I Wish My Kitchen Would Quit Smoking

            Around midday on Saturday, October 1^st, I heard Jonquil crying outside and went out to see her stumbling in one place on the roof in the rain. I took off my socks and climbed over the railing to get her. A young woman who’d been watching her with concern from the third floor back deck next door, asked, “Is she all right?” I told her, “She’s dying, actually.” She looked sad and went inside. I picked up Jonquil and took her inside and over by the credenza. She crawled in behind the laundry basket for a while and then to a few other places in that general area over the rest of the day.

            That evening I cooked an eye of round roast in the oven. The instructions were to roast it at almost maximum temperature for half an hour and then to turn the oven off but leave the roast in for two hours. In the last part of the thirty minutes the apartment filled up with smoke, so I opened up the windows and the door, which caused the building to fill up with smoke. I apologized to my next-door neighbour, who was wondering if the place was on fire. The landlord was there to collect the rent and so he told me that he wanted to install an exhaust vent for my stove. Apparently everybody else in the building has one but me. He said he’d have to run a pipe along the north wall and halfway across the east wall and put an exit hole there for the pipe.

            David still hasn’t paid me back the twenty dollars I leant him. I could have used it to buy toilet paper since I’m out, and am using paper towels instead.