Lights Out

My wife, Jan, loves candles. We have a whole drawer in the kitchen devoted to them- and not a small drawer either. It used to be that you only brought out the candles for special occasions like Thanksgiving or Christmas.They were white or maybe  red or green; holiday colors.  Sometimes during thunder storms back in Ohio they made an appearance if a tree blew a line down somewhere. Everyone had a few candles on hand for emergencies. Last week the power went out in town, and the whole city was thrust into darkness. It's kind of eerie- no street lamps or anything. On the one hand it's kind of neat if the stars are out- you can really see them unimpeded by the town lights. On the other hand, it just so happened that it was Thursday evening, the only night that I really care to watch TV. My two favorite shows were on, both of which I missed. The power was out for over four hours and since we don't  have an alternate source of heat, aside from Rigby the dog, it got a little chilly in the house. Surprisingly it didn't get as cold as I expected it to though. Jan waltzed over to the candle drawer and proceeded to light mass quantities of the waxy gems. Not only were we able to see enough to keep from tripping over slippers and other paraphernalia that had been left on the floor, but the combined heat of all the candles actually kept the room temp from falling below 59degrees. I know that doesn't sound exactly toasty, but considering how cold it was outside, it was ok. As you can see, candles now come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. She has some that look like apples, some that are round, square, tapered and squat in a multitude of colors. We may even have a candle that you light and hold over your ear to melt ear wax- I'm not kidding. Knowing my luck I would drip the candle wax into my ear canal and have to go to the hospital and explain how it got there. The only person in recorded history with second degree burns on his eardrum. I'm sure the doctor would look at me like I was kid who shoved frozen peas up my nose or something. Nowadays there seems to be a market for like designer candles or some such thing. They aren't cheap. At one time if you were invited to a Christmas get together you might run down to the Dollar Store and grab up something green or red in a glass with a sticker on the bottom that declared the scent was Holley or Evergreen or some other exotic smell. Now candles are like a work of art and are priced accordingly. They have scents like Mountain Blueberry or Sandalwood or Ocean Delight. I'd kind like to buy a candle with a name like Ocean Delight. I like the smell of fish- when it's fresh that is. It probably wouldn't make for a very romantic dinner if you were to light a candle that smelled like a dead Carp though. My daughter Jen has apparently taken after her mom in her love for candles. A family friend drove past her house the night the lights went out and declared it to be lit up like the Vegas strip. No doubt it was plenty warm in there. In any event, candles have come a long way since the days when a string was dipped in tallow and left to harden. If the power goes out again, I hope you  have a few standing by. If you don't, you know where you can borrow some.

Comments

  1. I love candles too, in fact I have one burning now...Kaleb just got home and wanted to blow it out:) Nope, I have gas so I need to keep the candle lit:):) Liz

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  2. Bahaha, that's funny Liz, and not surprising at all! I love candles too, I have a bunch. I also have some of those kerosine lamps with the hurricane lamps, LOVE those!

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  3. Really Liz? Do you think a candle will help?

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  4. HAHA Liz...you..have gas? Say it aint so!!!!!!!! I remember walking through Freddy's with you and you let out an exceptionally loud one as someone walked by..and you looked at me with this astonished look on your face.."AMBER! What the heck!?" I was quite mortified! Candles...eh...I can take em or leave em...I do like the lavendar scented candles if I hafta burn one..it's very relaxing. I prefer to burn inscense.....as long as it's not too potent. As always father, you've managed to make a mundane thing such as candles, an amusing story;-) Love you..AJ

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  5. I know I can't believe it myself...I was totally caught off guard.Liz

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  6. Thanks Amber- I sometimes struggle to find something to write about. The weather is such that travel is limited, and with the boat hauled out of the water, that puts the cabosh on fishing stories, so I have to draw on other everyday experiences, however mundane. Glad you liked it. love you too.

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  7. Enjoyed the post, Tom.Jim doesn't like me to burn candles, unfortunately, as most scents bother him. Plus, he's afraid one of us will leave a candle burning and set the house afire, the big ninny. Better get another source of heat for emergencies - like a small karosene stove. Or even a small coleman camping stove that you can use small propane canisters on (we have one of those from when we used to camp;now we have the woodstive in the dining room). Might come in handy to heat up a pot of beans on. Then you can have Liz advise you about what candles to use to get rid of bean fart odor - it all comes around full-circle, doesn't it?? Hugs to all of you!

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  8. HI Jill- I don't mind candles,but I don't like to have more than one at a time going unless it's an issue like we had. Jan went out and bought some kerosene lamps. Lord knows we had a number of them when we lived on the farm, but somehow we managed to get rid of them over time. I guess we figured we wouldn't need them again since we were moving in to town. How naive. I want to get a small generator just to run the Toyostove and maybe a light or two. We'll see what the summer brings, maybe Fishaclaus will be good to me and I can take care of a number of needs that are cropping up. I don't think I want to ask Liz for advise about candles- she'd probably steer me to ones that smell like HIG's- Hot Intestinal Gases.

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  9. Good blog dad, I to LOVE LOVE LOVE candles if I could I would burn them all the time. I remember when I first moved down here I had a candle burning on the coffee table and Dorothy got up there to smell it, she cought her tail on fire. hahahah. Love ya

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  10. A drawer of candles? Pfft... That's nothing. My wife has a whole closet full of the Party Lite candles. And God forbid we burn one once in a while.... They are for decoration, not using.

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  11. When i read over your part about the different scents of candles. It reminded me of a teacher I had in college. Him and his wife started a candle company called his essence. Their inspiration came from a bible verse, "Psalm 45:8 tells us when Jesus returns, the scent of his garments will be of myrrh, aloe and cassia." Of all the scents you could think of but i think its still a neat idaa. I never bought any of the candles so I can't tell you if it smells nice, but its seems other people are still buying them. they got two more scents, servantehood and resurrection. www.hisessence.com

    I haven't thought about that since I took his class some 5 years ago.

    I am still enjoy reading your blogs. might have to make me some of those blueberry muffins again soon. :)

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  12. Hi Todd- just think of the light you could generate with all those candles man. If you lit them all at once you could probably have a sauna.

    Hi David- I'll check out the web site. I'm not wild about candles myself, but Jan is, so maybe I'll have to order a couple for her. Thanks for commenting. By the way, I made a batch of those muffins yesterday- delightful!

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