Girls and refrigerators gone sort of wild...

Our friend V was here this weekend with her friend K... they played tourist around the little towns during the day and stayed in our guest cottage at night. I think Mickey Kitty remembers V from the old house. When my cats were on our screen-porch there, their little ears would perk up when V sang out to her own cats next door. Only my blue-eyed AngelBoy cat would scrunch up his little cat-face when he heard V singing. AngelBoy didn't like a disturbance of any kind, and he even scrunched-up his face when I put a Barry Manilow CD on the player. I guess he didn't care who was doing the singing-- Barry or V -- he just didn't like the music disturbing his little blue-eyed cat life.

V and K went to a local winery on Saturday, to stomp grapes and taste the wines. (Or maybe they did the tasting before the stomping.) One of the wine-makers used K's phone to take pictures of the two of them ankle-deep in a bucket of grapes.... V said they felt like Lucy and Ethel during the entire process.

We all had a nice visit...... lots of talking, laughing, catching-up. At one point, I saw my husband's eyes glazing over while we were having dessert in the dining room. There he was, poor guy, sitting with three women, all of whom were talking at once-- and we all knew exactly what was being said, but it was hard for him to follow the conversation. When we all just had to take a breath, my husband said we sounded like the panel of women from the TV show called "The View."

Being that V and I had enjoyed the cherry cobbler at "Martha's Bloomers Cafe" a couple of weeks ago, I made two square pans of that for dessert--- more than enough for the whole weekend. If I do say so myself, my cobbler was nearly as good as Martha's. I didn't make the fresh whipped cream, figuring to save some on the calorie count.

The worst part of the weekend...... my fridge, this brand new, not even a year-old fridge, decided to just quit. The noise it had been making since the repairman was here and ordered the parts it needed-- finally quit, and the fridge was as quiet as it had been before. Sure it was quiet-- the darn thing wasn't working. I was on the phone for most of Saturday morning, with the people at Samsung (the manufacturer) and the people at Lowe's (where we bought it). No one agreed with me-- that they should just bring me a "new unit" (as they called it) and take this pretty white box out of my kitchen. The parts are on order..... the repairman will be back as soon as he has the parts in his hands.... la dee dah.... And what am I supposed to do with the food in this useless white box standing in my kitchen that is no longer keeping anything cold?

At one point during the endless phone calls, I asked the Samsung people if there was a manager or supervisor there to speak to. They put me on hold, hoping to connect me with the "executive customer service department." After a few minutes, the girl got back on the phone and very nicely told me they were unavailable. And what does that mean? Are they out to lunch? Did they all quit? Do they not work on the weekends? None of the above-- she said their computers were down. I couldn't resist. I said to the girl: "Are those computers made by Samsung?"

Thankfully, we have an extra fridge in the garage...... so at nearly midnight on Friday night, my husband and I were moving everything from the white box in the kitchen to the refrigerator in the garage. There's a lot of steps between my kitchen counter and the fridge in the garage..... none of the trips were happy ones (grumble, grumble), but I did try to keep it all in perspective. At least we have the extra fridge.... we aren't throwing food away because it's going bad.... it's not that much of an inconvenience....

Needless to say, I was not in the mood for going with V and K to stomp grapes this weekend. However, I should have given that big white box to the wine-making people.... it would have held more grapes than a wooden bucket. V and K would have been covered in purple up to their necks, rather than just up to their ankles. Try explaining that to the husbands.