Observations from Venus

So I'm at dinner with friends last week when we notice that dinner is not cooking as quickly as anybody hoped.  After checking in with the cook, it was determined that the culprit was the oven.  After nearly an hour, the pork chops were still cold.  Fifteen minutes under the broiler and they were done.

Yes, this particular oven doesn't like pork chops.  I was tempted to say it didn't like pork at all, but the oven has previously demonstrated that it could cook pork roast.  As it turns out, this is not the only thing the oven doesn't like.  Turkey is another meat that will not cook in the oven.  Chicken yes, turkey no.

Experts from all over the cooking world are being called in to examine the recalcitrant food heating unit.  If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on hands in the air and quizzical looks.  Because I work at a non-profit, I can't even afford to wager on bets I am certain to win.

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I work with the salt of the earth.  Better coworkers I could not ask for, although their spouses may not entirely agree.

One fellow, who we'll call Bart, has been tending to a strangely sick cat for a while, trying to figure out what's wrong.  Unfortunately the answer is terminal and the kitty will have to be euthanized before they feel he's suffering.  The cat has been anorexic for a while and Bart believes the time is now.  Mrs. Bart, however, takes exception to the idea.  Just the other day she picked him up protectively, glared angrily at Bart, and said to the cat, "Daddy wants to kill you."

I have always suspected theirs was an interesting marriage.

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After marrying my wife, I inherited quite a few interesting sisters-in-law.  One was particularly large.  She stuck with the trend and is now so massive, she has her own gravity field.  In order to appear to be doing something about her massivity, she joined a step club.  

Cynics would say that if she spent one to three days less per week at the bar, the tons would slide off like mad.  

The step club gave everyone a pedometer, which meters how many steps the wearer has taken.  I believe the goal was 1500 per day.  One day upon realizing that she was nowhere near 1500, she demanded her husband wear it to work - so she could get the points for it.

Cynics would suggest they increase the distance between her house and the bar.

One night she waddled home from the bar, clearly in no condition to waddle.  It would have been better for her to call a cab to take her the whole block home.  In any case, she was so hungry, she kept picking up the tv remote, insisting it was a package of cheese crackers.

Low in sodium, high in iron, one would guess.

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