It appears to be a black hole.

When straightening up last night, I decided to go through the old magazines in the rack (most of my newer ones are on/under the coffee table).

It seems I haven’t done that in a while. The following items have been moved from the magazine rack into the recycling bin:

• L.L Bean Holiday 2004 catalog
• “What’s Up Annapolis” magazine, November 2004
• “Jane” magazine, November 2004 and March 2005
• “Real Simple” magazine, March and April 2005
• “Glamour” magazine, March and April 2005

I will also be discarding a large pile of assorted July-October 2006 magazines that were neatly stacked in the credenza.

From on/around the coffee table, I am only letting myself keep the magazines from 2007.

I always feel like there is something important in every magazine, and I hate getting rid of them before I’ve finished reading them. Far too often, I don’t have enough time.

I don’t want to discontinue my subscriptions, because I like all of them.

But they are taking over my house!

But an unwatched Pop-Tart comes out a bit singed around the corners.

Yep, I learned an important lesson today. Never trust the office toaster oven.

It usually takes forever, so this morning I took my tea back to my office, read ONE very short e-mail, and returned to the kitchen to find my over-cooked (but still partially salvageable) breakfast. I had only turned the dial to medium!

Now I know.

At least it didn’t catch on fire. According to my co-worker (who discovered the ruins of my breakfast), Pop-Tarts are quite flammable. Apparently because of all the sugar, they can cause flames to shoot out of the toaster. (I’m not sure if he’s witnessed this first-hand or just heard about it.)

So of course I had to do some research.

According to Wikipedia, there was a lawsuit in 1992 when a guy’s Pop-Tart failed to eject from his toaster and caught fire. The case was popularized by a Dave Barry column, and proven with an experiment.

After the resulting lawsuits, they added a warning.

“Do not leave toasting appliances unattended due to possible risk of fire.”

Hmm … guess I don’t think I need to read instructions for heading up a Pop-Tart. I’ll check the box for that!

Though, I do recall it saying “Do not microwave” on the foil package.

I wonder if they mean the foil wrapper itself (duh), or if there is also some sort of explosion or reaction if you microwave the pastry itself …

It’s in the bathroom at my office.

We moved to a new office around the holidays, and it’s sorta been bothering me ever since I noticed the key hole.

It makes sense that the toilet paper holder also has a lock, to prevent folks from stealing it.

But a) there is nothing in there that anyone would want to steal, and b) the opening is wide enough, anyway, to remove whatever can be placed inside.

Why?

So we’ve decided to work from home today. Freezing rain is still falling, and they haven’t treated our street so it is really slick. I’m sure the main roads are better, but why chance it?

From time to time, there is a strong gust of wind that knocks chunks of ice off the trees. Quite noisy when they crash on the roof or deck.

We also feel much better being home, in case a branch or tree falls on our house!