I'm trying to think if I've forgotten anything. For Thanksgiving. Even though I'm intentionally preparing a pared-down menu this year, just the fact that "company" will be in my house and eating at our table makes me a wreck for weeks ahead of time. I am leaving the cleaning of the house up to husband. I will make myself ill if I deal with that now, and just thinking up, buying, and preparing the food part is proving to be more than enough for me.

But why is it that on the very week you want everything in your house to function, something always goes berserk.

I remember one year as I was peeling the potatoes the morning of Thanksgiving, with all burners on the stove going full steam ahead, and company due in a matter of hours, our garbage disposal decided to quit working and then the plumbing backed up.

Nervous breakdown!

We got through it, but it was just lucky Paul was here to fix the problem. Alone I would have had to call 911 and get myself committed.

This year is proving no different. Yesterday I came down and put on the teakettle for hot water, as usual. Fine. No problems. Had my cuppa and did a few projects for the morning. Then around 11:30 I decided to have "breakfast" as I'd forgotten all about having any food, so I turned on the kettle again for another cuppa. Meanwhile I made myself a toasted bagel and a sliced plum.

Mid-way thru the kettle boiling cycle, it just stopped. Wouldn't go again. I thought my electric kettle had bit the dust. I unplugged it and move it to another plug in the kitchen and it worked fine. I tried the old plug and it was dead.

The plug has died!

Luckily, the electrician is coming by this week to replace some under-counter lights for us, so I just figured I'd ask him to check out that silly plug while here.

Then at suppertime I was making a beef stew and wanted to heat up some rolls. I put them in the toaster oven, which is plugged into a plug clear across the kitchen from the dead one, and when I went to get them out... they were cold. The toaster hadn't even come on! I tried it in another plug and it worked, so now TWO PLUGS have died in the kitchen. And they are not even on the same line with each other.

This is a perfect example of my Kitchen Devil rearing his ugly head - right when I can least afford him to be doing this. Even after a complete demolition of the kitchen several years ago, and the installation of a whole new kitchen top to bottom, he is still there. He's been there since we bought this house, making my life in the kitchen a living hell most times. I try to do things calmly but it just never fails. I'm ready to just give up.

So now I'm worried about the electrical condition of those plugs behind the walls. What is going on? Paul couldn't care less, it appears. Are all men like this? Nonplussed about non-functioning things in the house?

I have five plug outlets in that kitchen and now two of them are out of order. I can get by with the remaining three, but the two that are dead are the ones I like the best!

Sometimes I just wish we could all close our eyes, and wish real hard, and it would be January 1st, poof! And all this holiday nonsense would be over and done with!

Half-hearted cheers today,

Bex