Yup. It's been busy at Casa de Quiet Rage. I'va had a houseful. My sister is here visiting from Minnesota along with one of her daughters. It was nice to have her here for Christmas. She's been through her own hell of losing her husband in a car accident and piecing her life back together.
With that being said, I was anticipating the usual wave of people and a nut house of activity for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I don't know WHAT it is about this house, but everybody likes being here. In preparation for that, I decided to prep my 15 pounds of Sonoma County ham, bacon, and sausage for the company I was expecting. That's when it happened.
I decided, against my better judgement, to cook my bacon and sausage on a new cast iron griddle that was LARGE. I was being lazy and wanted to cook a lot at once. We all know the rules with cast iron. Season it before you cook with it even if it says it's pre-seasoned. Manufacturers lie. Whatever. I like to think I'm a veteran at this stuff. I begin the process of frying up half a hog.
About half way through the frying process I needed to dump the grease that has accumulated. I get the 'fat can' ready and strategically place it in the sink. I've done this a thousand times. I take the hot cast iron griddle off the stove and bring it over to the sink to dump the hot bacon grease into the fat can. I tilt the griddle. The hot grease jumps over the sides of the griddle pours over my bare left hand. I dropped the griddle with a loud THUD and cried in pain. I ran cold water over it trying to ease the pain. No matter. My hand was red, hot, throbbing, and I was in misery. My sister was in the shower and had no idea was was going on in the kitchen. When she emerged she came to the kitchen to find me crying in pain and shaking. We got it wrapped up and contemplated on going to the hospital as infections from burns are usually worse than the burns themselves.
Fast forward a few hours. A friend of mine just recovered from breast cancer. She knew my sister was going to be here and all she wanted was for all of us to be together at the Christmas Eve church service to celebrate just being alive. Great. My hand is throbbing and I'm in misery. I've got a house full of people coming for both Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. I decided that I'm going to wrap up my hand in a cool freezer pack and head off to the church service. I figured that the least I could do was to respect my friend's wishes by being there as she was just happy to be alive this Christmas Eve after what's she's been through. Fair enough.
We head to the church. We get settled. My hand starts to throb. I'm in pain. I think to myself, "Jesus Christ was beat to shit, tortured, and nailed to the cross to die...just for losers like me. In comparison all I have to do is sit here for an hour even though I'm in a lot of pain, I'm not going to die. I can do this."
About half way through the service my hand stopped throbbing. When I got home I removed the bandage from my hand and there was no redness, blisters, or anything. I did not hurt any longer as it was healed. I showed my sister and family and they were perplexed as well as just a few hours earlier they were ready to take me to the emergency room. Weird.
Take from it what you will, but that's my own little Christmas miracle story. It won't make headlines or be the plot of a movie. All I know is that I was certainly happy to not have my hand a throbbing, blistered mess.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment