To breathe again

I couldn't be more excited for Maryland to go entirely smoke-free this Friday, February 1. I also couldn't be more conflicted.

For, you see, as much as I absolutely hate smoking, I also hate the thought of the Maryland General Assembly stepping in and mandating what legal activities its citizens can and cannot do.

I've been putting off writing about this because this is such a difficult issue for me to reconcile. My libertarian leanings tell me to be outraged at this invasion into people's personal choices and the rights of business owners to respond to what the public wants.

But, at the same time, I've always put smokers right up there with drunk drivers, child molesters, and people who end sentences in a preposition. Are these really people I want to protect?

I come by this hatred naturally. For as long as I can remember, my grandmother made me promise that I would never smoke even a single cigarette because cigarettes killed her father. Yes, she used the word killed. And because of that warning, I've never so much as touched a cigarette.

The other side of the family shouldn't be left out. One of my favorite stories from my Aunt Judy, my dad's younger sister, is when she visited my parents soon after they were married. My dad was in the kitchen washing dishes and she lit up a cigarette just to see what his reaction would be. Within a split second, he turned the faucet sprayer on her and hosed her down. So yeah, we're not exactly pro-smoking in my family.

The matter is further muddied because of my passionate support for the American Cancer Society, a group that championed the ban. I feel the need to celebrate my ability to enter bars across the state without choking and reeking of smoke for hours after I leave. But I will only do so with a feeling of ambivalence.

What will you be doing this Friday as Maryland goes smoke-free? Regardless of your carcinogenic leanings, I hope you will consider dining out at one of the restaurants below that will be donating a portion of its proceeds to the American Cancer Society to mark this important milestone.

Restaurants participating in Dine Out for Relay For Life:

Bayou Blues Cafe at the Avenue at White Marsh (15% of sales, 4-6 p.m.)
Pizzeria Unos at Harbor Place (20% of sales all day.)
Greene Turtles across the state (10% of their sales from 11a.m.-2 p.m.; The Fells Point and North Ocean City locations will be donating 10% of their sales all day.)

Just my luck

Usually when the phone rings before 7 a.m. you're about to get bad news. The opposite happened to me today.

It was my dad calling to tell me that one of my mother's co-workers had called him to tell him she saw my name in the Baltimore Sun and I'd won a trip.

I enter so many contests that I didn't even know which one this could be. I thought it was for a trip to Florida, perhaps Tampa Bay.

As it turns out, I won free airfare for two and two nights in Orlando, home of Disney and all that it entails.

Here's the funny part. Our accomodations are at the Nickelodeon Family Suites. Only I would win a trip to a child-themed resort. Me, the girl who needs sedation to be within 50 feet of an anklebiter, will be lounging by the urine-flooded pools at a hotel that caters to snot-nosed tax-deductions.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm very excited to have won and I'm certainly not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I count my blessings for being so lucky to win as many contests as I do. And secretly, I do have to admit I'm pretty psyched at the thought of a Sponge Bob-themed suite.

I've never done the Disney thing before so here's the question. We'll have one full and maybe one half day to see what Disney has to offer. Where do we go and what do we do?

My find of the week

Every once in a while I come across a website that's so cool that I absolutely must share it. FillerItem.com is one of them.

Do you ever go to buy something on Amazon and find that you need to add another dollar or five to qualify for free shipping? Filleritem.com solves that problem for you.

Just enter in the amount you need to reach the $25 mark for Super Saver Shipping and select which categories you want to search. It'll pull up a whole list of options for you.

I needed another $1.15 to get free shipping and FillerItem.com found me a four-pack of AA batteries for just $1.29. Had I found this website yesterday, I would have saved myself at least an hour of searching.

Happy New Beeeeppppp

One of the things I've always loved about my cookie-cutter townhouse is the way the vaulted ceilings in the master suite soar upwards as the sunlight refracts across the angles.

I loved it until approximately 3:43 this morning as the overzealous smoke detector shocked me from my slumber once again. It's the smoke detector that cried wolf and somehow we have to find a way to reach it to turn it off.

In the almost four years that we've owned this house, we've been roused from bed in this manner no less than eight times. Being the safety-conscious folks we are, we still check for smoke even though we know we won't find it. Once we even called the fire department in the middle of the night so they could check out the whole house and alleviate our worry.

Once we're sure the coast is clear, we enter into the ritual that gets more annoying each time. With the alarm still screaming I grab the phone, awaiting the inevitable call from the alarm monitoring company. Rich grabs the Little Giant ladder.

Then, as we fight off the effects of our sleeping pills, we try to move our bedroom furniture, turn off the ceiling fan, and set up the heavy ladder. I stumble to the top to grab the piece of howling disc.

We've tried to fix it more than once. My dad replaced all of the smoke detectors in the house. We also replaced the batteries. Still, in the middle of the night -- and it's always in the middle of the night -- it goes off.

I think we have to move.