Damon and Pythias and all those other Greek chappies

The power returned to our house about 20 hours after it had gone out, so we only had to spend one night sleeping cold and one day at our friends' house. David made the very astute observation that once we knew we didn't have to be there, we could relax and enjoy ourselves, and decided to accept their invitation to stay to dinner. We drank mulled wine and ate soup and spaghetti and played Wii games and had a blast. But it was still so good to go home and sleep in our own beds, with the heat cranked up to reasonable levels. I fell asleep that night certain that we were back on the road to a normal life again.

Until Devon threw up all over me the next morning.

I am fully expecting a large boil to pop out on my ass any moment now, but for the moment, I have both kids pumped full of antibiotics, the streets are plowed and power is running. School and daycare are open, the spouse is at work and I AM IN THE HOUSE ALONE. I would invite you to join me in my tequila-fueled "Sew-n-Slash" party (where I work on various stitching projects while reading Jeeves and Wooster slash fiction and blasting Guns N'Roses), but you are not welcome. It's nothing personal; it's just that you are another human being and I have no desire to see another human being ever again for as long as I live.

In the midst of all the snow and ice and upchucking, I somehow managed to lose all the floss I purchased for my cross-stitch project. Just lost it! One day, it was sitting in a tidy little container on top of my cutting table, and the next it was gone. It was the damnedest thing and it had me stymied for days on end. It bothered me so much, that I would just burst out - in the middle of dinner, during a shower, driving to the pediatrician - WHERE THE HELL COULD IT BE?  And everyone knew what I meant, because I had made such a stink about it. I finally decided that I must have somehow inadvertently thrown it away when I had been cleaning out the closets in my sewing room. This, it seemed, was a message from God or the Fates or whoever that I was not meant to do cross-stitch - as though the massive knots that kept appearing every third stitch or so weren't enough of a hint.

Then yesterday, in a rare moment of clarity, I realized that the rest of my Aida fabric, the second, smaller hoop I had bought, and the pack of needles were also missing, and they had not been in the same box, but had been sitting out on the table. THEN I finally remembered placing everything neatly into a larger container and placing it in my closet along with all of my other containers of sewing supplies, scraps, and unfinished projects. It could not have been in a more obvious spot if I had placed it in a bag and hung it from a ring in my nose. I am also the person who freaks out and yells WHERE ARE MY DAMN CAR KEYS while holding the keys in my hand and flinging them around to demonstrate how frustrated I am that I cannot find them.

For those of you who did not catch the Facebook post by alert reader Debra about the rat poop, here is what she said:

I do a lot of importing for my "real" job. We get merchandise in by the container from overseas and often see evidence of . . . well . . . critters. They (usually rats) crawl around - touch all the shit regardless of packaging. So - WASH THAT FABRIC - regardless of whether you think it will shirink, bleed, fade, stretch - those fucking rats have touched it - I guarantee it. Even if it is domestic (which is rare) it gets shipped and trust me - we have rats too!

Which naturally freaked out several people, including me. Then someone else said that she orders bolts of fabric and they always come completely covered in plastic, so she doesn't think that the rat poop can get on it, but then that begs the question is the rat poop all over the plastic and do you get it on you when you are unwrapping it and then you forget for a second and touch your mouth and YOU HAVE JUST EATEN RAT POOP and anybody who comes in contact with the plastic is going to spread the poop all over everything unless they put the entire shrink-wrapped bundle into one of those Silkwood showers and then set it on fire?

So now we come to our third, and possibly final, question in the Great Quilting Debates Research Project. I am told by my QH overlords that this is a hot button issue, but it was news to me, so I'm curious to get your take on it. Do you only use an expensive, high-quality iron, or will any old iron work just as well? Related to this is the question, steam or no steam?

Have at it, my friends. And if anyone has a good story about irons and rat poop, bring it on.