I set our toaster oven on fire. Pretty exciting at the time. Pine nuts are very flamable if you don’t keep your eye on them. I knew that if I opened the little glass door, the flames would woosh out as they got oxygen, so I ran to the back sliding door, opened it, unplugged the unit and carried it (hot and dribbling smoke) gingerly outside. Then I (even more gingerly) opened the door with a stick, jumped back (the flames *did* whoosh out) and dumped a bucket of water over it.

I was lucky that the bucket was there, but we have a leaky gutter and I put the bucket under the leak for just such an emergency. Handy.

Lisa tried cleaning the toaster oven, but it was a thankless job, as we don’t even like the oven much. It turned out to be not really the kind of oven we would have bought except that we were in a hurry for kitchen appliances at the time. So we’re retiring it, and we’ll find a home for it somewhere.

We now have a new toaster oven, and I have decided to use the “toast” setting for pine nuts from now on. (It has a timer).

I hope you all had a fantastic time watching the odometer roll over to a new century. Here’s to seeing the second millennium out for real next year.