What’s Cooking Tuesday and Wednesday, Garage Revelations and Other Things
Tuesday: Chicken Almond Casserole. This is my mother’s favorite thing ever next to apple crisp, which I also made for dessert. With homemade vanilla ice cream. Everything on Tuesday ran late. Everything. We didn’t eat until 7:30pm.
Wednesday: Chicken fingers, green beans, garlic mashed potatoes and cheese biscuits. This was a meal loved by the kids*.
My brother kindly fixed my dishwasher. I’d love to go into the details of the incompetent repairman, but when I asked “do you think it is just clogged” his answer should have been “I’ll check” and not “It seems to be working now, good thing I showed up at 6:30pm instead of 9:00am” and “It’s probably the pump, I’ll replace it but not show up or call you to let you know I’m not showing up” and “There isn’t anything more I can do. It’s probably your plumbing.” We checked the hose by the garbage disposal, and it looked fine. My brother pulled it out for me, took off the side and found his way clear to the pump. A tiny way down the hose right by where it connects to the pump was this folded over rubber washer or plug or something. It was clogged. I also discovered the location of the lid to my small slow cooker, the tamper for the Vita-Mix and the grease catcher for the George Foreman grill. The brilliant house designers** that brought you doors that open to hit each other also designed big gaps in the cabinets where two adjoin, and apparently back where the dishwasher goes so my stuff just falls out and lands behind the dishwasher. Nice. It is probably the same reason why the lights in the bedrooms are right by the closets and not in the middle of the room. I couldn’t put a ceiling fan in the kids room because it would hit the closet door. You know, if I had a door on the closet which I don’t because the bedroom door bangs into the closet door if it is open.
I also had a revelation this week about our garage door problem. We have had an issue where the garage door opener or the built in opener in the suvvy will not open the garage door consistently. I keep telling Mac that I usually don’t have issues if I press it at the bottom of the driveway as I’m driving up, but he hasn’t had luck when we’ve driven home together, and there are times when it doesn’t work for me either. When I have problems if I get positioned correctly and as close to the door as possible, it will open. There have been times when I’ve had to call Mac on the cell to have him open it for me. It is a pita. I’ve noticed that the last couple of weeks, as I have been coming and going to drop of and pick up the kids, the garage door has been working great. I haven’t had any issues. A couple of days ago, I came home and it didn’t open again. I edged my way up to be as close as I could and it eventually opened, and I saw that Mac was home. I then had my ah-ha moment. I said, out loud to the kids, “The car is in the garage***!” During the week, Mac has the car at work. I had no problems today while he was at work. I guarantee that the garage door openers are not working correctly when the car is already in the garage. I don’t know why yet, but I will keep track of when I can and when I cannot open the door with the suvvy, and I would bet that every time it doesn’t work the car will be in the garage.
*And by that, I mean my husband. It is his favorite meal. It was a make-up to him for making him eat the casserole the day before. He’s not fond of “cream of” casseroles.
**And by that, I mean mean stupid and cheap.
***Ada then excitedly said, “Pari is in the garage? Yippee! I like Pari. She’s my friend!” and then she proceeded to sing “Pari, Pari, Pari” over and over and over. I had to break the news that I said, “car” and not “Pari.” Ada then said, “Oh, okay. How about tomorrow?” I had to break the news to her that no, she very likely would not be in our garage tomorrow either.
