Tuesday, January 01, 2008

French Toast and Fire Trucks...Happy New Year

With the drop of the new million dollar, energy efficient, crystal clad ball in times square 2008 is officially here and let me say to all of you HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!  New Year's Eve around our house was not to eventful (New Year's Day is another story but that will come later).  Jill's sister and family came over as well as my brother and some other good friends.  We ordered a bunch of pizza and had some "adult style beverages" and tried to survive five loud cousins having a great time with each other.  There were some screams and some misunderstandings (mostly from the kids) but for the most part all were well behaved.  The kiddos and a few grown-ups that will remain nameless turned in early and there were five of us who watched the ball descend from its lofty perch above Times Square for the 100th time.  We popped the corks of a few bottles of bubbly and toasted to the new year.  Then by about 12:45 I was dozing off on the couch.  I guess I can't party like I used to.  

The one thing about having five short ones in the house who all got to bed at a decent hour is that they woke up with the sun.  Needless to say the late night revelers were a bit groggy and not too excited with the pitter-patter of little feet at the crack of dawn.  Eventually I shook the sleep from my eyes and started creating a breakfast feast which included bacon, sausage, french toast, OJ (mimosa style for those needing a bit of the hair of the dog), and fresh fruit.  Soon after starting, the house smelled of coffee and bacon.  It doesn't get much better than that.  After breakfast the cousins watched the rose parade and my oldest loved it!  She loved to see all the princesses and I think she might have watched it twice (got to love KTLA channel 5 for all day coverage).  

The rest of the morning was spent playing, having lunch and resting on the couch.  The grown-ups had appetizers for lunch / dinner while the Rose Bowl was on.  And my wife cut up her wedding dress to make dresses for the girls (but that is another post all together).  Soon after that the real fun began.  While cooking said appetizers our smoke detector went off.  Now this is not anything new.  Let me give you some history.  As a child there were times where things got a little too done in the kitchen back in Garden Grove and our smoke detector was close to the source of the smoke.  Now when it would go off we would all jump into action.  Not to get out mind you but to quickly make the ear piercing sound stop.  We all had jobs, it was like the military.  One of us would grab a Time magazine to wave in front of the offending  nine volt air-horn, another would open the back door and still another would open the front.  It all worked like clockwork.  Fast forward to 2003 and with the addition to our house we received brand new smoke detectors.  Our first big meal cooked with the new addition finished we were greeted with the most haneous noise of all five smoke detectors working in concert to make our ears bleed.  I of course jumped up in great Pavlovian style and grabbed the nearest magazine and began furiously fanning to stop the noise before I went deaf.  I soon had trained friends and family and when the horn would sound we would be at battle stations in a matter of moments.  Every time we cooked we had to be ready.  Today was no different.  Soon after the first blast we all had our duties completed and the sound was abated.  Abut five minutes later it started again and would not quit.  I went to the garage and got out the big guns and brought back the box fan to do the fanning job.  We seemed to be in the clear when the smoke detector started to beep, telling us of a low battery.  I feverishly tried to determine which of the five was the culprit but in the end I just changed all of the batteries.  In the midst of this the chirp became a full fledged alarm again.  This time the cooking was done and the children were starting to get annoyed.  Ten minutes later, with all the batteries changed, golden silence was heard once again.  Just as I grabbed another drink and settled in to the couch for the second half of the game the real fun started.  The smoke alarms started up again and this time there was no stopping them.  I dashed around and checked the batteries again with no luck and eventually I gave up and called the fire department.  Thanks to my good friend Josh T. I had the number for the Long Beach Fire Department in my cell phone so no need to tie up 911 on New Year's Day.  In about 10 minutes the fire truck arrived and we were busy feeding children oranges and cheese on the porch in the glow of the Christmas lights that are still on the house.  The firemen combed through the breaker box and crawled in the attic, they checked all the offending little white beasts and eventually identified the culprit.  In their estimation the detector in the hall was somehow faulty and when they unplugged it, silence was most graciously greeted once again.  So my thanks go out to the brave men of station 18 from the LBFD for helping us out tonight.  

Looking back it makes sense that this one smoke detector was the one that would not allow us to open the oven on Thanksgiving and would force us to keep our windows open even in the chilly winter evenings while we were cooking.  Since about 6:30 tonight we have had peace in the land.  We didn't want to risk it and the kids all had cereal and milk for dinner tonight.  So lets review:

Late night and and early morning...check.
Fabulous French Toast and a mountain of breakfast meat...check
My wife cutting up her wedding dress...check
The Fire Department at my house.. check.  
Cereal for dinner...double check with milk on top!

Well that was my day I don't even have time to tell you about my nephew Logan and how he shows his muscles.  Lets just say, Legend........(wait for it)...........dary!   I hope your day was as memorable as mine and I pray that this was a good sign of things to come for 2008.  Until next week...

P.S. Sorry for no pictures today, my internet connections is really slow.  

1 comment:

Sarah said...

HAHAHA....AWESOME blog! you have so very accurately captured the essence of those two days....if it wasn't for firemen blocking Pavo while they saved our eardrums, i would have wished i could have the experience of knowing what it's like to have an unsilenceable detector without having to actually go through it... but like i said, the firemen really made up for it! :)

 Every once in a while I like to jump over here to this old blog and relive old times.  It is fun to look back at the days before there were...