where there's smoke...

Yesterday morning we had a little problem... I hopped out of the shower to the scent of burning plastic and the haze of smoke, which is never a good sign. We spent the better part of the morning trying to rid our little not-so-well-ventilated apartment of both of these unsavory pneumatic essences.

But let me back up.

The night before I had made a yummy dinner of Thai noodles with tofu and sugar snap peas (go me! That's the first meal I've made in over a week). After the water for the noodles boiled I took the lid off the pan and set in on the stove, and that was the last I thought of it. Next morning, Rob in his husbandly kindness started to make my morning tea by turning on an [electric] burner to heat it up before putting the kettle on it. Of course he happened to turn on the one burner that I had left the pan lid on. Uh huh.

Next thing we know, we're being choked by the stinging smell of burning plastic and there are flames shooting out of the top of the pan lid, and the handle was in an unrecognizable pool of black goop all over the stove top. Not good. Rob put the fire out pretty easily (whew!), but the smell and the smoke... they're still hanging around today. Even after leaving all our windows and sliding door open all day in the freezing temps yesterday. It smells so bad that it still stings our eyes this morning. And poor Chester, he had to stay home in the awful smell all day.

Currently, we're experimenting with various "home remedies" to rid our apartment of the noxious fumes. First up: cut up lemons. They're supposed to "absorb" the smell. We'll see. If not, we'll move on to simmering a pan of various citrus fruits and spices like cinnamon, cloves and the like. We both agreed to avoid the advice to leave cut-up onions all around the house. Heh heh. Hopefully the lemons work!

Now to replace my pan lid...