Fish eggs in the chimney

This weekend I was called into the kitchen. "Norman," my wife yelped. The "come here right now" was filled in by the tone and pitch in her voice. "Look at this," she said as we hovered over the stove top. "What? What is it?" "Something gross," she said. I must point out that my wife keeps a beautiful kitchen. She's always punctual about cleaning up behind herself or putting away things when she's finished with them. Well trained in her early childhood, I imagine, and orderly. If there's anything stacked up or messed up in the kitchen, 9 out 10 times, that would be my fault. I may be the dishwasher, but I tend to put that off for 6-18 hours if possible. Whatever this thing was on the stove, I assumed it was something to do with me, or an insect, or something to do with an old parsonage. I was only able to see it once she had picked it up with a cleaning cloth and again I inquired what it was. "I don't know. Fish eggs in the chimney or something." Fish eggs in the chimney. Wow! We had been going too fast and for too long. These last two weeks were a bit stressful and overwhelming for us both and we really needed a break for just a day or two. We'd been hearing things (our cat too) that sounded like they were coming from the chimney last week and came to the conclusion it must be some of the barn swallows at the house flying and perching around the chimney. What she meant to say was bird eggs in the chimney, but the damage was already done. We've had next to no rain in the last 2 weeks but somehow there were now fish eggs in the chimney. It was official, we had reached burnout and we would be taking the next two days off from the lake in the sky to head to the ocean by the shore. If you ever have fish eggs in the chimney, I recommend it. I think it's just the remedy needed - that, and a few extra hours of sleep. As for the fish eggs...well, it turned out to be a small piece of broccoli that had fallen out of the stir-fry earlier in the week and somehow managed to avoid my wife's tidy kitchen abilities. May you find sabbath space and time today.