some things i've been meaning to write about and a surprise visitor

There is a lady bug in my house. It just flew onto my computer screen. It is December. And I know I shouldn't harbor bugs indoors in the winter, but I don't want to kill it; I'm glad that it's here.

I seriously thought about picking up a chap-stick I saw laying on the sidewalk yesterday, cutting off the used part that had been on someone else's lips, and keeping it. How gross is that? (For the record, I left it on the ground. No promises about next time though.)

Last week Meijer started playing Christmas music, and while I was walking down the dairy aisle, a song from the Hanson Christmas album starting playing, and I knew all the words. I didn't sing along, but I must have looked a little weird as I couldn't stop grinning, and if I were a stranger looking at me, I would wonder what this girl found so funny about cottage cheese.

Now the lady bug is crawling through Daisy's fur. Daisy wants it to get off. It's by the base of her tail, so she can't reach it but keeps turning in circles trying to see what's tickling her anyway. The ladybug only has two spots on its back; I think it's one of those faux lady bugs like the kind that were swarming all over Markley in the fall of 2001. This makes me a little friendlier toward the thought of killing it eventually. It just crawled under the printer. Perhaps it heard that (because don't we all talk along to ourselves as we type, like Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan do during every IM conversation of You've Got Mail?).

And speaking of Meijer, while I was checking out in the express lane (that same day, after the Hanson song was over) I couldn't help looking at the items of the man in front of me. I was in an express lane, but not the U-Scan; I don't use that one when I buy produce. Anyway, the man in front of me was buying these things: one XL frozen 'supreme toppings' pizza, a gallon of Gilby's vodka (I thought they only made gin...huh), a gallon of OceanSpray pink grapefruit juice, a pack of cigarettes. I imaged the night he was about to have, and felt a little sad about it. My basket, by the way, was probably just as depressing as his but in an antithetical kind of way; I was getting apples, peanut butter, and milk. While he was going home to eat like a hard-worn construction worker - as his attire suggested - I was going to eat like a 5-year-old. Fantastic.

I'm only here writing this because I don't want to study for my final.

Maybe the lady bug will drive to Allendale and take it for me next Tuesday...if Daisy hasn't eaten it before then (the lady bug, that is, not my final).