Holy moly, it's been ages, so I'm going to start off slow! So here's the facebook status update:

Jennifer Thomas Gaillard

is relieved that there doesn't appear to be an electrical fire smoldering somewhere in the house. The culprit? A rubber centipede SOMEONE put on top

of a light bulb in my lamp.23 hours ago

Normally I've got a pretty decent sense of smell, but I doubt myself in

the winter when my nose is stuffed up and I have sinus issues. Two

days ago, I could have sworn I smelled something burning around the

house. Not a smoky smell, but something more electrical. And, since

we live in an old house, I'm paranoid about the wiring. I checked the

closet with the fusebox and the back porch where the dryer is. Nothing.

Yesterday evening we had a neighborhood meeting at County Square

(hoping to get a sidewalk on our street, woohoo!!). Came home to the

front porch light on and lamp on the end table on (thank you, Dear for

not making me come home to a dark house!), and THE SMELL!! I did

more sniffing around, and thought the culprit might be our old TV

(still taking up too much space in the living room!!). Erik is obsessed

with plugging things in, and maybe this old tv decided it was going to

start burning from all the plugging and unplugging. I unplugged it and

figured the problem was possibly solved. Then I sat down in my usual

computing spot on the loveseat to enjoy a few moments of peace and

quiet before heading to the grocery store. Under the glow of the lamp

on the end table, I recalled Erik mentioning there was a bug in the

lamp the night before. At the time, I kind of assumed it was a LIVE

bug, like a moth, drawn to the light. But I decided to look into the

shade just in case. And there, sitting on top of the light bulb and

sizzling, was a rubber glow-in-the-dark centipede! Burnt right

through his middle! My nose wasn't lying to me AND our house was

not burning down. Whew! But I think I need to have words with Erik :-P

Jennanigans