Fire and Nice

Eating Whole30 can be a pain at times especially when all of the "allowed" ingredients cannot be formed into any way, shape or fashion resembling a brownie.  Still it does allow sweet potatoes and for that I will give them a hearty two thumbs up.  I was in the mood for fried sweet potatoes (yes, allowed) for breakfast and proceeded to fry them up.

John and I were in our living room eating these little crisp shards of goodness, watching an NBC news podcast when he said, "I'm going to close the door.  The neighbors must be burning trash."  I sniffed.  "Yeah, you're right," I said.  Just then I looked to my left and saw a billowing black cloud coming around the corner.

I jumped up and ran to the hallway looking toward the kitchen.  There I saw an orange glow and quickly ran to see what was happening.  The sweet potato oil had caught on fire.  John calmly looked at it and said, "Get the flour." I got the bag out of the freezer and began flinging flour on the flames.  Just then I thought, "Isn't this supposed to be baking soda?"  Too late now.

John then calmly placed a lid on top of the skillet and carried the smoking pan, grease, fire, and flour outside to the sidewalk.

Tea Fields

I stayed inside wondering what to do.  Black smoke was everywhere.  My eyes were burning so I left the room and began opening all the windows and turning on the ceiling fans.  John returned, took one look at me and I burst into tears.  "How stupid is that?! I must have turned the wrong burner. I thought it was off!"  He didn't say anything but just gave me a hug as I cried some more.

He called our Arabic teacher and told him that maybe now wasn't a good time for lessons.  We continued to walk through the house surveying any damage.  Once the smoke cleared we realized that there really wasn't too much except a thin layer of soot that now covered all our worldly possessions.

We began scrubbing the stove, the dishes, the walls, the tables, the sheets, the curtains…pretty much everything.  I was even shocked to discover a ring of soot on the toilet AFTER THE FACT.

This all happened before noon.  After, I started to pour myself something stiff to drink (Diet Coke straight up, no ice) and noticed that the cup I held had soot on it too.  I didn't even care.  I used it anyway.  Carcinogens be hanged.

I definitely had some adrenaline pumping through the whole LET'S-NOT-LET-THE-WHOLE-HOUSE-BURN-DOWN episode, but not as much as I thought.  In many ways, we live daily life at an adrenaline level that only Bruce Banner might understand.  Much of what we experience is new, exhilarating, heart-pumping and sometimes hair-raising.  We somehow get used to the pitched fever of life and learn to live with it.

We don't often realize the level of sustained stress we live under until we leave our context for a break in another location.  A few days of deep exhaling and we suddenly remember what a full night's sleep feels like.  Bliss!

That is what's happening this week.  In a few hours, we'll be heading to the airport for a conference and a few days of R&R.  I'll be spending my birthday in a cool climate (Woot!) and much predicted rain  (Double woot!).  I'm thankful for opportunities like this.  It gives us a chance to recalibrate our hearts and minds while allowing our physical bodies to recover from the sometimes harsh environments we find ourselves in.

Our local friends have already come to wish us farewell.  How thankful we are for the relationships we have here!  What a privilege to live life shoulder to shoulder with them.  Ironically, they asked us why we hadn't taken a vacation before now since Ramadan had finished in July.  (Traditionally, most folks here take their vacation after the festival following Ramadan.)  So they wished us well and spoke a traditional Arabic blessing over us.

Jesus, thank you for kind friends, for sweet rest, for amazing colleagues, for your great love and for protection from sweet potato incidents.  We are truly blessed.

Beautiful!