Fried Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, and Gravy

Sounds good, right? Last night I decided to make fried chicken for dinner. It's been a while since I've made it and Ryan and I both really like it. (Note: When I say fried chicken I really mean chicken tenders.) So I cut up some potatoes, got them cooking on the stove and started in on the chicken. Some of the chicken was still a little frozen, but I figured after frying in the hot oil and then sitting in a warm oven it would be fine. At least normally it seems to be. I got all the chicken fried and into the oven and stirred the potatoes. They still needed some time, so I thought I would kind of clean up the kitchen. It was pretty clean when I started dinner, but I had made quite a mess and didn't want to deal with it all after dinner. I cleaned up all the fried chicken mess and then decided I would go ahead and put the oil in something. A glass jar (like the one pictured, but a little smaller) should be fine, I thought.

As I went and got the jar I wondered if the oil would be too hot for it still. No, it had been sitting for a little bit and it wasn't as if the jar was cold. So I put the jar on a hot pad to protect the counter and started pour in the oil. POP, sssss. "Oh, no! That was really stupid!" (Duh.) Ryan comes in the kitchen with Olivia as I scurry for something to clean up oil. What DO you use to clean up hot oil? Of course, I had no paper towels; it would take about a million napkins. Meanwhile, oil is running all over the counter. I grabbed some old towels. Ryan helped me clean some of it up and Olivia managed to somehow stay out of the way. I did end up using some napkins.
Ryan: "I'm surprised those towels didn't catch on fire."
Me: "Eh, yeah, well, they didn't. (sigh) Good thing."
A few minutes later, as we were finishing,
Ryan: "At least the house didn't burn down."
I tossed the jar into the trash can he was holding for me to dump stuff into. "Oh, wow", I said, "the whole bottom came off."
Ryan: "Ohhhh, it cracked."
Me: "Yeah." I kind of gave him a strange look. What had he thought had happened. I just missed the wide mouth of this jar and managed to dump oil all over the counter? "Were you putting it in there so you could use that pan for gravy?", Ryan asked. Gravy? I hadn't even thought about gravy. Another sigh (I've been doing a lot of that lately. In fact, Olivia came in our room the other day as we were getting ready to go somewhere. She stopped, slumped her shoulders and "sigh". Really funny, but I knew she must have heard me doing it.) "Actually, I had forgotten about gravy," I said.
"Oh, well, that's ok", he said hurriedly, "we can do without it tonight."
"No, it will be better with it." So I made gravy. It turned out really funny. Not sure exactly why, because I think I made it the same as I always do. The chicken wasn't salty enough, also not sure why since I'd been quite generous with it. The potatoes were good.  Actually, everything tasted ok after you put more salt on it. Oh, and, of course, some of the bigger pieces of chicken weren't completely done. Rather a disappointment after you had been looking forward to it. Ryan looked at me while we ate. "Do you need some Starbucks?"
"Anything with chocolate," I said.
After dinner I was washing Olivia's hands. "Was your dinner yummy?" I asked. Pause. "Or was it interesting?"
"Intewesting," she said. I laughed really hard. I needed to, and it WAS really funny.
While I was getting Olivia ready for bed, Ryan went to Starbucks and got us a Venti decaf Peppermint Mocha. "Us?" you might be asking. But yes, he bought it with his gift card he got for his birthday, so he deserved at least half. It tasted amazing!