Public service announcement

Today I learned the very useful lesson that if you smell gas, you should call 911. I was only peripherally aware of a funny smell this afternoon before one of my neighbors waved me outside. My home office is in the living room, and I keep an eye on things outside while working but don't usually pay attention while I'm in meetings. My neighbor told me that she smelled something, I should call someone, and that she was going grocery shopping.

With that inauspicious comment, I googled my natural gas company and learned that calling 911 was the recommended action. And, in fact, when I called 911, they agreed. Fire trucks and the gas company quickly arrived. It turned out that the city, while replacing my street's sidewalks, had damaged my gas line, which filled my yard and started seeping into my front rooms. 

So today I learned many fun facts: you should immediately call 911 if you smell something odd. Natural gas does not smell precisely like rotten eggs, unlike the advertisements. Firemen do not wear masks, even when they're in your house. However, the gas company is highly invested in making sure you don't blow up, and will even avoid walking on your tulips and raspberries while doing that.

Scenes from Ohio

I hate my parents' stove. I think it's some kind of electric coil/glass top, which makes it easy to clean, but difficult to use. Some of the heating elements don't work, it takes forever to heat up a pan, and the controls are the opposite of intuitive. Last Christmas, I got fed up and threatened that if they hadn't replaced the stove by next Christmas, I was not cooking for everyone. My father apparently took this to heart, and while they haven't replaced the old stove, he did build a handy-dandy, propane-fueled, three-burner stove. It worked great, although you'll note that I was too short to use it properly. I think the plan is to buy something permanent and new, but if this is the option next winter, I can live with it.

As my years as a vegetarian roll on, I find I'm enjoying handling meat less and less. So my father made the meatballs while I made the mushroom balls. Everyone enjoyed their respective pasta dish.

My mother, a friend of hers, and I have been exercise buddies for the past few months. Although we all live in different places, we text each other every day with the accounting of whatever activity we've managed. I took lots of photos of our walks to add to the text thread. It was sunny but windy in Ohio until the last day, when Mother Nature played an April Fool's Day joke and dumped a few inches of snow on us.