Gas problems, a crazy cat, Glee, and God-Boy

It has been a fairly eventful week for the island of Adak, but a fairly uneventful week for us at the Jones House. The big news on the island is that over 143,000 gallons (that's One Hundred and Forty THOUSAND gallons) were spilled while filling a fuel tank here on the island. It actually wasn't spilled in the traditional sense, it was just the classic case of overfilling the tank. I am guessing this is why you are not allowed to walk away from the pump while filling your car. You know, you might accidentally spill one or two hundred thousand gallons of fuel. So, the coast guard (I always wondered what those guys did?) was out here as well as every environmental agency that you can imagine. Our population grew by about fifty per cent!
Other big Adak news is that the fish plant is due to open very soon. This is a major event that many people have been anticipating for a long time. Apparently there was quite a bit of litigation going on between the previous owners and everyone that the previous owners had ever met. Something weird about having to pay employees and the fisherman made a lot of people very upset, so...the fish plant has been out of commission for quite a while. I grew up on an island that had a "fish plant" (My mother actually worked there one or two summers, God Bless her) and we called it a cannery. It seems every time I use the word "cannery" I am subtely corrected with the term "Fish Plant." I have learned that it is very important to focus on proper nomenclature when dealing with citizens of Adak.
In our exciting lives, it is just back to life as usual (or back to life unusual, to be more accurate). Cassidy and I have been getting up very early to enjoy coffee and talk each day before that child of ours (that has become some hybrid of auctioneer meets Chatty Cathy) gets up and starts bombarding us with questions like "Why do you drink coffee" and "Where does coffee come from" and "Why is Cha Cha orange?" and "Mommy? why is Mommy crying?"
Isabel really has taken off in the curiosity department. It would be nice, however, if she didn't ask three additional questions in the time it takes to respond quickly to the first. As we are explaining what sea otters are, she is asking us what happened to the wrapping paper that her Christmas gifts came in. It truly is remarkable.
Isabel has been taking on more responsibilities around the house. To her credit, for the most part, she does her chores well. An additional duty that she has taken over is the saying of grace before dinner. Although we have tried to instill the basic christian beliefs in our daughter, we feel we have just painted a picture of a super hero that she is anxiously awaiting a full-length animated cartoon to come out. The other night at dinner this was what, to the best of my recollection, was said by our little princess, "Dear God, Thank you for Jesus and all the nice things he does. God-Boy is great and he loves us and loves our friends. Thanks you God-Boy! Amen."
Now, neither Cassidy or myself went to any formal seminary, nor do we claim to be an authority of any type in the fields of Christianity (or any organized or disorganized religion, for that matter). BUT, neither of us could ever remember a "God-Boy" from Sunday schol classes.(there was an Odd-Boy, though)
This particular meal included freshly baked bread by our Isabel. This came about because my wife decided it would be a good idea to make home-made pasta (why wouldn't she, right?). Isabel LOVES helping Cassidy in the kitchen and, since she is four, occassionally the cuteness takes a back seat to being in the way. Cassidy remedied this situation by asking Isabel if she wanted to make her "Own Bread." Isabel, of course, jumped at the chance. So Cassidy quickly gave Isabel a bowl of water and some all-purpose flour. Nothing more, nothing less. When it came time to finish and clean up for dinner, Isabel was ready for her "Bread" to go into the oven. As parents do, we told Isabel that she would have to wait because it takes too long to cook in the oven. Without missing a beat, Isabel said, "I know!" with a huge smile on her face and opened the microwave door. SO...Cassidy and I are seeing Isabel look about as proud as she possible can while she is microwaving her flour and water so we can have bread for dinner. Isabel was nice enough to cut us some big pieces that we could eat with our soup (the soup was delicious, by the way). I bit into that "bread" and smiled as I ate the entire piece and told Isabel what a great job she did. Cassidy, while pretending to eat hers looked at my plate and around my table setting. "What did you do with it?" she asked.
"I ate it!" I replied.
The look of disbelief, compounded by the look of fear that she, too, would have to rise to the occasion (pun intended) was priceless. The bread, well, it wasn't easy to stomach it. But I guess that's part of parenthood, right?
Our geriatric cat, Cha Cha is about as stable as Courtney Love at a Phish concert. This cat doesn't even actually meow anymore. The only way I can describe the sound that this cat makes with accuracy is if someone with a deep voice with marshmallows in their mouth screamed honk at the same pace of the beeping noise a garbage truck makes while in reverse. Only louder. It really is a unique sound that I have never heard replicated. The beauty of this cat is that he decides to unleash this with no cause for alarm. Arbitrarily, he just goes into a marshmallow, deep voice, honking fit. Only louder! This usually occurs somewhere between the hours of 11:00 P.M. and 5:00 A.M. True joy.
We have seriously cut down our television viewing. Without cable it is actually quite easy. Cassidy has taken a liking to a show called Glee. For those of you who know what I am talking about and enjoy it, please disregard the rest of this paragraph. For those of you that know what I am talking about and dislike the program, Or have know idea what I am talking about, read on. The only reason this show is called "Glee" is because "A sad attempt at comedy, constantly interrupted by horrible renditions of songs that you once thought were actually tolerable, wrapped up in a horrible story line with annoying characters" wouldn't sound good at the Emmy's. Good Lord, this show makes me wish "Cop Rock" was still on the air. But Cassidy loves it, so, I have to do what any self-respecting man that loves his wife dearly would do; refuse to watch it and think of a show that I like that will annoy her just as much (if that's even possible).