Perforation Problems

The picture-a-day thing is starting to become a bit tedious. It's fine on days when I do something interesting -- then it's easy to take a picture of something I don't mind talking about on here. But on the days that are ordinary, it inevitably comes down to "Do I 1) take a picture of my desk? 2) take a picture of Michael? or 3) take a picture of Clyde?" I did take a picture of Michael tonight, but as you've seen pictures of Michael recently, I decided to change things up for you. Now BEHOLD: A fuzzy picture of my ceiling fan.  I was tired, okay? It was hard to get up from the couch. The ceiling fan was right there. 

"I cried. Not because of any particular sad moment, but because sometimes the shape a story makes is like a key turning inside me and I cannot do anything but weep." From here .

This morning I drove 2/3 of the way to work with this guy on my windshield. My initial feelings were "Ew, gross." Why didn't I destroy him with the windshield wipers? I don't know. Maybe I was worried it would smear spider guts all over the place. Maybe I just don't like squishing things. Maybe I started having crazy thoughts like, "Do spiders feel fear? How would we know? Can you analyze a spider brain for that? Do spiders shake in trepidation?"  This is the same part of me that in kindergarten worried that my pencil had feelings and didn't like being sharpened all the time. I blame Disney and animated movies.  As the wind rushed past him, he curled his little legs in tight to his body to protect himself. At stoplights, he would slowly unwind and step towards one direction, then scamper back in the other, confused. I cheered him on: "Come on, Spider! Get to cover under the windshield wiper before the wind comes again!" Nope....

I stopped at Kroger on the way home today. I was trying to find my coupon for tortilla chips when a voice comes over the loud speaker: "ATTENTION KROGER SHOPPERS. WE ARE RUNNING A SPECIAL EXCLUSIVE ONLY FOR THOSE PEOPLE IN THE STORE RIGHT THIS MOMENT. IN TWO MINUTES, WE WILL BE GIVING AWAY A SPECIAL GIFT AT THE END OF AISLE TWELVE NEAR THE SELF-CHECKOUT. AGAIN, THIS IS A FREE GIFT JUST FOR PEOPLE IN THE STORE. YOU ARE VERY LUCKY. HEAD TO AISLE TWELVE." After a minor inner battle in which my brain told me that it was probably a crappy gift and it wasn't worth having to listen to whatever sales pitch they were going to give, and after surreptitiously eying aisle twelve from around the Doritos stand, I gave him and went to get my free gift. Cheese knife! Not the worst of special free gifts. I did have to listen to a five minute spiel on some magic heating pad thing, though. Was it worth it? Would I do it again? I honestly don't know. Probably.

I found this helicopter trying to grow into a tree in my strawberry planter. He was uprooted and evicted, but I'd never actually seen a helicopter "sprout" and thought it was interesting...

I snapped (can you still say "snapped" when it's a cell phone camera?) a picture of the campground sign just as we were leaving, in the 30 seconds I had while Michael was waiting to turn. The campground itself was nice, and the people running it seemed great, but this "Camp Revival" part of the sign, coupled with the cross at the entrance, made me feel a little bit like I was walking into a horror movie. This stuff seems leftover from the previous owners. Don't worry, all is well, and I don't think any of us left possessed by anything.

When Michael and Brandon decided they wanted to take Trail 8 up and over the tops of the three largest dunes in the state park, my first reaction was "hell no." "But Haley," my newfound calves of steel said. "We've done all that running. Don't you feel you can handle things like this now?" "I could do it, Calves of Steel, but would it be fun? It sounds like it would suck." "But the views!" "But the exertion headaches." "The sense of accomplishment!" "The sense that you just want to die where you stand." "The fresh air!" "The red hot oven face." "Don't you want to feel you've stretched the limits of your body and achieved athletic greatness?" "No." Somehow I ended up doing it anyway. I think I didn't want to 1) miss out 2) look like a wimp. And the truth is, I did handle it much, much better than I would have two years ago. It ...