A Shocking Wednesday

It was mostly cloudy and overcast for most of Wednesday. It was hot, but the threat of rain prevented me from leaving the sunroof open while at work.

I went home at lunch and found my shed trim had been painted. Concerned about the weather, I walked out and touched it, but it was dry as a bone. Hmmm… He did do a nice job, though.

After work. I rearranged the garage enough so that I could work on the old bench and still have the car inside. No way was I going to leave it out tonight. One car with a dimpled roof from hail was enough in one lifetime.

Now that bench had sat outside for a number of years and, on closer inspection, I was sorry I had offered it to Vicky’s Mom and even sorrier that she accepted. So, I was going to sand it down (at least). But first I had to get it level. It had sat in the grass and was level enough for that. But it was tipsy on the garage floor. So, I used a level and some shims to get it right and scribed a line on both ends.

But cutting it off a half inch was a challenge. If I had somebody to hold it, it would have been okay. Instead, I used my bench vise to secure it upright and my step to get up high enough to cut it. The one side went smoothly, but not the second.

On the second cut, I inadvertently cut through the electric cord of the saw itself. WOW! Besides scaring the crap out of me, the fluorescent lights literally went out!

Extremely pissed at myself, I went over to the breaker box to resent the breaker. But, no breaker had tripped! WTF? Only the lights over the workbench had gone out, so I did have the regular garage lights on and the door open. But I still got a flashlight and double-checked.

No breaker was tripped, but I had six outlets dead in the garage! I started turning breakers off and back on, checking the lights in the house (even the attic) and so on. Weird…

I took the outlet cover off to check for any fire, burnt or broken wires, etc., and would have pulled out the outlet itself but I didn’t have one on had to replace it with. I even called B___ to verify the only supposition I had left: that the old wiring had failed at the plug itself.

It was too late to go get another outlet and a replacement three-prong plug, so I gave up on the whole damn thing. I buttoned everything up and went inside for the night.

First, I started the Wednesday night laundry. Then I made dinner, trying to recreate the dish Jake had made: what I had called deconstructed sausage, potatoes and sauerkraut. I started out by roasting some cubed Yukon Gold potatoes in the oven. I mixed them in a bowl first with olive oil, minced garlic, sprigs of thyme, kosher salt and lots of black pepper. Normally when I roast potatoes in the oven, I also use shallots, but I was dealing with South Carolina “onion” sausage, so I decided they weren’t needed.

I spread the potatoes into a single layer on a foil-covered half sheet tray and put them into the preheated 375 degree F. oven. I shook the pan every 10 minutes or so to move the potatoes around and roasted them until they were a nice golden brown and fork-tender (about 40 minutes, this time).

While this was going on, I put some sauerkraut (from a bag) into a bowl. I took one section of the onion sausage I had grilled last weekend and cut it into thick rounds. I stuck the sauerkraut and sausage in the microwave to warm up. Then I took the half sheet pan out and let the potatoes cool a bit. I pulled all the thyme stems out and taste-tested the potatoes. Perfect!

I put some of the potatoes into the bowl of sausage and sauerkraut and ate my dinner. Each element of the dish was delicious. But, put them all together and it was excellent!

I started watching the first Stanley Cup playoff game, but fell asleep before what normally should have been the end of the game. Fortunately (?), my NOAA weather radio loudly woke me up around 11:00 PM, with severe thunderstorm warnings for my area. I looked outside. It was raining hard with lots of lighting and thunder. The hockey game was still going in overtime, so I resumed watching. And watched… And watched…

Triple overtime? Are you kidding me?