You Smell That?

It feels like I haven't written in a month.  I haven't had a reader from Slovenia in about a week!  I need to get back to writing! Well, actually it was yesterday.  It only seems like longer.  I think my cheese may be slipping off of its cracker.  (well a nice aged Camembert would sit comfortably above a multi grain stone ground baked wafer...but I digress) 
I was trying like mad last month to write as often as I could, during the Christmas break from teaching, and I was able to write almost every morning but, whew, did it make me tired.  Not the actual typing...I'm not that out of shape.  "Yes doctor, I typed 20 words a minute for an hour.  I'm spent!  Does that count as cardio?"  No, the reason that I was worn out is that I have sort of promised myself that I wouldn't take away from family time to write.  Before you start saying, "Awwww, that's so sweet....I think Bill Cosby should play him in the movie they make about his life." let me stop you.  I am not always able to keep that promise.  And sometimes, when I've gotten up early to write, it takes me a little longer than an hour to get my ramblings written down.  Here's the thing...once I've started to write, it is very hard for me to stop and do something else.

Sylvia says, "Honey, could you come take a look at this room...is it supposed to be on fire?  Oh, you're writing, I'll come back."

It's not quite that bad...but it's close.  There have been times when Sylvia will get up and wonder if I forgot to look at the clock since we have a half hour to be somewhere...and are the kids up?  Oops.  I try not to start writing unless I have a solid block of time to finish.  Thanks to Fudge the wunderhund I am up early... often...too often!  But I suppose it's better than spending my weekends shampooing carpets.

So, losing track of time (and topics) is not the only reason I fear that my mental marble sack has developed a hole.  I have a smelling problem lately.  Ha ha, very funny...Oh yes, the body odor humor is very much appreciated sir.  Haven't heard that one before.  That is not what I mean.  I do stink, but I am talking about something else today.  My brain has been misfiring lately and I have been smelling things that just aren't there.  Not unpleasant things, that would be awful, but normal things...if I wasn't sitting at a computer. 

It started about a week ago when we had a spill in the computer room.  An oil lamp, of sorts, tipped over and slowly leaked down a shelf.  Every once in a while we (the 'we' is important at this point) would get a whiff of something chemical in the play room.  (the play room, AKA the school room, and the computer room, the Wii room, and formerly known as the blue room, before the carpet was changed)  The smell kept increasing and we would typically smell it while working at the computer.  As the lead bug killer and chief smell finder in the house I tried everything.  I crawled under the computer, I moved around the chairs, I crawled on my hands and knees sniffing and looking very much like a bloodhound trying to find a missing child.  Fudge was looking at me and thinking, "I know he used to be in charge, but I think I could take him."  I was stumped.  I couldn't find it anywhere.  That is not like me.  I once was able to have the school cancel an exterminator call because I found a hidden lunch box that had begun to rot...odoriferously!  That's me, and my super sniffer.  This time, nothing!

It got increasingly unpleasant and I even said to Sylvia, "I know that smell.  It is some sort of solvent that has spilled on plastic."  I just couldn't find it.  And then Sylvia did.  Across the room at the base of the bookshelf an old plastic clipboard from when I coached baseball (which is a series of hysterical blogs in itself) was saturated in lamp oil.  Having been bested by Sylvia in the smell finding arena I released a handful of bugs into the house...so I wouldn't seem completely obsolete.  I'd hate to be replaced by Jeff 2.0.  The new version with a nose that works.

After the cleanup was complete we had no more strange odors while sitting at the computer.  (well, none that couldn't be explained away.  Fudge!! No No!!)  And then a few days ago it happened.  I was sitting at the computer and I smelled pancakes.  I didn't smell them cooking in the kitchen.  I smelled them right here!  It was like the kids were trying to coax me away from the keyboard by waving a plate under my nose.  Problem was, no kids, no plate.  I felt the computer desk to see if someone had eaten breakfast here and spilled a significant amount of maple syrup that didn't get cleaned up.  No luck.  I got back into smelling stance (eager to redeem myself) and found nothing.  I smelled my clothes.  "Hon!  Did you buy a new laundry detergent that is made from trees?" 
"Umm?  No?  Are you okaaaay?  Come here and kill this bug." 
(yessss!)

There were no pancakes anywhere.  I even asked the kids, "Did you guys eat syrup this morning?" 
"Nope.  Can you come get this bug." 
(Contract.  Renewed!)

I tried to pass it off as some sort of cranial misfire and go about my day.  Then I went into our bedroom to get something.  Toasted marshmallows.  Oh come on!!  Seriously?  Now I smell toasted marshmallows in the bedroom.  As an aside, let me explain that we have NOT toasted marshmallows in our bedroom...for at least a month.  There should not be the odor of anything resembling toasted marshmallows in our bedroom.  It was like someone had secretly jammed a couple of odd smelling Jelly Bellies into my nostrils...so I checked.  Nothing.  Hey, anything at this point. 

So now I am walking around sniffing the air, walking up and smelling everyone, slowly searching the house for a phantom...with a sweet tooth...all the while Sylvia has her hand hovering over the phone wondering if this is something the authorities might like to know about.  And then it went away.  No more pancakes.  No more marshmallows.  Sylvia took my temperature.  The dog was able to stop laughing at me.  All was right with the world.  Until I went to work.

I got into my classroom and sat down at the computer and wham!  Who the heck is chopping down pine trees behind me?  Come On!!  Yup, now I smell trees.  Anyone have Dr. House's number?  Perhaps a portable CT scan.  I could use a little help over here.    This is the strangest thing to have happen.  Not terribly unpleasant but odd.  I suppose it could be worse.  I could be smelling chicken coops and roof tar.  I think I'll stick with the sweets and the nature thank you very much.

My cousin Bev, who just recently found me on Facebook, suggested that my body was trying to tell me something and I should listen to it.  Her theory is that my brain is trying to make me remember things that it wants me to do.  Pancakes, Marshmallows, Trees?  She thinks I should go camping.  That is a better theory than any other I've heard.  I think I might listen to my body.  I'm gonna go make pancakes.   Well I was going to make them.  I may not need to...it smells like someone started cooking sauerkraut!