Fire, Fun and a bit of Fear

If you put a bunch of teenagers in front of a fire pit they will always have more fun. The parents might get a bit wobbly about it (like I did) but it kind of makes them feel like we are letting them do something dangerous, while the crackling wood and dark skies give them the veiled illusion of privacy.

As a fireman's daughter, I think I was probably about 23 years old before I dared to light a match; I never thought I was afraid of fire, but I definitely had a healthy respect for what a spark could turn into. Of course, my housewarming present was a fire extinguisher, but when I actually had a small fire in my house it was the baking soda that I reached for (low tech that I am, I couldn't follow the paragraph of instructions on the fire extinguisher, but I could quickly open a box....).

When we had just moved into our house, I decided to entertain on an epic level, and I filled my Living Room with lots of candles for a fancy dinner party. Beautiful, hand-rolled beeswax candles were placed on top of vintage wooden spools, mismatched silver candlesticks were clean but not too polished, and dozens of tea lights were tucked inside newly bought mason jars.

For an hour or so it looked beautiful, until the wax started to drip (a lot) and the candles started to soften and fall. I hastily blew them out, just as we heard a couple of very loud cracking noises; apparently, the mason jars were for decoration only, and the barely warm heat from the tea lights was just enough to make the bottoms crack.

Fortunately, the glass didn't travel too far, but broken glass is not a happy time at anyone's party. We cleaned up the mess, the romance was gone, and I immediately fell back in love with the glow of a light bulb.

With Summer here, the lure of cozy fires and charcoal on my food, makes me once again reach for the matches. I want to make like my favorite magazine and spend long evenings sitting outside with friends, talking over a chorus of frogs, and festooning my trees with dozens of flickering candles and miles of tiny fairy lights.
But I can't, because in real life my trees would catch on fire, and the fairy lights would probably get eaten by a passing squirrel, so instead, I will invite friends over, we will toast marshmallows on sticks, get bitten by mosquito's, use tortilla chips to start the fire pit burning (try it, it really does work), keep a jug of water nearby, and be sure to keep the lid on very, very tight....