we've ever bought at Costco and is kind of our bible.  Heaven forbid we misplace The List; when that happens we end up with four bags of Veggie Straws and two cases of black olives.  So anyway, with The List in hand we venture to the storage room and take inventory of what we have and argue if two boxes of Bagel Bites is enough to get the girls through a week or if we should buy one more.  Ten minutes later we are on the road to the Yorba Linda Costco.  Yes, there is a Costco in Fullerton and yes, it's just down the street; however, for our own personal sanity we blatantly refuse to shop there.  The place is a freaking madhouse; it's packed all the time and the employees are morons.  House Dad and I are practically professionals at grocery shopping and considering the amount of money we spend on a weekly basis, we pretty much demand competent workers. 

As we pull in, I do a quick scan of the parking lot to determine the number of window shoppers that are currently moseying up and down the aisles of Costco saying things like "Oh, Earl!  They've got that twenty pound bag of almonds you like!"  (Let me also tell you that we don't just go to Costco whenever.  If you want to make it in and out in under an hour and not be cussing up a storm when you leave, then it's best to go on a Friday night, Saturday or Sunday morning right when the doors open or Sunday evening about 5:30.)  House Dad grabs a flat cart and I grab a regular cart.  First up is the snack section....Nutrigrain bars, Goldfish, Wheat Thins, tortilla chips, Wait!  House Dad get two bags!  They are inhaling them!, Kirkland Trail Mix, 100 calorie Snacks....if possible we don't even stop and park the carts to grab the stuff, we just let them keep rolling.  Now cereal....Cheerios, Frosted Flakes, ?Special K Red Berries?, nah, they're not really eating it, Oh look!  They've got Cinnamon Toast Crunch!  We continue on through the store, trying to keep to the outskirts of the store as the foot traffic is much less.  At some point we stop to re-pack the cart.  House Dad swears that I can't pack a cart to save my life because I pretty much just chuck the stuff inside for the first few aisles.  Really though I'm just waiting to get enough box-ey items so I can form a base layer in the cart.  Oh ye of little faith.  The frozen aisles are usually pretty entertaining/exciting.  Although Costco sells in bulk, they typically don't offer a variety of flavors so when I see that they have blueberry Eggo waffles it's like the clouds have parted and angels are singing from the heavens!  We also argue a bit more about what meat items to purchase....we just bought regular chicken breast, but do they need the teriyaki chicken breast?  Have they been eating the BBQ chicken wings?  Crap, I can't remember.  Eh, throw some in.  So by this point, we're at the produce section and it's our last stop.  Normally there is room in the cart to fit all the produce and have room leftover.  Not this week though.... because it's our first trip of the semester we had to buy a lot of stuff that we normally don't buy on a weekly basis so space in the cart is in high demand.  To the average joe the carts are full.  To House Mom and Dad, we can still layer stuff over the top and balance a few things on the end.  Now we park the carts and venture into the terribly cold produce section.  It never ceases to amaze me how much the other shoppers lack common sense.  The produce area is not big, certainly not big enough for everyone to drive the carts in because they are for whatever reason terrified to leave their cart outside.  Really, Blue Hair Lady and suburban housewife, no one is going to steal your two dozen pack of Kirkland light bulbs.  We start at one side of the section and work in a clockwise pattern....regular romaine, mini romaine, broccoli, green beans, sugar snaps, white mushrooms - stop to unload on cart - bell peppers, carrots, cucumbers, oh look!  They have artichokes again!  Such a deal, get three! - stop to unload again - strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, did we miss anything?  asparagus!  celery! - unload.  Now for the non-refrigerated produce...apples, grapes, avocados, onions, oranges, hmm....they have persimmons, do you think the girls might like persimmons?  Pause for a moment to consult The List.  Alright House Dad, I think we're done.  Now comes the arduous task of maneuvering two very full carts through the throngs of people.  Somehow we make it to the front without the raspberries falling off the front of the cart and pick out a line with one of the more efficient checkers and box boys.  A lot of the employees recognize us and remember we have some sort of interesting living situation that requires us to be there on a weekly basis, but every once in awhile we get a newbie.  The conversation goes something like this:  "Wow, that's a lot of (insert one of the following:  orange chicken, hot dogs, shredded beef).  You must have a big family!"  "Yep, we've got 24 kids."  "Whoa!  Really!?"  "No not really, but kind of.  We are the house directors for a sorority and do the grocery shopping.  This is a week's worth of food."  "A week?  Dang!"  Now that the novelty has worn off, House Dad and I are trying to gauge how much money we spent based on the length of the receipt that has already printed.  It's looking a little long this time; we'll be cutting it pretty close.  *Cue last item*  *Deep breath*  Yes!  *Cue fist pump* We came in just under budget!  The checker hands me the receipt, which requires five folds to even fit in my pocket.  Now, if we're lucky the box boy did a good job and packed everything in large boxes.  Most of the time though we'll get a complete idiot who puts half of the food in boxes and then throws the smaller things, like salad dressing, into the nooks and crannies.  I'm not even nice about it anymore.  "Yo.  We need that all in boxes.  Do you know how long it will take us to unload if it's not?  My hands are only so big dude."  Time to pack it in the truck.  House Dad has an FJ Cruiser, which has pretty decent cargo space when you fold the seats down.  House Dad crawls inside and then I hand him the boxes, which are a little bigger than copy paper boxes.  He stacks them three across, two high and two deep.  Yep, that's 12 boxes.  And that doesn't include some of the smaller boxes, like cereal, or the flats of soda.  At one point, House Dad will realize that the current packing arrangement could be improved and he'll pull a few out, scratch his head, and move some boxes around.  Meanwhile I'm trying to estimate the amount of cubic space left in the truck and comparing that with the couple remaining boxes.  I'm actually a little scared this time.  Am I going to have to hold stuff on my lap for the drive home?  Do we need to strap stuff to the roof?  Well, Super-Duper House Dad saved the day and managed to make it all fit.  It's actually packed so tight I'm confident that if we got in a car accident and rolled, the food wouldn't shift at all.  I think the best part was the guy that was parked next to us.  I saw him eye-balling our full carts as he rolled up with his one full cart.  I think seeing House Dad's superb packing job inspired him to do the same....too bad he had a two door Mercedes with a tiny trunk.  lol. 

So we make it home without any casualties and then start in on the unpacking.  I feel bad for any girls attempting to even walk through the kitchen at this point.  All available counter space has been consumed with food and we use the floor as a place to chuck the trash generated from the unpacking.  The unpacking process is truly a process.  You can't just open up the fridge and put the food in.  First, you have to find the shelf you want to use, toss any open tin cans with sandwich bags over the top, pull out any Tupperware, move any of the girls' personal food to the designated shelves, consolidate the condiments which should be stored on the door but always end up elsewhere and wipe out the spilled (insert:  grapes, jelly, syrup, soup, soda, odd colored sticky substance).  Now you can fill the shelf with food.  Being the anal retentive/awesome House Mom that I am, I can't just leave the fridge or drawers without rearranging them in some sort of logical fashion.  I mean, really, I feel like all the cheese should be in the same drawer.  (*Flashback*  One time, in mid-cheese drawer organization I pulled out the gallon-size freezer bag of shredded cheese.  I should have known better than to pull it out by the bottom.  In slow motion I watched the entire bag's contents spill on to the floor because the last person to use it neglected to seal the bag.)  We finally finish stocking, make several trips to the dumpsters to throw out all the boxes and trash and breath a sigh of relief.  We're done...at least for a couple days. 

When it rains, it pours

A typical Saturday at the ol' sorority house I wake up all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to take on what the world (aka the sorority house) has to throw at me.  I might check my email, tidy up a bit, and walk next door to pour a glass of Dole Orange-Pineapple-Banana juice (which is uber delicious, btw).  I'll give the downstairs a quick once-over; you know, make sure the downstairs bathroom isn't flooding, check the banister to ensure that it's still intact after the most recent girl's attempt to slide down, scan the TV room floor for smashed up Goldfish crackers, turn the TV off from it's blaring re-runs of Jersey Shore, you know, the usual stuff.  This past Saturday I didn't because...A) we don't buy groceries during January so there is no delicious juice and B) I was busy making our to-do list for the day.  This simple decision could have saved me a heart attack later in the day. 

House Dad and I run our errands...mall, bank, Petsmart (because House Dog can plow through a 35 pound bag of food in a month and goes through poo bags even faster), and grocery store.  We get home and go straight to the kitchen so I can test out a new tuna salad recipe (because a Better Homes and Gardens recipe is guaranteed to be a success).  *cue ominous music* *cue slow motion camera*  I enter the kitchen from the TV room and see a towering trash can waiting to greet my unsuspecting face.  Something to my right catches my eye....oh god, the sink!  Piles and piles of dishes are overflowing out of our industrial-depth sink. 

Nooooooooooo *stop for breath* ooooooooooooooooo! 

I immediately run to the kitchen duty sign off sheet, Friday AM and PM did it, Saturday AM did it.  What is happening!?  Did we feed an army sometime around lunch?  Did the people that signed off really do it?  So many questions!  I can feel my blood pressure rising because I know it's happening again.  *more ominous music* THE SORORITY KITCHEN CURSE  I noticed it when we first moved in, but didn't really understand the gravity of it.  It seems that whenever one person does their kitchen duty early one night, say around 5 or 6pm, the girl assigned to the next morning doesn't do it, and then the girl assigned to the evening doesn't do it, and then the next morning doesn't do it and neither does the next evening.  Meanwhile there are no clean pots or pans, no clean knives (Not that you really need them.  They are so dull they can barely cut warm butter.  No joke!) and no clean cooking utensils and the trash can is trying to imitate the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  (Btw - for those of you unfamiliar with our kitchen, we have a 32 gallon trash can.  The kind that a normal family uses and takes a week to fill up.  And when I say towering, I mean the trash is a solid 1 1/2 - 2 feet above the rim.)  So I try some deep breathing to calm down and hope that my good karma will break the curse and Saturday PM will do her kitchen duty. 

Fast forward to Saturday evening around 8:30, dinner time and I have another new recipe from BH&G!  My excitement immediately fizzles when I see the state of the kitchen hasn't changed.  *sigh*  Now not only do I have to cook dinner, but first I have to wash the dishes that I'll use to cook it.  I'm still hopeful that Saturday PM will do it later on in the night, maybe midnight or so.  Once again I'm holding out for my good karma to save me.  Aaannnndddd......this is why I'm not big on gambling.  Oh yeah, you guessed it, Saturday PM didn't do it either.  I made it a point to visit the kitchen on Sunday morning and wasn't even surprised.  I knew the Curse had won again. 

In summary, I have gained much wisdom in my short time as House Mom.  I have learned that one cannot escape The Sorority Kitchen Curse; instead, one can only hope the Curse is short-lived and does not interfere with one's personal cooking agenda. 

New = Better

I have this memory from high school...I must have been about fifteen and my dad was going to drive me to school.  Normally we would have taken his 1985 Ford truck, which, despite it's age, could still get you around fairly reliably, but instead my dad wanted to drive his recently rebuilt 1950s MGB (cue images of little baby blue convertible sports cars).  So we hop in and it starts right up and we head on down the street.  About ten houses later the car sputters and dies in the middle of the street.  My dad tries the key a couple times with no luck.  In my dad's opinion, it wasn't practical to call a tow truck.  He thought it would be cheaper and faster for us to push the car home.  Yes, push.  (Cue images of a cute little blond in her cute little high school outfit pushing the little blue convertible.)  It. Was. Awful.  It was almost as embarrassing as the time my mom made me mow the lawn...the front lawn...where everyone driving by, including the boy down the street who tormented me relentlessly, could see.  So we got the car home and proceeded to take my dad's truck instead, but this began my myriad of reasons why I don't like old things.  They don't work.  Period. 

Back to the present...the sorority house is also old.  One building is from 1920, the other two are from 1950.  The wiring is ancient (fuses to be specific), the pipes are kinda stinky and I think the insulation has long since disintegrated.  In the last month, two different heaters stopped working.  I'm not lucky enough for them both to break at the same time, but separately, which means I have to call the heating guy twice, try to find a sorority girl who will be home to let him in and then hope that he can fix it on the first try.  We've also had the toilet and shower clogged, the dishwasher and washing machines overflow, the hot water stop working and the same three light bulbs burn out every couple weeks.  I'm not exaggerating when I say the house keeps me busy.  All this only strengthens my case of wanting to buy a brand new home.  House Dad might take a little longer to convince, but I think another year or so should do it. 

Tis the moving season...

First off, let's take note that there is no exclamation point at the end of this post's title.  We should really invent a symbol that is the antonym of an exclamation point.  It would convey the utter depression and dismay that accompanies the dismal responsibility of moving housegirls in and out of their bedrooms. 

Anywho...the semester just ended which means that existing housegirls are moving out or changing rooms and new housegirls are moving in.  It might not sound that bad, but let's give a little example...  Girl A is moving into Room A, but Room A is currently occupied by Girl B.  Girl B is moving into Room C and although there is one vacancy in Room C, Girl B wants the bed, dresser and desk that is still being occupied by Girl C.  Girl C has work all week and can't move into Room D until the very last day of the term.  Girl D is moving into Room A, which starts the vicious cycle all over again.  Sometimes we'll even have girls from Room E moving into Room F and the girls from Room F moving into Room E.  If you're lucky, you can convince girls to move their stuff in to the hallway as a staging area so we can initiate the whole process.  And while all this is happening, House Mom can't make any plans because as each girl moves out of a room, I have to check them out.  It's pretty similar to moving out of an apartment; looking for damage to the furniture, inquiring about the gaping hole that magically appeared in the wall, playing who's stuff is this still hanging in the closet with the responses from both residents being "It's not mine.  I don't know who's it is."  So pretty much, House Mom completes one room check out (approximate duration = 10 minutes), gathers up paperwork and organizes the myriad of room keys swimming in my back pocket, walks back to House Mom and Dad's modest (syn = small, tiny but has a better connotation) living area and sits down on the ________ (insert 1 of 3 possible sitting areas:  couch, desk chair, bed), then ________________ (insert 1 of 3 potential activities:  reads one page of her new Border BOGO half off book, presses play on DVR'd tv show and doesn't even finish fast-forwarding through commercials, tries to pickup where she left off in her ancestry.com search for relatives (Yes, I'm researching my family tree and am aware it subjects me to endless ridicule), and then House Mom gets a text that another girl is ready to be checked out of her room.  This goes on for three or four more girls before House Mom really gets anything done.  So there.  That's why I need a de-exclamation point. 

~House Mom