Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Frigid Comedy

You know how cold it is in Jerusalem? So cold, that I'm sitting here and contemplating putting on a pair of tights underneath my jeans. Last night, Pidgeon and I had experiences that will go down in our personal history. Stories we will hopefully tell our children one day - about how Mommy and Daddy dealt with construction during their first year of marriage. 

I haven't left the apartment in 2 days, and I'm looking forward to finally getting out of here for an appointment today. I am getting a little ancy, although I did manage to watch the entire 3rd season of Weeds so I feel a little sense of accomplishment. The house is a wreck but I got over than 2 days ago, what I didn't get over was what happened last night.

First, we needed to have the Treissim guy come and fix the same @#$*$%^ tris that just keeps on breaking. He was coming at 7:00 p.m. Beforehand, I had to wait for the dry cleaners, who was delivering 4 bags of moldy clothing back to us. Fortunately, he was able to clean and get all the mold off. Unfortunately, it cost more than 500 shekel to do. At least I didn't have to throw anything out! My moldy shoes, on the other hand, are a different story. I was annoyed with the cleaners because he made me come downstairs to pick up the clothing. It was heavy and I stepped on the bags a few times. Fortunately, I didn't get any dust on anything but the bags. The tris guy showed up and was very thorough,  but he kept all the doors open and the freezing cold air just poured right in.

So, right after he left, I decided to put on the heat and warm the place up. Since no more workers would be around for the night, I felt this was a good opportunity to get the place in shape before Pidgeon came home. I also needed to do a load of laundry, cause we've been recycling the same clothing for a few days now and I was short on under garments. 

And then the pop heard round the neighborhood as my heating system blew. I went to the fuse box and sure enough, the switch was down. So, I tried putting it back up and it threw some sparks. I called Pidgeon in a crying panic and then called my folks. Everything is just falling a part.

Pidgeon rushed home to help out and the electrician paid us an emergency visit. He told us it wasn't an electrical issue and we needed to get someone in to check out the unit. Pidgeon ran out to pick us up a portable room heater and I tried to figure out what's for dinner. He offered to pick us up some food, but I didn't want to eat out anymore so I decided to make my version of a deconstructed tuna casserole. I cooked up whole wheat penne, steamed broccoli, opened up a can of tuna in water, mixed 1 can of mushroom soup with 1 can of skim milk and then crushed potato chips over the big bowl. This was dinner (and, I ate the leftovers for breakfast this morning). Not that nutritious since we ate a heck of a lot of it, but still much better than eating out at a restaurant that pours salt all over their food.

Just when we thought nothing else could happen, Pidgeon decided to help out and wash the dishes and somehow managed to break a really nice bottle (for olive oil, part of a set of olive oil and vinegar that we got as a wedding gift) right behind the fridge. Fortunately for us, the bottle was completely empty. Unfortunately, we now only have 1 part of the set and it just doesn't really work as well alone. Then, I accidentally sliced my finger open on the jagged edge of another wedding present that I broke. Somehow, one handle on the soup tourrene we got from our Tel Aviv friends completely broke off and I want to try to return it as I didn't do anything but reach down to pick it up. I kept it on the counter but didn't think it would be detrimental to me, until I sliced my finger. Pidgeon rushed around trying to get me to put on a bandaid as the blood just dripping all over.

We started laughing at this point, until we decided to go to bed and move the new heating unit to the bedroom. We plugged it in, put it on, and out went the lights. It blew the lights not once -  but twice -  until we figured out that no other lights in our house could be lit while running this unit. This morning, our contractor told us that the unit was too powerful for the power in the apartment. Crap. We can't return it and what the heck are we going to do now? I guess we'll just have to figure something out. 

Well, I've been scouring the net for new cake recipes. I don't have a cook cake recipe that's pareve that's also NOT chocolate, and so I'm trying to find something good that works for me. Too bad all of Paula Deen's cake recipes are Milchig. Sometimes, it would be nice to a piece of sour cream cake with buttercream frosting. That just sounds yummmmmy!

I'm off to scour sites like Food Network, Epicurious and BakingBites for a great cake recipe!


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