Jumpin' on the bandwagon...hopefully not at the tail-end, and hopefully can keep it up within reason...

It's been a long day (more about that in a moment ), and I'm sitting here on my newly vacuumed sofa, watching my handsome hubbyman snooze, listening for my oh-so-defiant today 3 year old "moose" of a son to just THINK about getting outta his bed (living room is RIGHT under his bedroom) and reading blogs.  Why?  I have no television.  Gasp!  Sputter!  Say it ain't so!  I WOULD be watching some DVD of something I've seen a thousand times before, and folding a couple loads of laundry, but once again, I can't, so I chose to spend my time doing something so valuable as to read a few blogs and set up one of my own.  Sad ain't it? 

WHY am I "feelin brain-fried"?  It's been a Thornburg Day.  "What's a 'Thornburg Day'?" you might ask...

A Thornburg Day is one that really happened, but is the stuff of fiction writers.  If I hadn't lived through it, I wouldn't believe it myself.

You see, today was such a day because I blew up the television and VCR.  Why?  It wasn't in a latent rebellion to anything, it wasn't an attempt to cry for help in my addiction to old television show re-runs that I get on DVD, it was because I wasn't paying attention.  Keep in mind, I'm laughing to myself as I'm typing this out.  I have an odd sense of humor, I suppose, but this isn't "eeyore style" of "feel sorry for me" storytelling, more of a "tigger style" of "this happened, ain't it crazy?" 

Further explanation.  We are a military family.  We move generally every 3 years.  Hubby was a military brat (his Dad was Army) and he moved all his life.  So...about every year ans a half, the "itch to move" hits me and it's MUCH cheaper and easier on all involved for me to just rearrange furniture.  I did so today.  I moved our "entertainment armoire" across the room and adjusted the sofas' positions. 

When I went to plug the stuff back in, I thought I was grabbing the lamp's cord, but grabbed the extension cord. 

Another side note here.  We live in Germany.  We use step-down transformers for our 110-volt (American) electronic devices to keep the power where the appliances need to be.  German voltage is 220 volt. 

Back to the cord.  I thought I was grabbing the lamp cord.  110-volt lamps can be used with a 220-volt lightbulb and an adapter for the plug ends just fine.  So I plug it in.  No light.  Just a loud, fizzy-sounding POP.  I asked my daughter "was that you?" She says "I don't know what you're talking about, Mom."  Then another, louder POP.  I opened the armoire to see smoke and sparks flowing freely and it was ONLY God who kept me calm, pulling the plug from the wall, fast-walking to the kitchen to pull out the fire extinguisher, reading on it (what is THAT?) to make sure it was okay for electrical fires and spraying the puddin' outta the inside of my entertainment armoire.  Fire out.

Have you ever sprayed anything INTO a three-walled box?  You get quite a "spray back".  My living room looked like it'd had a light dusting of snow over a good quarter of it.  And the air looked worse.  Do you know what is in those extinguishers to smother the flames?  Basically a baking soda solution.  The air looked as if it was totally smoky. 

Now my children.  First of all, the furniture that I had to move to get the armoire moved was keeping them a minimum of 6 feet away from the situation.  My dd (almost 8) was "taking charge" of the boys (3 and 5) and herding them into the hallway opposite the fire, trying to keep them calm (baby was asleep upstairs).  The 5 year old who has said he wanted to be a firefighter since he could talk (and found out his grandpa was a volunteer fighter in younger days), is dancing around on his tippy-toes with his fingers in his ears (WHY?  There is no fire alarm going off, just popping electricals!) saying "what do we do?!  what do we do?!?!"  If I hadn't been so concentrated on making sure the extinguisher was right for the job and getting the fire out, I would've been laughing.  That tippy-toe dance was priceless!

Now my living room is all baking-soda free, and fully vacuumed, hasn't been this dust-free in a while.  My kids are all in bed, although not all asleep, and I'm brain-fried.  It's been another Thornburg day.  I consider it seized. 

Now where's the chocolate?