Eponymously Yours, W. Skeffington Higgins

The body found in the woods near us has been identified as Marilyn Bethell, the missing neighbor, but there's not much further news.

"We're very confident with the dental records we received from the Aurora Police Department," West said. "There's no doubt in our minds."

West said initial forensic investigation leads police to believe that Bethell was killed where she was found, although he would not say whether he believes she was killed by a bullet or a blow to the head.

"All we can say at this time is she died of head trauma," West said.

Monday morning, about three blocks from our house, this happened:

Marilyn Bethell of the 2500 block of Quail Court was not in her car when two armed men were involved in the crash, and as of press time, Aurora police believe the certified drug and alcohol counselor might have met with foul play. [...]
( Cars wrecking, airbags exploding, guns seen )

This morning, I saw eight Aurora Police cars and a "mobile command post" parked at the gazebo park on White Barn Road. A hundred people are searching the forest preserve adjacent to Bethell's house. TV news helicopters are scanning my neighborhood.

It's interesting that WMAQ provides on the Web not only a finished interview piece, but also raw helicopter video feed, just hours after they come in.

If I am to make any new entries, I need to resolve the drinking-water ban that's been dangling here for months.

On the Sunday after Valentine's Day, they finally told us we could quit boiling our drinking water, as the coliform had not appeared in tests for two days running.

No problem with Aurora's water in the months since then. Consultants are investigating the episode for the city. I gather the geese turned out to be blameless.

Day Six. Still boiling. Made coffee with water I boiled yesterday.

Apparently one test was positive for coliform Tuesday. Nothing Wednesday, so there's still hope that the requisite two consecutive days of clean tests might give us tapwater by Friday.

Newspapers are blaming goose droppings. Always hated the way the geese treated Fermilab's parking lots as their toilet. We get thousands of the creatures when they're migrating, and a lot of them seem to hang around permanently...

So many good things have happened to us lately that this is a minor annoyance. Real Soon Now I will have to write about some, to prove that I am not a chronic whiner.

Going-away party for GH was worth the trip last night. Haven't been to Virtual Saturday since last fall. Cake from Deerfield's, the killer bakery in Buffalo Grove. It was covered with frosting balloons, which of course started That Song going in my head again.

Home again. Channel 10 says we're still boiling.

After the whirl of two cons in two weekends followed by the Adler talk, it was nice to spend a weekend at home with K. working on house stuff.

A neighbor called us to let us know that city authorities were telling everyone to boil the water. Checked the Web site: "total coliform" tests are too high, and they don't think there's much hazard, but until they find the source we're to boil all water for drinking, brushing teeth, making ice cubes, etc. Washing seems to be okay.

Later, I got a phone call from a city robot that gave the same message.
And the municipal channel on cable TV carries it as well.

We were told there would be an update Saturday afternoon; the update said "keep boiling till mid-week."

So boiling a few quarts of water has been added to my daily chores.
Might make sense to go get some bottled water, which we never use.