• Where’s your optimism when the glass is empty?

    Oh don’t mind me; I’m just suffering through some garden variety fatigue. You see, yesterday I had a rough evening. There wasn’t anything special about it, just another night of the Lightning in the Stanley Cup Finals. Ho Hum. The score was really close through two periods, but that’s nothing new. I got about four and a half of my accustomed seven hours of sleep last night, but I figure its good practice for the new baby (coming soon to a Kauffman household near you!). So I’m a little tired. You know what? I’m having a great time. Cheryl sits in her pregnant perch, directing chores like a household quarterback running a two minute drill. I’ve been running around at work like a man with an unhealthy understanding of chemistry. Beth and I have retreated to the backyard every evening to, GASP, do yard work. YARD WORK!?! HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND MAN!?!

    Yes sir, strange things are afoot in the Kauffman household (version 2.2). I’m exhausted. I’m working my tucchus off. Hell, I’m doing yard work every damn day. And yet, I’m unexpectedly content. I’ll admit that the prospect of Cheryl going on “managed bed rest” was a cause of concern within the cramped confines of my mind. Now it’s here and things don’t seem so bad. Granted, I still regard housework with the all the enthusiasm of a new proctology patient. I guess the secret really is how you approach things. Happiness can certainly be found in the strangest of places.

    The other day someone at church said something that took me by surprise. A gentleman told me that he noticed that Cheryl and I still talked with each other like we were dating. It was something that stuck with me. It’s rather ironic actually. When Cheryl and I were dating, people used to tell us that we acted like an old married couple. Now that we’re married people are telling us that we act like we’re dating. Does that mean that we’ve regressed?

    How does this all tie together?

    Let me just say that despite my exhaustion; despite my occasional lack of youthful exuberance; despite the televised sports events driving me to an early grave; I feel alive. I feel good, and I feel my mood infecting others. I’ve seen the return of Cheryl’s innocent smile. I’ve seen the return of Beth’s playful innocence. I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, I feel the warmth of the sun shining on my face.

  • Tracking down the cause to a certain effect.

    See if you can help me out with a little disagreement I had with Cheryl this evening. We’re going to take this pretty quick so try and keep up.

    If you use alcohol to disinfect, why do you need to wash a container used to shake up distilled spirits? That whole spaghetti fiasco is making a little more sense now, eh?

  • NO SAAAH!

    Here’s an experiment that you can try at home. Take half a pound of cooked spaghetti. Next, run the water in your kitchen sink and start the garbage disposal. Now feed as much of the cooked spaghetti into the disposal as you can at one time. With practice you should be able to feed almost all of it down the disposal at one time. If you have standard residential plumbing this should cause water to start collecting in the other side of your sink (this will only work if you have a two sided sink). When you turn off the water at the faucet the water should slowly recede from one side, and slowly transfer to the side with the disposal (the level of water in each side of the sink should equalize).

    Now here’s the best part. Take an ordinary toilet plunger, apply the business end to one side of the sink… and plunge away. If you do it right, you should get a geyser of water logged spaghetti puree from the other side of the sink. This fantastic towering spectacle of spaghetti mush will only be toped by the disgusting mess that will fall within a three foot radius of the sink.

    There you have it – real world science at work in the comfort of your own home.

    Come back next time and join us for our discussion on the best solvents to use on spaghetti sauce.