This Week In the Life of Me

I really liked taking pictures of ruins, and gardens, and museums, and other historic sites when I was in England.  Unfortunately, I killed my camera a couple years ago by dropping it and then stepping on it.  Double whammy.

Sooo, I think it's about time I buy another camera.  I've chosen my poison already.  It's a Canon Powershot A590 digital camera.  All the reviews I've read have been really positive and it's around $130, which I think I can handle. 

I'm getting my camera, hopefully, this week to take with me to Grand Junction, and then in June to Indianapolis; where tons of fun will be had by Roni and Kim.  If I get the camera like I plan, I will definitely have more up-to-date photos to put up.  This picture of Stonehenge is almost four years old.  

I joined a Jane Austen book club and we're starting with Persuasion.  I loved the movie, I don't remember the version, or actors names, but it wasn't a BBC mini series version.  I started the book a while back, but never finished it.  I think I couldn't stand middle part with the twists and turns and hurt feelings that had to be resolved.  I believe I read the beginning and the end. This time, I will be good and read the whole thing from cover to cover.  

 

Just belonging to a "Jane Austen book club", frankly, makes me feel all cultured and better than everybody else.  Okay, not really.  It's kind of like the way glasses make a person look smart, no matter what the truth of the matter may be.  

 

Umm, it's time for  a confession now. . . I set off the smoke alarms in the apartment this week.  It was awful.  I had rice on the stove and completely forgot about it.  There were clouds of black smoke billowing from the pot, and the stench was awful.  Added to that was the brain-penetrating power of the howling alarm, and the terrible fear that I wouldn't stop the alarm soon enough to prevent the fire department from coming to drench my rice and waste tax-payers' money because I forgot I had rice on the stove.  

The smell lasted for a couple days and to top it all off, when I tried to salvage some of the rice, I couldn't.  Even the unburned bits smelled terrible.  I really wanted to eat that rice, too.

 

The second part of the alarm story is just persecution of me by the alarms.  Today the alarms went off for no reason.  I promise, there was no smoke, or anything.  I didn't burn ANYTHING today.  I couldn't get the alarms to go off, and I thought I was going to die from the wicked awful clamor.  I was so desperate, what with disturbing the Sunday peace and all, that I disconnected all the alarms from the ceiling.  I just took them right off.  

 

It wasn't until I took off the first alarm that I fully realized that ALL the alarms in the apartment were going off, and the apartment has four alarms.  Three of the alarms cooperated and stopped screeching within a minute of being disconnected.  The fourth and final alarm kept going.  And going.  And going.  I tried turning it over.  That slightly muffled the sound.  I put it under the kitchen sink.  That was better.  But I wanted it to stop completely.  Why not try waving it around under the ceiling fan?  Surely that will stop it, I thought, but I was a bit pessimistic about positive results, to tell the truth.  Happily, the planets were correctly aligned and the alarm stopped...Until I noticed the excess lint stuck in the alarm and tried blowing it out.  

 

What the Heck!  It was at this point that I became personally offended.  I put the alarm back up to the fan and it stopped again.  Sheesh.  Then my roommate came home.  She was very nice about the alarms all being disconnected, even the one in her room, but I just know she thinks I'm a nut.  

 

I got two of the alarms reconnected, no problems, but the other two started screeching as soon as I tried to connect them, so they probably need new batteries, or a service check, or something.  Now I'm all worked up again and angry at obnoxious alarms.