The Fire Extinguisher Works in Life

I have failed miserably at catching up. I was hit with a second round of the stomach bug. It was bad. So I had several days of not being able to do anything but be sick. I couldn’t hold anything down. When you have problems with hypoglycemia, going a couple of days without eating isn’t good. So, even after I got rid of the bug, it was bad. I managed to get it straight in time for Thanksgiving. Now I feel like I’m never going to catch up. So, I’m going to start with the new entries and when I can, I’ll read the past ones. I said I wasn’t going to write a new entry until I caught up, but Thanksgiving Day was an adventure and I had to share.
My mom decided she wanted grilled corn on the cob. Tootie took over that job. Well, she didn’t add butter before she wrapped up the ears of corn, so she did it after she started cooking the corn. Apparently she didn’t wrap it up good enough. We were all sitting on the back porch (sun room) when we saw the black smoke billowing out of the grill (which is on the back back porch). Before I could stop her, Tootie raised the lid and the flames flew out. It burned her arm a little, but not bad enough to blister. We turned off the burners and gas. I knew the flames would burn out, but I worried about them spreading. (My dad is NOT great about cleaning the grill.) Sure enough, the drip pan started burning. This is located right next to the gas can. At that point I grabbed the fire extinguisher. I didn’t try and put the flames out (the ham and corn was in there), I just tried to keep it from spreading. I got the drip pan out, and when the flames came out the back, close to the blind and cord, I knocked those down. It was really sort of awesome. I’ve always wanted to use one. lol It was a dry chemical extinguisher, so basically it was baking soda. So everything was white.
Tootie was in tears. I was giggling over using the extinguisher. My mom was telling us all to get away from it. I was waiting for my dad to blow. He didn’t. He came out, hugged Tootie, made sure she was ok, and thanked her for cleaning the bottom of the grill. A few weeks ago he went in and talked to his doctor about his anxiety. That’s a conversation we could have all had with her years ago, but he would never have agreed that he had a problem. But, after Mama’s hospital stay, he’s been much more attentive to her. They drove to Shreveport to the neurologist for her back and she told him that she wouldn’t go with him again. He got lost and lost his mind. He listened to her this time. The doctor put him on the lowest possible dose of…something. I have no idea, but it’s for anxiety. He’s been very honest about feeling better. They’ve taken a short trip since and he did so much better. They got lost (he tends to not listen to driving directions) and instead of blowing up, he just waited for her to get the gps working. So 50 years in to their marriage and he’s finally dealing with stress without losing his mind.