Welcome to 'Stuff Chad Does'

I’m seriously considering renaming this blog 'Stuff Chad Does' in light of the fact that there’s no crafting of any kind going on in the Crafty Kitchen. But once again, Chad has supplied me with a story it would be downright negligent not to share. (For other Chad adventures, click here.)

Chad went paddling at the Toronto waterfront today. I stayed home. I knew he’d get hungry, so I suggested that he take some leftover pasta casserole with him for lunch. But, because I am inherently selfish, apparently, and wasn’t going on this outing with him, I did not assemble a nutritious lunch for him. Surely thinking, ‘Huh, wife right. I will be hungry soon,’ he dutifully scooped some casserole into a plastic container and packed it with his paddling stuff. Off he went and had a lovely solo paddling excursion.

Later in the evening, I was washing a few dishes, including the plastic container Chad had taken with him. I kind of smirked as I washed it, thinking, Oops, I forgot to tell him to take some sort of utensil to eat it with. I wonder how he ate it. Probably with his hands. How cute.

When I opened the container to scoop out the remaining few pieces of pasta before washing it, there was also a small piece of cardboard in the container. I recognized this piece of cardboard as one we used recently to modify our car bike rack so as not to put undue stress on a few cables. We cut a few of these pieces (rectangles of roughly one inch by three inches) from a case of beer bottle empties that was in the car trunk. Huh, I thought, here’s one of the cardboard pieces. How on earth did it get in with Chad’s lunch? Whatever…

So I’m washing dishes and smirking because I know he forgot to take a fork, and I ask Chad, ‘So, I forgot to tell you to pack a fork to eat your pasta. How did you eat it?’ Chad starts to giggle. ‘Heh heh, you know what I did?’ Oh God, things are coming together in my brain. The cardboard. The cardboard IN the lunch container. The absence of any utensil. ‘Heh heh,’ says Chad. ‘You know those cardboard pieces….’ I drop my dishcloth and back away from the sink and cardboard piece. No, he didn’t, I think. He wouldn’t. But he did. He used the cardboard piece as an improvised spoon, or crude scooping device, anyway, to eat his pasta casserole.




‘What? I washed it off first! What?’ he asserts defensively. So he ‘washed off’ a piece of dirty cardboard in the foul water of Toronto’s harbour. And then he ate off it. A dirty piece of soggy cardboard. Like a hobo. My husband. I hate to repeat myself, but just when you think you know a guy...

The Converts

Once upon a time, there was a family. The S family. And the S family was not known for its love of cats. For years, nay, decades, Mr. S. made jokes that went something like this: 'Ha, nice kitty. But you'd be nicer in the freezer!!' 'Ha, I love cats....frozen solid in the freezer!' et cetera. Mrs. S's feelings about cats were less obvious, leaning more toward ambivalence. It has been reported that Mrs. S considered feline purring 'suspicious.' Also, Mrs. S. did not like to touch or pick up cats, finding it 'creepy' that they sometimes go limp when you pick them up, and you can feel their bones under their fur.

Then, something changed. Last autumn, it occurred to S.S. that perhaps she liked cats. Perhaps she wanted a cat. Enter stage left the H sisters, who within hours had convinced S.S. that in fact she wanted two cats, and we'll pick them up tomorrow....but that's another story.

And then, on that October weekend, began a family transformation.

Nowadays, Mr. S. is known to rearrange and even outright lie about his week's plans to enable him to take the felines to the cottage for an extended getaway. He can even be seen--gasp!--walking Charles and Katherine on their leashes, introducing them to the great outdoors as he takes his morning constitutional. While cottaging, the family is often awoken in the morning by the delighted giggles of Mr. S. as he taunts the kittens with a toy. And Mrs. S., apparently no longer finding it stomach-turning to hold a feline, is reported to scoop the cats into her arms for a snuggle greeting upon arriving chez S.S.

Chad and I had dinner last week with S.S. and her much beloved felines, Charles and Katherine. S.S. had received a new shower curtain for Christmas, putting her old shower curtain out of work. The old shower curtain was essentially a huge bath towel with some grommets along the top. So, S.S., of the family not previously known for its love of cats, retained this old terrycloth shower curtain and, all tricky-like, says to me: 'Hey, is there any way you could use this? Maybe sew it into something useful for the Humane Society?'

Translation: 'I am now a great lover of cats, and nothing would please me more than to bring some joy to the felines who have no loving homes. I am personally not in possession of a sewing machine. I find nothing more frustrating than when you're sewing along all fine and the bobbin suddenly goes 'bbzzzeetpppfffft' and you have to rethread the machine. So, won't you please take this old shower curtain and, using your own sewing machine, turn it into some cat beds for the poor, lonely feline souls at the Humane Society?'

So, in a gift made possible by the family not previously known for its love of cats, I shall donate the resulting five cat beds to the Toronto Humane Society.