We took this video a few weekends ago when it was gorgeous outside and the birds were chirping and spring was shouting "howdy!" from around the corner.

Last weekend it snowed five inches. Sigh.

Also . . .

I promised our friend Jeff I'd make a big old cookie burger out of the dough we ordered from his daughter, Natalie. Looks . . . appetizing. Right? Doesn't it?

Here are some freaky eyeball sugar cookies I made for Halloween. In case you're wondering, the irises are Life Savers and the pupils are chocolate chips. Yummy + terrifying = perfect.

Being a fetus is no excuse for not wearing a costume. With that in mind, here is our little girl dressed up as Rogue from the X-Men. She got her first trick-or-treat candy from the generous staff at Spangles. Thanks, guys!

Here is a closer view of her costume.

Yep, we had a great time taking the baby out on her first Halloween outing. In the evening we went on something called the Haunted Haskell tour, which was a flashlight tour of the places on Haskell University's campus where ghosties and other specters have supposedly been seen. We didn't see the dead janitor or the red floating orb, but we did see a guy in a very convincing Teen Wolf costume. Oh, and there was also a guy wearing an Obama mask who charged toward us shouting "VOTE FOR ME NEXT TUESDAY!"

All in all, a ghoulish good time.

So this was my idea. Hey, maybe I could be the next Survivorman! I could teach myself to survive in the wilderness and then make an awesome show based on my efforts. Wouldn't that be cool? Except I don't really like camping, and I tend to get irritable when the creepy crawlies refuse to respect my personal space. But whatever. Those are obstacles that can be overcome, right?

Chapter One in any survival manual is always the making of fire, so I figured I'd start there. I snagged Nick's old Boy Scout handbook and got to work. Tools needed: fireboard, bow, stick, shoelace, tinder, and some sort of rock thingie to place atop the stick so that your hands don't get rubbed raw.

Here's the stuff.

And here it is all prepared.

So I followed the instructions. I used the stick and the bow.

I kept it up for a long time...twisting...twisting...twisting some more, until I began to hear the sweet chorus of angels in my ear, alerting me to my impending loss of sanity. And yet, the result was the same. The stick and fireboard were slightly warmer, but nowhere near the smoldering coals they needed to be.

Alas, I was driven to do what anyone would have done in my place.

So the lesson I learned was this. Fire-making—with sticks at least—is for people who have nothing else scheduled for the remainder of their lives. If you believe in reincarnation, that's a bonus, because it might take more than one lifetime to get it done.

Oh yeah, and I have four chigger bites to show for my time spent communing with the wilderness. Thanks so much, Mother Nature. I'm a big fan of yours, too.

Friday night, I got a sign from the kitchen gods.

As you may know, I've been doing a lot of cooking lately. This is not something that comes to me naturally, so I've been working my way up from scrambled eggs to chicken casseroles and the like. Quiches and souffles are still far in the future for me, but my progress has been good. And finicky Nick has eaten everything I prepared, so it can't have been too bad. Overall, I've been pleased with my new skills.

That is, until the stove caught on fire.

I was going to make pasta, you see. I had put some water on to boil, and I was retrieving the pesto sauce from the refrigerator when I smelled something I shouldn't have. Looking over my shoulder, I noticed a single wisp of smoke snaking up from the saucepan. This was worrisome, but I decided it was probably just a few crumbs smoldering in the drip tray, and that it would stop momentarily.

It didn't stop. Instead, there was an audible gust of air, and flames shot out of the side of the pan.

Oops.

Time stood still, and I stared at the fire in disbelief. Then, in the span of a single moment, I had a point-counterpoint session with my second, more pragmatic personality:

Me: This can't be happening. Am I in a movie, or something?

Me II: No, stupid. This is a real fire. Put it out.

Me: Okay. I'll just get some water from the sink and ...

Me II: No! No, no, no! You can't use water on this kind of stove. There's a fire extinguisher right there. It uses a kind of foam, and it won't exacerbate the fire. Go. Get it. NOW.

Me: Oh, but that seems so drastic. Surely I don't need to use that.

Me II: Fine. Then take those dish towels and drape them over the pan to suffocate the fire. You might want to moisten them first....

(Karen starts to drape the towels over the saucepan without moistening them, then backs away from the stove.)

Me II: (irritably) Or don't moisten them, I guess. Obviously you know best.

Me: It's not going to work. This is probably some new evolved kind of fire that doesn't require oxygen to perpetuate itself. We're so screwed.

Me II: Do you hear yourself, for god's sake?

Well, the smothering thing did the trick, and when I removed the dish towels there was nothing but a tattoo of ash on the sides of the saucepan to show the fire had ever been there. Oh, and the air had a slightly mesquite smell to it for a couple of hours. But no big deal. The smoke alarm didn't even go off. I just opened the window, and let the freezing cold air in (it was snowing at the time), so that when Nick got home from work our apartment felt like a meat locker. But nothing can burn in a meat locker, so everything was copacetic.

In retrospect, this whole incident is quite funny, and for two reasons in particular. 1) the idea of a pan full of water going up in flames is pretty bizarre, in and of itself, and 2) boiling water is the single simplest thing you can do in cooking. That's right, I botched the single simplest thing you can do in cooking. Let the blonde jokes commence. I'll read your mocking e-mails as soon as I get this Wite-Out scraped off my computer screen.

In the mean time, I will persevere. I'll consider myself hazed and move on to the next dish (with a fresh drip tray). Hear me, you mischievous kitchen gods! You will not discourage me so easily!