About a month ago, my mother, who is eternally optimistic that one day I'll be able to keep plants for an extended period of time without killing them, gave me a little potted plant with pink flowers. I think she said it was an azalea.
I took it to work with me, and it sat somewhat happily on my windowsill, and the plant and I maintained a cordial sort of relationship. I'd forget about it for a while, and it would start to droop a little bit, so I'd dump in some water from my water bottle, or the leftover ice from my diet coke, and it would perk right up again.
It seemed happy, and I was happy that it wasn't just up and dying.
Yesterday, here in Seattle, the weather was nice and springlike, as befitted the second day of spring. So when I got into work, I opened my window up, to let the nice fresh spring air in.
I was doing this and that, and walking back and forth from my desk, when suddenly, disaster struck.
It might have been a horrible accident, or an act of jealously by the vase of bamboo, or maybe, too distraught by too many ice cubes, it was a suicide. I'm not sure exactly. I don't remember feeling anything as I walked back to my desk, passing between the edge of my desk and the windowsill on the way to my chair.
What I do know is that I heard something that made me turn, and when I looked, there was no sign of my little pink potted plant. I stuck my head out the window, and looked down onto the 10th floor roof, and sure enough, there it was. It was horrible; it had spilled out of the pot and was strewn all over the rooftop.
Poor little pink plant.
I was driving home from Bellingham yesterday, and was somewhere between Mt. Vernon and Everett, in the 70 mph zone, when a little red sports car with Canadian plates just zoomed by me. I was driving a sedate 75 mph, and I could barely see this car go by. I watched him as he whipped in and out between cars, and was sad that he could go so fast and apparently not get caught, while I always tried so hard to stay within limits where I probably wouldn't get pulled over. I want to go fast, too!
I could see quite a ways up the road, and I watched him for a little while, as he got stuck behind a bunch of cars all going the same speed, then I forgot about him.
A few minutes later, just ahead of me, a police car entered the freeway with his lights flashing. I slowed down to exactly 70 and watched to see what he was going to do. He moved between cars, and I remembered the little red sports car. I really hoped that that was who he was after.
A minute later, I passed the police car, pulled over on the left side of the road with his unfortunate victim. I was most pleased when I saw that it was, indeed, the car that had been zooming between traffic. That was definitely the highlight of my drive. It's so rare when you see someone driving very poorly and then actually get in trouble for it.
Today I decided to rearrange my bedroom. Rearranging my bedroom is sort of an optimistic term for it, as there's not that much that can be moved. Unfortunately, moving my bed even a few inches requires herculean effort. Of course, I had to move my bed. At one point, I was lying on my back on my bedroom floor, with a drumstick in one hand, attempting to prop up my bed enough to maneuver the wheeled castor into the bedframe and the bed lifts underneath the castor. The drumstick didn't work well as a propping device, and eventually I used the riser from my exercise step, and got everything put back together. I even completed this task with all my fingers still attached to my hands.
I also almost dropped a crystal bowl full of rocks on my head. I was moving a bookshelf, and had taken all the books out, then tipped it down to drag it across the room. I heard a big crash, and instantly realized what had happened. I was freaked out at first, because the bowl had rocks that Grandma Thompson had polished, and I really didn't want anything to happen to them, but I was unconcerned about the bowl. After about a second, I realized that it was really not necessary to worry about anything happening to the rocks! Somehow, the bowl survived the fall too, along with the cats and my head.
After I moved my bed, I realized that now my entertainment center was not centered anymore, so that will have to be my next project. It's hard to move, and I am sort of out of moving furniture energy for the day, so it might have to wait until next time.
Yesterday I was a little late getting home, so I stopped and got burritos from the taco place for dinner. Usually when this happens, the girls scarf their burritos down, because they're very hungry.
I had to go log into work, so I was in my room on my laptop, and after a bit, I went out to check on their dinner progress. To my surprise, they were barely halfway done with their burritos, so I got a little bit suspicious.
When they'd gotten home from school, they called and asked if they could open a box of girl scout cookies, which we have in abundance. I said sure, and they each wanted a different kind, so I okayed that too.
This all came back to me as I looked at them at the table, showing only the vaguest sort of interest in their dinners. "How many of the girl scout cookies did you eat?" I asked.
The answer, as it turned out, was quite a lot. If I let them have cookies after school today, I'm going to be much more explicit in how many cookies, exactly, they'll be allowed to have.
I spent most of the day on Saturday, roaming around and taking pictures on Whidbey Island. The results are here.