Something Else I Want

It's silly, but sometimes I want what I want, even though I don't need it, don't have to have it and already have one that's almost as good.

For some reason, appliances fall into this category. I bought a hugely expensive, excellent vaccuum cleaner that can suck the dust mites out of your innersping mattress and make your furnace filters as good as new (maybe). It was in my house, in the possession of a door to door salesperson and I had to have it. She demonstrated, it was wonderful, I didn't have a vaccuum and didn't pay attention to the fact that it weighed a ton and didn't have power steering. So I bought it, persuaded Ronald darling that we really really needed it and now he's the one who uses it. Sigh. I didn't really need it.

When I got married, a few decades ago, I wanted a mixer - not a hand mixer, but a stand mixer. I got a Sunbeam Mixmaster, just like my mama's and it was great. Except I kept letting the spatula slip into the beaters and bending them a bit. But they straightened out, pretty much and it was great. It had clear glass bowls, so you could see if you were done mixing. But eventually the bowls broke and the beaters bent beyond repair and I went back to the hand mixer. Eventually, I got a KitchenAid and thought I'd died and gone to heaven. The bowl is stainless so it won't break... although I can't see through it to make sure that I'm done mixing. Like my vaccuum, I'm sure it will last until I die or sometime thereafter. It is strong, it is invincible, it is (ideal for a) woman.

But I want a new one. A new KitchenAid. Actually, I want this KitchenAid.


















The Pioneer Woman gave two away this week and will give two away next week. She only had 66,222 entries last week, surely all of them will have given up, and I'll be the only entry, right?
Right.
But if I win, what will I do with the one I have now? I suppose I could give it to Ronald darling, he does most of the baking anyway. But somehow, his and hers KitchenAids seems just a little over the top. His and hers Jags make complete sense, but mixers? Nyuh-uh.
So here is my solemn promise. If I win one of these mixers, I will take my fully functional mixer to the next Nickel Auction that my friends have and sell it there.

Have I Told You Lately...

That Ronald darling is a prince among men? No? Really? Huh. Go figure.

Okay, perhaps that is a bit over the top; but he is really great.* We have been having a very cold winter, you may have noticed. It is exactly the kind of winter I expected we'd be having back when I was in grade school. The teachers were very clear; we should expect cold winters as adults. The reason, of course, was the advancing glaciers, the ice age that was coming. So, we've had a cold and precipitous winter. Our car sits on a concrete slab next to our home, not garaged and not even car-ported. The snow and sleet and ice all hit it, while it just sits there shivering and cowering. And every morning, Ronald darling goes out and warms up the car before I leave for work. See, I told you he was a nice guy!*

This morning, it was worse... about 8 steady hours of sleet and freezing rain landed on our car during the night. I woke up during the night, about 12:30 or 1:00 and it sounded like a summer rain storm. We have a metal roof, so the sound reverberates in the house. It was pouring down freezing rain and/or sleet, just like a summer gully washer.

This morning, the car was encapsulated. Ronald darling asked when I planned on leaving. Forty five minutes prior to that time, he went out to salt the walks, scrape the car windows, and warm up the engine and interior. When he had every thing cleared off, he got in the car and drove it out to the highway to make sure that the streets in the complex and the roads to the highway were passable. And it took him all of that time, three quarters of an hour to make it possible for me to leave safely. Scraping and shovelling and all. See?*

And then I got the lecture. "Be careful, watch out, check your brakes, don't follow to close, watch out for the other guy, don't go too fast, keep an assured clear distance. And be careful!"**





*Don't tell him I said so!
**But, he's still terrific!*