Monday Madness -- Kitchen Culch

Otto asks and we answer. And so it goes ... another week begins with questions needing answers.

1. How many clocks (not watches) are in your home? How many of them are digital? How many do you really look at during the day? Counting the ones that don't work, there are about 20 I can think of offhand. About half are digital. The non-digital are the ones most likely to be nonfunctional; then again, they're the least likely to be thrown out.

2. How many lamps (non-overhead lights) do you have in your home? What's your average wattage? Are any of them energy saver bulbs? There's only three overhead lights in this house (What do you want? It was built before the Civil War - electricity is an after thought.) There's probably 15 or so lamps. Most are 60 watts, a few have neon bulbs for energy savings, Most often, older lamps will not physically accommodate the large bulb format employed by the energy savings lamps.

3. How many house plants do you have in your home? How many need more attention than you give them? One- a Spider plant with striped leaves. It will die from the neglect of the black thumb, SWMBO, my wife.

4. How many photos/pictures/drawings/child's art are on your walls? How many from each of the four categories? None at the moment, but usually they cover the walls and all available horizontal surface. We're "redoing" and ran into a snag, which allows me to procrastinate, which means all of the grandkids photos languish in a laundry basket in a stack of stuff to go back into the Living Room.

5. About how many electric gadgets are in your kitchen? How many are used on a daily basis? How many are used occasionally? How many have been used once and stashed? How many have never been used? There's a bunch, for sure. The coffee pot and the microwave/convection oven/toaster are both in use daily. Others, like the bread machine, blender and food chopper are used less frequently. Somewhere in the middle, the electric fry pan and electric stew pot get used at least once a week. I don't think we have any that haven't been ever used. There are a few that need to be heaved but have escaped that ignominious end, so far.