Dick: My left wrist feels like someone ran over it with a car, but I have no recollection of any injury to it.

Jane: @Dick Hope it wasn’t all the dishes you did last night. WAIT. You didn’t do any dishes last night (ever). Probably carpal tunnel .

(Sidenote: In going back to get this word-for-word, I noticed the tweet Dick had written two hours before the wrist thing. “Just thinking that my blogging life with Jane is the natural extension of a marriage of two English majors. Love reading her blog everyday.” Boy, I’m starting to look really bad here, huh? In my defense, all I can say is that Dick had played basketball the night before, and that he truly hadn’t washed a single dish since we moved into this house one month ago.)

Now, I recognize the wisdom in the advice given to women that they shouldn’t criticize the way hubs diapers the baby or barbeques the chicken or washes the dishes. I know just enough behavior modification to realize that criticizing the way someone does something they don’t enjoy anyway is not a good way to encourage them to keep doing it.

But. Dick does dishes the wrong way.

He does.

Plus he hasn’t cooked (yet) in this new house, so I was prepared to be exasperated when he started hunting through cupboards looking for the mixing bowl’s home. And I blushed deep red half-way through saying NOT THAT ONE:

Not that beautifully empty, extra-deep cupboard that I . . . completely forgot about when setting up my kitchen four weeks ago.

If I weren’t feeling so sheepish, I’d be overjoyed at the thought of an EMPTY CUPBOARD. That’s like a $20 bill in your coat pocket, waiting for weather cold enough for you to discover it.

What will I put in that cupboard? The possibilities are staggering, and endless. I’ll probably keep it empty as long as I can, opening the door to admire its rich blankness whenever I feel cluttered and overwhelmed. It’ll be my secret place. A reminder that now we have more: more space, more possibility, more home than we need.

Jane

(and thanks for doing the dishes, Dick. You’re the best. (husband and father, not dishwasher).

If your microwave looks like, say, this:

[Oh, I give up. Dirty stuff just doesn't look as dirty in pictures as it does in real life. I wonder if this is sort of like a dirty-anorexic-distortion, where instead of looking fatter that your really are, things look cleaner/dirtier than they really are.]

Anyway, to clean even gunky dried-on spaghetti sauce, exploded black bean soup, and splattered sweet potatoes, simply place a glass container full of water in the microwave and turn it on High for about 5 minutes. Then wipe off the soggy ickies, and, voila:

In other news, Danielle sent me a video about a bioluminescent Mountain Dew experiment. Boy! Was it exciting, and Mountain Dew by itself is practically glow-in-the-dark, so I assembled the necessary ingredients:

I had to try it for myself even after Dick looked it up on Snopes.com and found that it was a false urban legend. Unfortunately (and not surprisingly, I guess, though seriously disappointingly), Snopes was right; it doesn’t work. (I’m glad I’m not as cynical as Dick; I’m sure he misses a lot of fun anticipation that way.)

But never fear, I know a fun soda pop trick that does work! The Diet Coke and Mentos Bomb is fabulous, and would make a great Last-Hurrah-of-Summer family activity.

Diet Coke and Mentos on the 4th of July from jane on Vimeo

Look at that! Actual tips for Works-for-me Wednesday:

1) Clean your microwave with boiling water.

2) Snopes.com debunks too-good-to-be-true tricks.

3) Diet Coke and Mentos make for FUN TIMES.

You can thank me later.

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