Playing catch-up.

I need a haircut. I have split ends, but I don't think that's ever made me go get a cut. The issue now is that my hair is long enough that it's beginning to get on my nerves.


I thought Food Lion was supposed to be 24 hours, and I was counting on it being 24 hours last night when I suddenly got a crazy apple juice jones at Kelly's house around 11. I can't really explain that. We were watching The Big Bang theory, and Sheldon poured himself some juice, and suddenly I just had to have some. I knew the Wal-Mart near where I'm house sitting would close at midnight, and the one near my house was further out of the way than I wanted to drive, so I went to Food Lion. And it was closed. Luckily, Walgreens was still there for me, and only a little bit farther* up the road. They only had the small individual bottles, but that was okay. I got two of A.J. and one of apple cran raspberry, the existence of which I had never suspected. I haven't tried it yet. I'm a little worried about it.



This is only about a 50-50 chance right now, but Sara might be able to come with me to Festival International. I don't think it's possible for me to explain how awesome that would be.



This one I've been forgetting for a week: Layla wrote a book! She had an assignment for school to write a five-page book with a sentence and a drawing on each page--but she'd never written a sentence before. She and I started and she finished with her mom and grandmother. She sounded out and wrote (and illustrated, of course) "Princess Jasmine walked home. The prince went to meet her. She stopped to look at the birds. They met and lived happily ever after. Then they had a beautiful baby girl." The story is called "Anastasia's Life." In case you don't know or don't remember, Layla is just barely six.



I'll miss the stark drama of the bright moon and bare trees, but the full and lush branches of the summer months have their own magic. Right now it's easy to tell by looking up through the sharp silhouettes of the midnight trees which ones gauge seasons by daylight, and which by temperature. The tips of so many tree branches are swelling with new growth or buds or even flowers, but there are still a few holdouts standing dormant among the fallen petals, knowing that this freakishly warm weather isn't necessarily the equivalent of spring. They will wisely wait until the days have actually lengthened enough to justify using their stores of energy to put out leaf buds.

As much as I love the flowering trees, it seems a little odd to me that there are so many that are flowering right now. I would have thought that natural selection over the years would have at least shifted the balance in favor of those that wait for more daylight. Maybe this is because (sometimes) getting a head-start on the other trees gives the flowering trees enough of an advantage in terms of reproduction to keep the balance (apparently) in their favor. Or maybe there just isn't as much of a difference in survival rates as I feel like there should be.


























*No, I have not learned the difference between farther/further. I should, and I've considered it, but usually when I've looked for it I've found "it's complicated and nobody pays attention to that stuff anymore, so you shouldn't worry about it." I'm not sure whether I've ever actually seen the information laid out, but I guess if I have, I didn't spend enough energy to memorize it.

Two things.

First, I realized after posting that I put up the Neil Gaiman thing right after I wrote about how much I love the rain. So if you are interested in reading about rain being awesome, scroll down a whole bunch.


Secondly, why is the default time to do stuff always 10 am? Every time I ask someone "what time would be good for you?" they always respond with "10 am?" (Question mark belongs with their response, and not with the end of my sentence.)

I know that 10 am is reasonable, but I mean, 11 would be so much better...



Edit: Okay, so actually four things.

3: Today is not the birthday of Bilbo Baggins. That was actually September 22nd. I miss this every year because, I am pretty sure, I always realize that it's September 30th, and think that I have just barely avoided missing BB's birthday, which is (surely!) on 9/30. Isn't it? No. It is not. It is 9/22.

4. I have just run out of Peanut Butter Crunch, and I am terribly upset.