How I Got A New One...

Just home, suitcases hauled in the door, opened the cupboard. "Want some tea?" I asked Husband. "I just can't seem to find the teakettle."

He hung his head. "Ummm...I sort of had an accident." He put the kettle on, then got absorbed in something elsewhere in the house. Results: fire alarm shrieking and foot-high flames off the burner as the dry kettle caught fire.

Thankfully, he put the fire out before any damage was caused. (Which explains the thin layer of baking soda coating the stove area.)

"I got you a new teakettle!" he announced sheepishly. "This one whistles..."

Hey, that and one half-dead plant. If that's all that went wrong while I was gone, not so bad.

Unfortunately, the suitcases didn't do as well. One of the suitcases came off baggage claim with the front zipper flap open, spilling things out. Not too many things were lost...but one of the jars of spaghetti sauce I'd packed while in Michigan (in a bag, by the way) apparently were opened by the good folks at TSA -- then the jar lid not screwed back on completely. (They didn't put the jars back in the bag, either. Yes, I'd checked the jars' lids before I packed them.) Results: a thin layer of sauce on several of my teaching samples, including a c.1790 crib quilt.

Sigh.

Most of it seems like it will come out...no thanks to those stinkers at TSA. A big bag of brass charms got me personally searched, too -- the TSA just could not believe that anyone would carry something like this, in spite of explanations and two quilts tucked under my arm. No doubt terrorists have dire plans to masquerade as quilt teachers in the future!