An explosion is a rapid expansion in volume associated with an extremely vigorous outward release of energy, usually with the generation of high temperatures …
Explosion – Wikipedia
We make efforts to avoid sudden loud noises in our family, so it was particularly jarring when yesterday, as Gordon and I were knee-deep in the wonder of Might and Magic 6 – oh, all those gargoyles one must kill to get to the stupid Warlord’s Fortress – something behind us exploded.
It wasn’t a gentle explosion either. Something went boom in the dining room.
Boom.
Gordon: It’s a cat.
A cat knocking something down does seem likely except our dining room is devoid of knickknacks. The chairs are up on the dining table for the ease of floor cleaning and the only thing on the table, besides the chairs, is a stack of paper mail, which certainly wouldn’t have made an exploding noise. Also, there were no cats running from the scene of the crime and then stopping to nonchalantly wash themselves and pretending that nothing happened.
I get up to investigate. The floor is wet. Lots of wetness. Oh, look at this aluminum ribbon on the floor with extremely sharp edges.
Kid 1 is fond of kombucha. One time I ordered the wrong kind of kombucha, one in cans instead of glass bottles. Kid 1 left the offending canned kombucha in the dining room, intending to put it up, and then stuff happened and we collectively forgot about it. Kombucha is a living culture of bacteria and yeast. Given warmth, it will carbonate.
Yeah.
So opening the cans was out of the question, because an exploding can can slice your hands to ribbons. The cans were taken to the driveway and thrown on the ground in as safe manner as possible to explode them, so they could be safely disposed off in the recycling.
Cleaning up kombucha took a lot of mopping. It smells. It’s not a fun smell.
The run of minor bad luck is clearly continuing. The scorpions were an upsetting upgrade, but it could’ve been worse. The exploding can of kombucha could’ve hit one of us in the head.
Enough of that. Look at Wasabi running. Look at the majesty, hahahaha. The hair, omg, the hair!
I am going to buy ridiculously brightly colored yarn today from somewhere. I think it’s warranted.
Hey, maybe the bad smelling kombucha will scare the scorpions away??
Wow! May the streak be ended, now.
Reminds me of the time that some homemade mead we were storing for a friend blew up in a cupboard. The doors blew open just after I walked by. Cleanup was not fun, but it did smell good.
You have such an interesting life, always something going on. My last interesting day like that was a set of wooden shelves shifting and throwing all my home canned fruit across my laundry room floor. Glass and fruit everywhere. I came home from a class at 9 p.m., took one look, shut the door, and went to bed. What ticked me off the most 1. I paid someone to build those shelves and 2. The pickles survived but not the expensive labor intensive fruit! At least it didn’t stink.
Depending upon whether you consider and count the kitten as a disaster you should be at 3 and due for a break. Bright side, it wasn’t all in one day!
????????♀️ I exploded a glass jar of grapefruit kombucha once. We were also lucky that no one was nearby and it was also a mess. I watch them much more carefully as they ferment now!
I’m glad you are all safe!
Can you be allergic to a scorpion the first time you are stung by one? I thought you had to be exposed to something at least once before to develop an allergy to it.
Nope. I’m allergic to bee stings. Found out at age 4-first and last ???? I still remember the trip to the hospital and the stay
In the middle of a relisten to the series. Question for the hive mind, who speaks to her when she’s purifying julies blood? Is it Rowland? How does high find out to send flowers?
I think somewhere it came out that it was Roland who spoke in her mind. Can’t remember what book it was mentioned (maybe the one where they met face-to-face) or if it came out in one of the open chats with Ilona and Gordon.
As for Hugh knowing to send flowers, my first thought was that Jennifer the spy told him, but the flowers came up before Daniel died and Jennifer was approached, so my guess is that Hugh heard about the fight, went to see the flowers, and felt that the magic in them was similar to Roland’s and realized it was Kate. That’s my guess.
an explosion is an exothermic reaction propagating at the speed of sound (gunpowder) A conflagration is an exothermic reaction propagating less than the speed of sound (the whoosh when you light a propane grill).
An exciting topic from chemical engineering.
So you’re saying my brothers don’t have explosive farts but conflagrated farts? That doesn’t sound right. (pun intended)
if you (as my former dormmates demonstrated) light your farts, it is indeed a conflagration, not an explosion. If you can seen the flame front move, probably a conflagration. (and no, alcohol was not involved, just stupidity)
Oh my goodness! So happy the scorpion attack did not end in a very serious issue and no one was injured in the kombucha attack.
Fodder for another book. You write comedy so well.
Buy all the yarn you want, I say. ????
At the Great Lakes Fiber Festival over Memorial Day weekend I petted some of the Laughing Cat Fibers offerings, especially the sparkly ones. They were not scratchy at all, which surprised me. https://shop.laughingcatfibers.xyz/products
It would’ve been great if the scorpions were killed by exploding kombucha. Epic. Maybe better than a video game.
At least it wasn’t a bottle of nuoc mam(vietnamese fish sauce). It’s incredibly tasty in food, but the smell is awful. I dropped and broke a bottle once. My husband was pretty sure we were going to have to move. Or give up and set the house on ????!
I hope that is the last of the minor annoyances for a while. And that you have to deal with no more repair men or deliveries. Unless of course it includes cute animals stealing food again. I still giggle at the racoons!
I really like Dream in Colors yarn, doing my second baby blanket: https://ravel.me/rrawlings/stb
Interesting colors with dimension and cool names, one of my colors I’m using is called Leprechaun Ballet..
Pretty yarns, YAY. Yarns to stroke, yarns to dream over. Ah the pretty pattern books to scan. See that lovely blanket. Oohh, look at the knitted lace comforter. Sweaters, skirts, coats, scarves, socks. So many possibilities.
I’ve almost finished knitting 2 baby blankets with chenille yarns for 2 different friends who are expecting their first babies. Now, if I could just remember which box of reception packed books I put those antique baby pattern books so I can make little hats and coats…..
I’m reminded of the luck bending mechanics in few fictional universes where large bursts of deliberate good luck must be balanced with a run of small crappy events.
Try Hobbii, they’ve got a Sale going until Midnight, just bought myself 11 skeins of super bulky, it’s not been a good week.
Mercury is in retrograde at the moment. This current cycle ends next week. In my home, technology frequently gets sacrificed to whatever force is piloting the planets during this phase. Thanks for your offering of kombucha.
BTW, when I looked at Wasabi, I saw a walking Tribble. Thanks so much for the laugh.
My friends always tell me that If I wrote the stuff that happens to me no one would believe it because it’s so crazy. So, many years ago my mom decided to make home made root beer. Her father always brewed his own bock beer and she figure it wouldn’t be too difficult to modify his recipe to root beer. She ended up with four dozen bottle fermenting on the kitchen counter. One night we were all sitting in the living room and heard this rattle coming from the kitchen. The first thought was that one of the cats was on the counter knocking into the bottle. As my dad yelled at the cats, I pointed out that both of them were sleeping on the sofa. Then it was decided that the German Shepherd had to be the culprit but when called she can out of the bedroom. The rattling was getting more intense and so my sister looked into the kitchen. She immediately froze and barely managed to croak out calling my mom. My mom ran to the kitchen door looked in and yelled for my dad who had already jumped up. He took one look in grabbed both the them yelling for everyone to get away as he dragged them to cover. Seconds latter bottle after bottle started exploding until there wasn’t a single one left standing. These were very heavy bottles with the stoppers that had the metal hinge bracket so they not only self destructed but the flying debris broke a large window above the counter, cracked the glass door on the oven and broke the ceiling light fixture. The entire room, walls, floor and ceiling was completely coated in root beer with glass shards imbedded in various surfaces. It literally looked like a bomb went off. That was the most expensive root beer ever. The window pane had to be replaced, we had to get a new oven door, replace the light fixture, everything in the room had to be repainted after being scrubbed down multiple time. The window curtains even had to go because they were shredded by the flying glass. We ended up repainting the kitchen every few years because the dark brown stains from the root beer kept bleeding through. After that all happened if you rattled any dishes the dog and the cars world go running, the poor things were completely traumatized. Needless to say my mom never attempted to make root beer again. My other comment is that as a Peke lover they are the best, hairy, snotty, wheezy, snoring, fussy, demanding lovable little smushed faced monkeys. My latest Peke passed last fall and I miss her something fierce. They are the most high maintenance dog you can ever own but when they look up at you with their sparkling eyes, with their tongue hanging out, your heart just melts for the little fur balls. I currently have a Shih Tzu along with several other dogs and as much as I love him, he doesn’t come close to a Peke and I can’t wait until I can have another of the little lion dogs in my life bossing me around.
Yes. Pretty yarn. The fixer of all things.
I read a comment after the peke won the dog show – I wish I could find it again so I can attribute it to the correct person, but it said something like: Apparently the Westminster Dog Show was won by a fishing lure. It made me giggle.
Mercury goes out of retrograde on June 22. All will return to normal.
Oh good, just in time for Kupala night ????
My first experience with kambucha was when I won a fund raising basket of treats. Neither I nor the parent holding the basket for me knew anything about the drink. She kept the basket in her warm hallway. She did not know why the glass bottle kept exploding. And I did not know why it smelled funky.
Thank you for the Sandra snippet. It has been a hard week for our family, too.
Bwah ha ha ha. Thank you, Ilona Andrews for the post. Been there done that with glass canning jars of something Mother canned. Easier to clean up and less expensive than when she shorted out microwaves every 3 months by putting metal in.
Look at it this way…. You are alive and living in interesting times.
And here I was thinking that knocking down my old desk and putting the new one together today was a serious adventure!
This is hysterical! I am glad nobody was hurt this time. I hope you make the kid do the cleanup.
Just came back from South Dakota and brought back for my knitting friend some bison yarn. Wasn’t needed, but it’s always wanted????????????.
I think you have covered the trouble comes in threes rule
I can commiserate! I forgot a couple bottles of homemade root beer sitting in the back of the fridge. They continue to carbonate even refrigerated although it’s very slow. So they’d been there a long time and really, the caps should have just popped. But nooooo, a bottle exploded leaving glass shards all over the fridge. At least it smelled pretty good! Lol. It was my last venture into root beer manufacturing.
I have a wonderful story about Uncle Vic, an elder brother of an elder uncle who has long since passed. He was a vigorous young man during Prohibition. Who was given to understand that dropping a single aspirin in each bottle of homemade beer would speed up the fermentation process. Apparently, this was true. One bottle in the hidden storage shed exploded. Then another. And another. It was, in the end, the talk of the neighborhood for months.
Such was life in Bayou St. John in New Orleans in the early 30s.
A friend tried to make blueberry mead. He had successfully made a basic mead before and thought he’d experiment with different fruit in his mead. Apparently, the fermentation was a bit more vigorous and the container exploded. He and his girlfriend game home to a white kitchen covered in blueberry mead from floor to ceiling.
Though Wasabi is as cute as a bug in a rug (that’s a southern saying y’all) if strutting his stuff is his best life, I am sorry Wasabi. Your best life should be sitting in a blow up kiddie pool with the doggie friend of your choice eating treats. Not looking like a displaced space alien walking across the lawn. RUN away and do so quickly to safety or hopefully big fun.
Is it bad that the first thing I thought after seeing the dog and you saying you need yarn is that somewhere out there someone probably made dog hair yarn. Then of course I looked it up. Apparently it’s called Chiengora and is, of course, a thing.
I think I could turn the fluff shed from my dog into thread. It has a good length and isn’t completely straight, but it is gray/black not white.
That just means you could make a nice greyscale yarn out of it!
That fur is insane. When you see a still of him, he looks like an odd fluffy, boxy throw pillow.
I don’t think I understand showing dogs or any animal for that matter.
I love the fluff. I have a keeshond. Fluff is part of my life.
Man, you cannot make this stuff up????.
Well, maybe you guys can. But still. This is amazing.
Once I heard a huge boom and the whole house shook. We had three cats at the time and my first instinct was that one of them had managed to pull down a whole bookcase on themselves or something equally horrible. Two of the cats had been in the family room with me, so we all trouped into the study and there was the third cat, unhurt and looking freaked out. Interestingly, the other cats smelled him all over to make sure he was okay, then all three of them promptly lost interest.
The whole study had what looked like smoke. I thought, “The furnace has exploded!”
It was not smoke. It was brick dust. Then I noticed the bottom of the wall showed the ground OUTSIDE my house. A car had plowed into my house.
We live on a corner, but the house is up an incline and pretty far back from the road, so this seemed unlikely, but the law of large numbers implies that if something isn’t impossible, eventually it could happen.
It was a huge hassle and the homeowners insurance hired a guy that evidently never worked on a house before, but EVENTUALLY it was all fixed as good as new. It took almost the whole year (the accident was in January).
So, the next January, my husband and I are watching TV and there was a huge noise and the house shook. I looked at my husband and said, “What was THAT?”
He said, “I don’t know,” as he was heading into the foyer to look out the window in the front door. Then there was cussing. A lot of cussing.
“I don’t blankety-blank BELIEVE it! They have hit our house AGAIN!”
Yep, they sure had. It looked as if they had tried to park on our front porch. Our house is a huge Victorian that is more than 100 years old and it wasn’t until we got it that it got hit by a car— twice in about one year.
We live in a small town, so all the same police and fire people showed up. My husband went out to talk to them and you could tell that they were trying hard not to laugh. My husband said, “Welcome to the yearly house ramming,” and they all lost it.
Oh well, it all got fixed as good as new and that was about 15 years ago. So far, no more cars have hit us. But fingers crossed!
That’s when you invest in lovely decorative boulders.
This stuff always happens in threes, so don’t relax yet
See this is why I don’t understand why the majority of the country went crazy with boredom during the lockdown, there is plenty of excitement in the home. Messed up AC, floods, ice storms, dogs walking on frozen swimming pools with the potential of falling through and drowning, scorpion bites, and exploding kombucha cans. Lets not forget the cat vomit. Isn’t this all better then going out in to hellish commuter traffic and dealing with people shooting at folks on the road, in restaurants, in grocery stores, and graduation parties?
This almost seems like a PSA: “Don’t leave kombucha lying around, it could be deadly!”
Looked up kombucha on Wikipedia. Nothing in the health benefits/hazards section mentions possibility of explosive shrapnel. I think they need to update.
Oh my! You need to come to New Orleans to get some Gris Gis or something! LOL. At least Wasabe is eating Filet, last I heard. And yeah, the hair.( Better than mine right now) Dare I say Happy Father’s Day to Mr. Gordon?
Damn, I thought I was the only one that still goes back to MM6. 3 sorcerers and a cleric, Town Portal, Lloyd’s Beacon and super cheap healing/mana renewal in New Sorpigal ftw.
I remember bottles of home-made ginger beer exploding in the garage, when I was a kid.
I just reread iron and magic, it’s still wonderful. I look forward to the next.
Somehow Wasabi is how I imagine Dina’s dog, Beast in the Inkeeper Chronicles.