Kitchen update/Mystery caller

Since writing the last blog I’ve spent a lot of days scrubbing down my kitchen and the surrounding walls in an effort to remove the smoke smell. This wouldn’t be so bad (at any given point in the year my kitchen needs to be scrubbed down) except that I just repainted a lot of it in an effort to impress my daughter’s boyfriend. You know how it is—guests come and for several days you have to pretend to be clean.


Anyway, after Herculean efforts on my part, and a can of Febreze that my children had way too much fun spraying, my house no longer smells like a fire happened in the kitchen. Now my house smells like a fire happened in a Febreze factory. Seriously. Even the dog smells like he just walked out of a cheap hotel.

Oh well, this too shall pass and eventually we’ll explode something in the microwave and then the kitchen will take on an entirely new fragrance.

In other news I had the most interesting phone call from a fan. Here it is in a nutshell:

My phone rings. Middle daughter answers it and gives it to me.

“Hello” I say.

“Oh my gosh, I love you!” says a young sounding voice.

My first thought is that one of my children has called me, because they’re the only people who tell me they love me over the phone. I can’t tell which of my children this is, which is not a new occurrence and something that always bothers said children. It also irks them that sometimes when I talk to them I go through an entire list of names before I hit the right one. My youngest son has on more than one occasion given me a humorless stare and said, “Mom, do you know who I am?”

Anyway, this is obviously not my middle daughter since she handed me the phone, and my youngest daughter hasn’t figured out how to call people yet . . . my sons should both be at scout camp, shouldn’t they?

“And I love your books, and I just read it’s a Mall World and I love it too!” continues the voice.

Okay, this is obviously not one of my children because my daughters are accounted for and there is no way one of my sons would call me to gush about my books. My sons have not even read my books which is why I keep telling them they will not be mentioned in my will.

My second thought is: This is a fan calling me. How very cool.

“Goodbye!” the voice chimes and hangs up before I can even say, “Why thank you, you charming young person. Would you like to be mentioned in my will?”

So anyway, I’m saying it now: Thank you, mystery phone caller. You made my day.