Refrigerators

We have two refrigerators. The first is in the kitchen, brought in with the other wedding presents (cupboards, gas stove, sink). It’s an inch shorter than me , two thirds of it fridge the bottom being apull out freezer full of various bird parts. Maria has no labeling system, but I trust her general knowledge of what good frozen meat looks like and what bad frozen meat looks like. The only time we had even possibly bad meat it was goose boiled in borsh.

Laurentiu claimed it was too pink. Goose being naturally pretty dark, it usually does have a dark magenta hue to it. This color just meant it was not boiled to mushy strings of less-than-meat. It was tastier than any other goose meat I’ve ever had. I told L that it was pink because it had good blood, and it would be good for his blood too. He laughed and ate it.

Though this freezer clearly works well enough to preserve all our meat, its upper normal area is damaged every time you put something warm in it. Theory: Warmth takes longer to cool. More effort by the fridge. Fridge dies a little every time you do this. So don’t.

After twenty odd years of putting warm things in a fridge, it runs out of its Freon.

Like any normal person, you must fix the problem. The problem however must be fixed by taking the whole fridge to a town forty minutes away. No worries, someone will have a car or truck or van, somewhere in the town, right?

“No,” says Maria, “our neighbors have one, but they cannot use it.” The neighbors in question are the sort of red necks who have hobbled together their own chop shop and do nothing with their time but tinker with their two cars, one motorbike, and van. That is, when they are not openly doinging chin ups on the apparatus they welded one day last year and have sitting outside their property fence next to the baba bench.

So, we used the porch all winter for a fridge. It’s large enough for everything, and it sure was colder than the fringe, and often the freezer. Cool.

In Anticipation of Easter, and my family coming, not to mention the warming of the outside pantry, however, a new fridge appeared in the porch pantry. How? Where from?

Laurentiu and Laurentiu Mic of course, from the attic over the bread oven in the bird yard. NB. They also have various little EZ Bake type ovens, an industrial strength hand wash board that’s too hard core for inside house use, the year’s supply of corn meal, various roosting birds, tables, chairs, ladders… Stuff.

It’s little and has enough Freon for the next six to ten years. Only problem is the insulating rubber strip normally used to seal the door to body. All the warm air infiltrates etc. and we have to defrost it once a week. I keep my new ice cube trays in the freezer and they grow their own cube offspring every day. Maria makes sure I don’t drink those ones though. Wise lady.

She tried one of my ice cubes last week when I wasn’t around. She just popped one in her mouth. She said it made all her teeth hurt and she couldn’t figure out why I liked them so much.

“They aren’t candy Maria! You put them in drinks!”

“Like whiskey?”

“Sure, but there is no good whiskey here. Vodka is better. The best American vodka is only like cheap bad vodka here.”

“Oh. And you like it with juice.”

“Yes.”

Our conversations really are pretty stilted sometimes.

“I like, best though, a little vodka with sparkling water and a piece of lemon.”

“Like a cocktail”

“Yea! Like a cocktail. I’ll make us cocktails one day when it is very hot. The taste is mild, you will like it.”

“hahahahaha”

Maria hates alcohol. Less than half a shot of moonshine makes her head hurt. It usually takes four shots of moonshine to make my head hurt. No amount of explaning that’s why we cut it with lots of sparkling water, and then flavor with a lemon, would convince her though.

Oh well. I have ice cubes.

The best part about the fridges, after ice cubes, is that only one of them is cat proof. Thanks to the shrinking door insulation, there is not enough suction to keep Mama the devious old cat at bay. So we only keep capped up dairy products in there and stock a stool in front of the door.