First, Chicago magazine wrote up Funny Ha-Ha in its current issue, which is very gratifying. I have secretly always wanted to be IN Chicago Magazine (although writing for it has certainly also been nice.) However, I had to laugh when, finally achieving this level of publicity, I noticed that the story got the dates of the show wrong. If you happened to see the piece, please note that the shows are not every third Monday, but are in fact rather sporadic, but tend to take place on Fridays. Like THIS Friday! (The Magazine has thankfully re-posted about the show, with the right date/time, on its site.)

Secondly, and more earth-shatteringly, in this month's issue of Real Simple, I learned that the most environmentally-friendly way to use a dishwasher is NOT to rinse dishes first before placing them in the washer (which we have always had to do, because I just assumed we had an old, crappy dishwasher.) Apparently, it is better to scrape the food off the plates, and when the washer is full, run a rinse-only cycle before running a regular cycle with detergent. It might not seem right at first, but apparently the rinse-only cycle only uses a gallon or two of water, whereas a faucet releases more than that in a minute.

THIS HAS CHANGED MY LIFE. It works! Just last night I placed a tomato-saucey, cheesy plate in the dishwasher and ran it accordingly and it emerged pristine. I am very upset that I only just learned this now, when we're about to leave our house. I have wasted so much time (and water) with the old, rinsey method. I urge you to try it and feel amazed and renewed as I have.