Have you ever read Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola? It is one of my favorite picture books. It's about a kind, elderly "grandmother witch" with a magic pot that can create pasta if you say the correct words. One day, when the witch is gone, a boy that has been watching her says the words to the pot. At first it's a great success, but then he almost destroys the town because he hadn't paid attention to how to make the pasta stop coming.
We had a Strega Nona experience in our apartment last night. A few days ago Jacob and I went to Jamesport, the Amish community about ten minutes away from where we live. There's a shop there with the most amazing, unusual snacks, so one of our favorite date activities is to go visit with a $5 limit each and see what we can find. It takes a long time. Five dollars is not a lot of money for so many cool items, so we're usually in there for a long time, trying to make up our minds.
One of the things Jacob picked up on Saturday was rainbow popcorn, which has typical white and yellow kernels, but also blue and red. It sounded pretty cool. But I wasn't sure what his plan was because we don't own a popcorn popper.
Last night he decided to try cooking it in a skillet on the stove. I was in the living room, resting on the couch. The first thing I hear is *pop*, then Jacob's excited voice, "It's working!" Then, about twenty seconds later, "Beka, heeeelllllllllpppppppppp!" I ran in the kitchen, and there's the popcorn in the skillet, already so high that it's lifted the lid off the skillet, and is still popping. It doesn't take long for it to start falling all over the stove and floor.
I was really helpful. Mostly I danced around Jacob yelling, "What do I do? What do I do?" I pulled out our largest bowl, and it was filled within about two seconds, so I just kept pulling out all the mixing bowls I could find. Jacob turned the skillet towards me to dump popcorn into the bowl I was holding, and all the popping kernels (covered in hot oil) started shooting out of the pan straight into my face.
And then, suddenly, it was over. And I laughed. Boy, did I ever laugh. I laughed and I laughed. And then we ate a lot of popcorn.
Like I said, that was last night. I still haven't cleaned up the mess. There is still popcorn all over the kitchen floor. Several times I've grabbed the broom with the intention of sweeping it up, but every time I end up giggling again and decide I'm not quite ready to give up the reminder yet. It came at exactly the right moment. This week has been an especially difficult one in this pregnancy (my doctor told me there's a big growth spurt at week 24) with a lot of back and abdomen pain and exhaustion. And I guess the hormones are in full swing again because I've been grumpy in the extreme all week. It felt really, really good to laugh so hard last night. And all day today. So I've decided to make the trade off: to be a bad housekeeper in order to be a happy wife, and we'll keep the popcorn on the floor for a little longer.
