sleeping-awake.net

So this past Tuesday I turned 23. o_O

I only have one thing to say: YIKES!!

I didn’t always respond to my birthday like this. But, as the years went on, my reactions have changed.

Kid years: “Yay! Party! Presents!”
Teen years: “Cool, I’m now __teen!”
Twenties: “Noooo!”

Yeah. =/ I don’t exactly hate getting older - after all, there’s really nothing I can do about it. But I don’t like it, either. I feel that time is going by a little too quickly for me. I’m in no hurry to grow up.

Anyway, Tuesday was also Earth Day. Ironically, I generated more waste. Since it is er, customary at our workplace to treat everyone on one’s birthday, I brought “veggie happy meals” for my coworkers. The food was put in disposable starchware containers, which are more environment friendly, but still, waste is waste. (To my coworkers: Not that I’m saying I shouldn’t have treated you! Haha.)

Of course, I can’t be talking about all this food without posting some pictures. My mom did all the cooking by the way, because I’m a slow one and I had to get ready for work.

Mock chicken in the foreground. Vegetarian meatballs in the background.

Marble taters! They weren’t cooked in this picture yet.

Mock chicken and vegetarian meatballs again, with vegetarian sausages.

That’s all, folks! This old lady is going to bed. Haha.

Last Thursday night, we had a strange green visitor. No, not an alien. A katydid. It had perched on the window screen outside the kitchen sink. My mom spotted it and called me over to take a look at it. It was pretty cool - we had never seen a katydid in real life before. I’m pretty sure it ended up at our house because of the rain - the rain always seems to bring insects out of their hiding places.

Anyway, since we had some things lying outside that window, my mom was thinking of getting rid of the katydid - permanently. I told her that we should just leave it alone. Then she gave me a look, the same as the one she gave me a few years back when she told me I was taking animal rights too seriously. But she didn’t do anything to the katydid, and the next morning, it had gone away.

Or so we thought. The next night, as I was slicing some bananas, I looked up and saw the katydid staring back down at me from the ceiling. This time I freaked out a bit. Insects are just not my thing. And now that it’s inside the house, well, that means I’m going to have to take it outside. Oh by the way, of course I can’t be sure if it’s the same katydid, but it looked the same, though it seemed a little bigger. Heh.

So I called my brother to grab a stool and plastic bag while I put the bananas away to a safer place. My brother saw the katydid and freaked out, too. Then I got on the stool, plastic bag over my hand. I just looked at the katydid for several moments, trying to figure out how to do things. I didn’t want to be too rough - then I might squish it, but I didn’t want to be to gentle as it might get away.

Then I reached out - and the katydid flew off! I pretty much panicked. But then I saw that it had landed on the window screen. I quickly grabbed a small plastic tub and put it over the katydid, while asking my brother to get a piece of cardboard. Then I scooped the katydid up with the cardboard (while still holding the tub over it), ran outside, and set it free.

HOT.