How Tomatoes Kept Our Kitchen from Going Up in Flames

OR.."How to strong-arm your parents into helping with your overdue spring cleaning."

OR..."How to become cynical about cheery, traditional Christmas poetry."

It was Saturday morning at 6:15 a.m. I put the kettle on to boil and went outside to weed in the garden. While weeding, I noticed some very ripe tomatoes ready to fall off the vine, and decided to pick these along with some basil to make some bruschetta.

When I walked in the back door with my harvest, there was black smoke from the ceiling down to my neck and the most poisonous, putrid smell. I ran into the kitchen, where foot-high flames were consuming what was left of one of those heavy, plastic lids you use to cover plates of food in the microwave. I'd turned on the wrong burner. I blew out the flames, then ran around the first floor opening windows and turning on fans--all with my face buried in a dish towel so I could breathe.

I went on auto-pilot and just started scrubbing. The undersides of the cupboards and the microwave were black and had fine, sticky black strings hanging in clumps like mini stalactites. As I scrubbed, I just kept noticing more black strings...then black smears...then black particles...billions of them...all over the counter, the floor...and then it struck me. "It's everywhere!" And when Evelyn came downstairs saying, "What's that weird smell," I looked at her feet and knees: black. "What were you just doing?" I asked. "We were playing dollhouse upstairs." Upstairs! Yup. All the way to the third floor.

Thus began The Great Blackman Scrub-Out of 2011. I called my parents, sadly cancelling what I'd really WANTED to do that day--help Mom rearrange her living room--and they promptly and generously came over with buckets, rags, swiffers, and cleaning products. We all scrubbed, dusted, and vacuumed for hours. All the curtains & picture frames came down, the rugs went out, and the kitchen was taken apart and washed. Mom and Dad took the girls out to lunch while Alan and I continued. The worst of it was handled by Sunday evening, and right now everything looks back to normal--but, well, cleaner. :)

Alan joked it was the Spring cleaning we never did. The soot beautifully highlighted all the dust, dirt, and cobwebs that had taken up long residence. It has left an ever-so-slightly-tacky feeling on almost everything in our house, in spite of the scrub-out.

It's funny what you think about when you're doing manual labor for hours. I thought about Aunt Barbara and Uncle Diego, whose entire house burned when she was 9 months pregnant with Lindsy. My parents took us down to D.C. to help, and I was shocked at the damage fire and smoke do. I thought about people who go through disasters and lose everything, and about my father-in-law, who is on his church's disaster relief team and has seen that first hand.

I also thought about Clement C. Moore. You know, the author of "A Visit By Saint Nicholas," better known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas." He writes so airily about Santa coming down the chimney "all tarnished with ashes and soot," and makes it sound so cute and adorable. I'm afraid I judged Mr. Moore while scrubbing my kitchen on Saturday. I doubted he had ever actually scrubbed soot, but had left that job 100% to Mrs. Moore. Otherwise he would have written that part differently. I'll bet our friend Tim could come up with some funny, adapted couplets. And I'd venture to say Tim HAS cleaned soot before. He's just that kind of guy.

Alan asked me if I'd learned any lessons from this experience. My first answers made him roll his eyes, "Don't keep anything on the stove top? Actually put new batteries in the smoke detectors? Always bring the ripe food into the house before you weed the garden?"

"Hmm...how about don't turn the stove on and LEAVE THE HOUSE." Ah. Right.

So today Alan saw an online news article about Baltimore City giving away--and installing--free smoke detectors. So we have two new ones to go with the ones Esther gave us a couple of years ago for Christmas (which will be getting new batteries ASAP.)

And that was the latest catastrophe around here...until today's earthquake. :)