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06/01/2004 Entry: "Playing with fire..." Yesterday was a pretty cool barbecue. I learned there IS a difference in charcoal. The cheap "self-lighting" stuff lit, then went out, even when I poured like half a bottle of lighter fluid in there. The Kingsford lit, and stayed lit long enough to get the cheap charcoal going. During this time, I managed to burn most of my arm hair off the underside of my right arm. Heh. I was a pyro as a kid. I blame my friend Pat Cartlon, who I don't mind naming, because he stole some matches from my house with my family name on them, and when he got caught, he blamed me. My parents punished me severely for this, but it never diminished my love of working with fire. The whole thing of open fire has always been mesmerizing, and while I'd never set fire to things I shouldn't, I never hesitate to volunteer to make a barbecue fire, camp fire, or build the fire in a fireplace. Sometimes I am too eager, and I have made fires so hot that they melted a fireplace grill and burned all the wood handles of a barbecue before. I went on a campout once where the scout leader (one of those scary ones who wore the 1940's style regulation uniform with dress shoes, dark socks, khaki shorts, and the wide-brimmed ranger's hat) had recently been though a messy divorce. I know this because he said the following: "Fire is like a woman: turn your back on her, and she'll burn you." I don't think that of women, but that's very true for fires. I have always been deeply respectful for the power and vitality of an open flame, and its uncanny knack to spread when you turn your back. I once had an assistant who was training to be a fireman, and he told me that veteran firemen treat fire as a living thing, and see themselves more as exterminators than an average person might think. Like a living thing, it feeds, grows, and reproduces. I think because I have a respect for fire, I haven't had a bad accident with it yet. I have my chimney swept annually and never leave a grill, campfire, hot stove, or lit candle unattended. I test and replace the batteries of my smoke detectors every six months. Yet I know as cautious as I am, I am never that far away from some accident if I am not careful. And so apart from again making the fire too hot (the red paint on the grill turned maroon), no accident happened. April, Andy, Sean, Lou-ann, and I played games. Actually, while Sean and Lou were playing games, I watched their kids, because I have always felt with 3 kids, they need a break to be adults. When they left, I played with April, Andy, Christine, and CR. We played the new Chez Goth, and while we got the new Sticks and Stones 55-card expansion deck to Lunch Money, we didn't play it. Too bad. I could pull a hippie on someone. You don't want to be the hippie. Trust me. There's also a sequel, "Beer Money," which we didn't know existed, and while browsing the Altlas games site, I saw one of the cards that said: When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother, "Will I be pretty? Will I be smart?" Here's what she said to me... No. Hee!