Blinky Lights and Shiny Objects

Yesterday was Earth Day. I hadn't planned anything special. But our house decided to celebrate by burning out one of the compact fluorescent bulbs in the kitchen and - this is the fun part - getting a small gas leak going in the dryer! I was late getting laundry started on Sunday (like 8 pm late) and when I took the towels out of the dryer where they had sat overnight, they smelled VERY STRONGLY of gas. We have a gas dryer (and stove, water heater, furnace...) so I was pretty concerned. The smell was really only strong inside of the dryer. I opened the window (at least the weather was nice) to air out the bathroom. Then I called the gas company. It took a few times to get past a busy signal, but then it took a while to get through the voice mail system. (I'm glad it wasn't a dangerous emergency...) In about a half an hour a technician pulled in the driveway. He comes in with a fancy piece of equipment that has a sniffer on the end and sounds like a Geiger counter ...

When life stops changing drastically every four years, time can start slipping by without making much of an impression. Recently I've become aware that going along in my rut (it's a good rut, but still, I'm doing the same thing week after week) isn't letting enough fun into my life. So I'm making an effort to jump at chances to have new experiences interspersed day-to-day. Last weekend I took Sara up on her offer (see comments to previous post) of going out to a college acapella competition downtown. I've been in choirs and choruses for the majority of my life, but I wasn't quite enough of a chorus geek to be aware of this particular sport. Apparently at some larger colleges (larger than Rose, at least, which was the same size as my high school) groups of students get together and practice acapella songs to perform and compete with other groups. It isn't barbershop, madrigal, Latin chanting, or do-wop. These songs are arrangements of popular music,...