End of the Dry Spell

I haven't had much to blog about lately. Things have been very quiet around the house, and there haven't been any crazies on the metro in the morning. Both of those things changed today.

Yesterday we noticed our A/C wasn't blowing. The house was really warm, and though we could hear the thermostat click over, no air was coming from the vents. We turned off the A/C, and planned to call maintenance in the morning. We've been lucky weather-wise lately, so it's pleasant enough to just open a door and let the breeze in. Besides, the cats love the fresh air tinted with all those nature scents.

This morning at 3:20 our smoke detector went off. Now, for those of you that've had the privilege of waking in this fashion, you know it's not all that great. Ed and I lunge out into the living room, expecting the house to be ablaze and find....nothing. I'm standing under the smoke detector in question, and I notice that my shoulder is awfully wet. I look up and see a growing droplet of moisture—the smoke detector is peeing on me!

The A/C, which is upstairs, directly over said smoke detector, evidently defrosted enough during the night to start leaking, and it appears as though there isn't a drain pan for the A/C, or the apartment folks have bypassed it in some way. Then the A/C thawed, the water ran down through the wall and into the smoke detector, setting it off. We called the emergency maintenance number, and maintenance showed up about 20 minutes later. They just disconnected the detector, and said they'd be back to assess the damage during normal working hours.

Maintenance showed up this morning at 10, as promised, but found that the A/C was still partially frozen. We're going to have to wait until tomorrow to get resolution.

So, I'm late getting to work because of this, so I don't actually leave for the train until about 10:30 or so. I get to the Metro Station, and it's PACKED. There are tourists EVERYWHERE. This is the first official weekend of the Cherry Blossom Festival, and the gawkers have shown up en masse. Kids screaming, parents on their cell phones (yelling when we go into the tunnel, because duh, when the signal drops, all you have to do is scream to be heard!), strollers in the aisle, and so forth. I don't want to think about my commute home tonight. It's going to be awful.

Seriously Delinquent

It's been nearly two weeks since I made a blog post, and that's far too long. Here's an update on the goings-on as of late:

1. On Monday my sister had a baby. No one knew she was pregnant. We're happy for her, none the less.
2. I recently called to catch up with a friend from middle school (Tabitha). I spoke to her mom for 15 minutes, and got some general updates. I'm hoping to hear from Tabitha herself this weekend sometime.
3. I finally mailed a letter & pictures to my family in France. I've had the finished letter in my bag for nearly three weeks, and I've wanted to send something for 7 months or so. Took me long enough!

That's about the extent of it. Been pretty quiet lately. We're still fighting with Carnival over the hassle that was our last cruise, but so far we've had no resolution. Oh, and South Park last night was AWESOME! We knew that Parker and Stone would have some sort of retaliation, and Ed nailed it on the head—he said they'd eliminate the Chef character, probably by making him a child molester or something. Hilarious!

One of us. One of us.

I've been experiencing an increasingly annoying phenomenon. While reading a book, people, whether at work, in elevators, or on the train, tend to ask if it's any good. Lately, I've been doing alot of repeat reading, so my answer is usually "It's good, but I've read it before."

This is when the conversation turns dire. The questioner gives me the "Why would you read a book a second time?" look, at which point I offer up guiltily, "I'm a reader." This is always a mistake. Usually the response to that is just to repeat my statement: "Oh. You're a reader", their voice drippping with near palpable disdain. It's the same tone you'd use to say "Oh. You have leprosy," or "Oh. You have a dead man's liver in your shirt pocket."

I tend to believe their unspoken message is "What? Is that book really a good replacement for human interaction?" To those silent querents, my answer is, no, it's not a good replacement for human interaction. However, it is a good replacement for interaction with humans like you.

Jury Duty

Ed will be participating in juror service today. While he's hoping to get out of there at noon (like I did!), I hope that he at least gets through the voir dire stage. I really wanted to at least go through jury selection when I went. Instead, I spent 4 hours sleeping in the jury lounge...

No More Dominos Pizza At My House

CNN reported this morning that Thomas S. Monaghan has gathered $250 million to construct the town of Ava Maria, surrounding Ava Maria University in Florida, and that the town will be founded under the guiding principles of the Roman Catholic Church.

Part of the plan for his city includes inserting provisions into retail and business leases (since he plans on holding title to all of the retail-zoned property in the city) that restricts the peddling of such abhorrent things as birth control pills, pornography, and condoms. Monaghan also says that there will be no place in his town to receive an abortion.

Even with all of that, it doesn't bother me (much). If this guy wants to spend his money in this fashion, and there are people willing to live behind the curtain of his rules, then they can have at it. Obviously, I won't be purchasing property in Ava Maria. I'll exercise my voice of dissent by not purchasing products or obtaining services from Monaghan's company again.

What does raise my hackles, however, is that Jeb Bush, an ELECTED government official, attended the ground breaking ceremony and praised the town!

I think it's highly inappropriate for Jeb to throw his weight behind a project so steeply rooted in religious beliefs. The spokesman for the governor said that, obviously, all rules and lease restrictions would have to follow Florida law. How long will it take for the state to strike down or change said laws, so that these folks can do as they wish without impunity?

I can't remember where I saw it, but I once read something that said people don't create laws so that their own actions can be controlled. Laws are always created to save other people from what one person sees as immoral. I guess now we can add incorporating a township into that as well.

This has Waco written all over it. Can't you just see, 10 years down the road, a stand-off Branch Davidian style between local law enforcement and the residents of Ava Maria , who have secluded themselves in their town, surrounded only by people to bolster and reinforce their beliefs, without the benefit of disagreement, debate, or outside influence?