Domestic failure and a near-death experience

I've been asked by several people to blog about an incident at my house Thursday night.

I blogged earlier in the week about my canning triumph with tomatoes. That same night, I went ahead and broke beans and put them in the fridge so I could can those as well. I waited to do it until Thursday night, when I got home from work. I cooked them partially, then put them in the jars, as instructed by my mother. I packed them in, added the right amount of water and salt and put on the lids and rings. Everything is going well.

I put the jars in the pot with some water and a lid. I cook the four jars for the prescribed amount of time.

When they're done, I take off the pot lid and.......

BOOF!

Boiling hot green beans, steam, liquid from the jars and glass shrapnel assault me.

I blank out for a moment from shock, then work my way through the broken glass and green bean explosion. I'm barefoot, so this is much slower going than I would prefer. Once in the living room, I race to my roommates' bathroom because it's the closest and use someone's towel to get the steaming hot liquid off my face and arms. By now, I'm panicked because I realize I'm burned.
It's shortly after midnight and I'm by myself. My mother is at her house, asleep for hours. I have no one to ask for advice.

So I call Maureen, one of The Star's copy editors. When I call her, I'm in shock and still can't form logical sentences. My face is still burning. On the phone with her, I get a washcloth and run cold water on it, then put it on my face to draw out some of the heat.

A few minutes later, I'm getting more and more hysterical because by now I realize that I could have been killed by one of the jars that exploded in my face or that I could have received third-degree burns.

I pick chunks of bean out of my hair.

Moments later, both of my roommates, Hugh and Adam (both also copy editors at the paper), walk in. I'm crying and hysterical. I am one hot mess. They look stunned, but rush to my aid and begin cleaning up the mess while I go to Wal-Mart and stand in line for 10 minutes just to buy a can of spray aloe.

By the time I made it home, the two of them had everything cleaned up, with the exception of a few bean chunks here and there and a couple hard-to-reach shards of glass. They were both heroes.

Needless to say, it took the three of us a while to settle down last night, but when I woke up this morning, the burns were all better, with the exception of a few places around my eyes and one on my forehead.

With all that said, I escaped the ordeal rather unscathed, despite the trauma, but may never eat green beans again. As for the beans, one jar miraculously survived... and sealed. Amazing.

Beginner's luck?

Atlanta's catcher, Brian McCann, recently suffered a concussion and has to take some time off from playing. He's my fantasy catcher, so I added the best catcher available, according to stats and made the best of an unfortunate situation.

But it turns out that I made the wrong choice. I should have gone with the Braves' Clint Sammons.

Here's what happened:
Atlanta called him up from Triple-A Richmond on Monday.

Thursday night, the rookie not only hit the first homer of his major league career, but he also drove in three runs, had three hits in all and scored twice.

Not bad for his first time out of the stable.

So I added him to my lineup today. I'm willing to take that risk. After all, I'm in 10th place again. What do I have to lose? I'm just hoping that his first outing wasn't "beginner's luck."

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Tomato canning

My family had a few extra tomatoes over the weekend, so in a moment of domestic triumph, I brought them home to can. They turned out well, and should last me through a batch or two of homemade spaghetti sauce.

Wondering about the yellow ones? I mixed them in the jars because they're my favorites.

Leno's loss is Conan's gain

I read in the AP news feeds that Jay Leno's last "Tonight" is May 29 and O'Brien takes over the slot June 1. From what I read, I might not miss out on him for long, though. It appears that he may jump ship to another network.

While I prefer his intros over all the other late-night shows and will miss his wit, I think he'll land on his feet... or possibly on his wheels, considering the number of cars he owns.

But what will he do in a role where he might not be one of late-night's kings? Who knows? Possibly make cameo appearances elsewhere? Maybe help out with scripts somewhere? That seems beneath him, so it's hard to tell where he'll be. Anyone want to venture a guess?

All of it seems a little strange, though, because Conan's numbers are being eroded by Craig Ferguson (whose intros are also better than Conan's in my opinion). Plus, Ferguson's accent and self-deprecation only add to his charm. Meanwhile, Conan's hair is still atrocious.

All this is based on NBC's four-year-old promise that O'Brien would succeed Leno. Sounds to me like NBC put all their eggs in the same Conan basket.

But all the switchings don't end there. Jimmy Fallon may take over O'Brien's former spot. I seriously doubt I'll be checking that one out.

What I'd like to see is a Leno-Jimmy Kimmel combo. I might actually watch past the intro jokes if that were the case.

What are your thoughts on all the late-night comedy drama?

Belated Father's Day present

My sisters and I finally were able to celebrate Father's Day for real with my dad this Sunday. We bought four tickets (one for each of us and one for my father) to a Braves game and gave them to him on Father's Day.

So we trekked to Atlanta Sunday morning, shot through the World of Coke, discovered Barg's red cream soda (now my new favorite) in the tasting room there, then headed to Turner Field for what turned out to be an ugly loss for the Braves (my dad's favorite team). The score ended up being 15-6. Clearly, the Nationals won.

Overall, I think my dad had a good time even though he missed catching a foul ball by only a few inches. He would have had it if he hadn't accidentally hit Olivia's head while trying to snag it away from Erin's head. It turned out that the guy sitting directly behind me (with an infant in his arms) got it... but only after it bounced off dad's hand.

Here are a few photos from our seats. We were sitting fourth row from the bottom, just past the visitor's dugout. Erin is on the left, Olivia is in the middle and my dad is on the right. It was the hottest and possibly sweatiest I've ever been, but a lot of fun for the Killian clan.

All-Star game

I caught the last few minutes of the All-Star game Tuesday night by accident as I waited for a peach cobbler to finish in the oven.

I caught the 13th inning at a 3-3 tie.

Sounds to me like a pretty evenly matched team.

It finally ended in the 15th inning with a sliding play at home plate.

Too bad my fantasy catcher, Brian McCann, couldn't get the guy out.

Actually, that might not have been so bad. My cobbler was done in the 14th.

Movie blogs continued

Thought I'd continue my last post with tidbits on the last few we've seen.

"Sex and the City" (There's enough estrogen on this one to last about a year and a half.)

"Don't Mess with the Zohan" (a lot better than we thought it would be, although some things were played up a little too much. It would have been better when I was in high school.)

"The Hulk" (surprisingly good for a dude-fest, but it's a little too obvious that you're being set up for a sequel)

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (Indiana Jones + aliens = Major bomb)

"The Love Guru" (It's a good thing the movie was free. It's on the list of top 5 worst movies I've seen. It doesn't even stand a chance for getting a cult following.)

Movie binge

I think an apology is in order for my recent lapse in blog posts. I've been extra busy with planning for our coverage of the American Legion World Series that's coming up in August.

I've actually been meaning to blog about our recent movie binge for the past two weeks. Over the past few months, I've been going with a friend to the movies (she gets tickets for free, so we're not out of anything if they're bombs.)

We saw "Baby Mama" (Passable, but I probably wouldn't watch it again), "Made of Honor" (chick flick, but it had Patrick Dempsey in it, so I couldn't complain too much), "What Happens in Vegas" (Pretty good. I like Cameron Diaz, but don't particularly care for Ashton Kitcher, so it was a wash), "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" (A fre bits were a little shocking, but it was an OK film).

(Continued in next post.)

Sunday afternoon entertainment

I've been meaning to post these photos all week, but just now got a chance. They're of our "wagon train" Sunday evening. After I got off work, my family called and asked me to ride along in my cousin's new toy. Here it is:






The little girl in the photo is my cousin's girlfriend's daughter. And in an interesting sidenote, her name is Emily Renee like mine. She was surprisingly OK as far as kids go.